d. c. 1185

Arab physician and philosopher, widely regarded both for his medical work and for his novel Hayy ibn Yaqzan. The book's title is rendered in English as Walk On, and it presents Ibn Tufayl's mystical philosophy in a tale regarding a hermit who achieves enlightenment while living alone on a secluded island. The protagonist eventually comes to understand that the world is divided between a very few who understand spiritual truths through their unaided reason, a larger group who apprehend truth through spiritual symbols, and the great mass who simply accept the laws that emanate from those symbols.