The title character of Hayyi ibn Yaqzan (Alive, the Son of Awake), by Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Tufayl (died 1185), is a man who grew up on an island far from human contact and without social or religious influences. He achieves enlightenment through reflection, experiment, and intensive study of his surroundings:

Our forefathers, of blessed memory, tell of a certain equatorial island, lying off the coast of India, where human beings come into being without father or mother. This is possible, they say, because of all places, on earth, that island has the most tempered climate. And because a supernatural light streams down on it, it is the most perfectly adapted to accept the human form. . . .

. . . the newborn infant got hungrier and hungrier and began to cry, whereupon the doe with the lost fawn responded. . . . the doe that cared for him was...