The complete message

If we consider the title Ibn al-Nafis chose for his own treatment of this story, we will see that he contrasts Hayy ibn Yaqzan with the symbolic title Fadil ibn Natiq, as a reference to the virtue emanating from the human faculty that distinguishes humans from other animals: speech. While Ibn Sina relied on the attention of the human mind, Ibn al-Nafis emphasizes virtue in opposition to reason. Ibn al-Nafis then presents the story as narrated by a chain of transmission on the authority of a man named Kamil, a direct reference to the prophetic perfections. Therefore, Ibn al-Nafis gave the story a subtitle: "The Complete Epistle on the Prophetic Biography." If Ibn Sina's story is closely related to the position of the Brahmins who deny the prophecies, then Ibn al-Nafis's epistle is closely related to the general position of Islamic thought.