Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Malik b. Muḥammad Ibn Ṭufayl al-Qaysī (d. 581/1185) was a courtier, philosopher, royal physician, and Ṣūfī during the Almohad regime in the Maghrib. A close friend and confidante to the second Almohad caliph, Abū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf (r. 558-80/1163-84), Ibn Ṭufayl advocated the pursuit of Greek sciences. Ibn Ṭufayl's only surviving philosophical treatise, the novelistic and evocative Ḥayy b. Yaqẓān ("Alive, son of Awake") should be viewed against this background. Through recounting the worldly, intellectual, and religious pursuits of