Theologus Autodidactus
novel by Ibn al-Nafis
Theologus Autodidactus (English: "The Self-taught Theologian") is an Arabic novel written by Ibn al-Nafis, originally titled The Treatise of Kāmil on the Prophet's Biography (Arabic: الرسالة الكاملية في السيرة النبوية), and also known as Risālat Fādil ibn Nātiq ("The Book of Fādil ibn Nātiq"). It was written sometime between 1268 and 1277 and is considered one of the earliest examples of a novel in Arabic literature. The novel contains elements of science fiction and is an early example of a coming-of-age tale and a desert island story. It was partly a response to the philosophical novel Hayy ibn Yaqdhan by Andalusi writer Ibn Tufayl.
Plot
The protagonist of the story is Kamil, an autodidactic adolescent feral child who is spontaneously generated in a cave and living in seclusion on a desert island. He eventually comes into contact with the outside world after the arrival of castaways who are shipwrecked and stranded on the island, and later take him back to the civilized world with them. The plot gradually develops into a coming-of-age story and then incorporates science fiction elements when it reaches its climax with a catastrophic doomsday apocalypse.
Themes
Ibn al-Nafis uses the plot to express many of his own religious, philosophical and scientific themes on a wide variety of subjects, including biology, cosmology, empiricism, epistemology, experimentation, futurology, geology, Islamic eschatology, natural philosophy, the philosophy of history and sociology, the philosophy of religion, physiology, psychology, and teleology. Ibn al-Nafis was thus an early pioneer of the philosophical novel. Through the story of Kamil, Ibn al-Nafis attempted to establish that the human mind is capable of deducing the natural, philosophical and religious truths of the universe through reasoning and logical thinking.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Theologus Autodidactus” is novel by Ibn al-Nafis. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Theologus, Autodidactus and novel, not as a finished interpretation.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7201012. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1268 and 1277.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Theologus Autodidactus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.