Texts, translators, transmissions : "Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān" and its reception in Muslim, Judaic and Christian milieux

From its inception in the twelfth century to its current use as a text, Ibn Tufayl's Hayy ibn Yaqzan has a sustained history of translation and transmission. A unique aspect is its early translation into Hebrew around the first quarter of the fourteenth century, whose extensive manuscripts have been traced and established in this study. The Hebrew translation, and its commentary by Moses Narboni, shift the Tufaylian narrative from the Maghribi milieu toward Latin Averroism. They allow us to examine the particular reception in the Judaic milieu and suggest new perceptions of Ibn Rushd and Ibn Tufayl as rational mystics.The extensive printed translations in Europe that begin with the Latin Philosophus Autodidactus (1671) reflect different facets on Individuality, the Natural Man and Inner Revelation as accessible to and sought by the natural theologies of the 17th-18th centuries. The concurrent translations also reflect the differences in their reception by the translators. Through the process of transmission, the notion of self-sufficiency becomes epitomized in the paradigm of "Robinson Crusoe."In its own milieu, the narrative is conceived as an answer to Ibn Sina's 'secret of eastern philosophy' and is expressed as a rational-mystic response from the Maghribi context. The narrative finds its anti-thesis in Ibn al-Nafis' reiteration, that applies the structure and content of the Tufaylian narrative to reverse its philosophical precepts and establish a normative frame of revelation. Its recent reclamation in modern Arabic literature as the proto-type of Robinson Crusoe is indicative of post-Colonial validation.The different receptions of the narrative within each of the three milieux have inspired the application of new methodologies in literary criticism. Using the literary theories of reception and cultural paradigm in Hans Jauss and Edward Said, I further discuss the process of translation, transmission and reception of the narrative. Each milieu in a particular time-frame receives the text within certain sets of expectation and accordingly responds to it. This approach raises vital questions on both structural analyses that study an aesthetic work outside its history, and historical analyses that focus on the "unchanged loyalty" of its sources. The methodology developed in this study can be applied to central issues in Islamic thought, from the predilection toward its Greek sources to its dismissal of Averroism. It also allows for the appreciation of the integrai notion of rational mysticism. The notion of reception validates, resolves and values the different reiterations by recognizing their diverse contexts