‘Kill Your Wife’: A Feministic Reading of Philosophical Treatises of Hayy ibn Yaqzan and The Story of Western Exile

In this article, through three feministic questions, I have tried to study three allegorical-philosophical treatises in the wise tradition of Muslims: The Avicenna’s Treatise of Hayy ibn Yaqzan and two other treatises which have been directly influenced by it, i.e. Suhrawardi’s The Story of Western Exile and Ibn Tufail’s Hayy ibn Yaqzan, written to describe the ‘eastern philosophy’. The treatises, whose purpose is illustrating the path to happiness, have been in contrast with three feministic philosophical problems: the sexuality of parables, the relation between the soul and the body, and the relation between self and the other. In all three treatises, there are obvious or hidden signs of women inferiority and subordination. In all three treatises, the body is considered inferior, and the ideal connection among the components of the soul is when the rational component dominates other elements. In all three treatises, otherness is an obstacle in the path to happiness. Finally, I came to the conclusion that the path to happiness in these treatises is a rational, mature, male, rebellious, and self-taught, and happiness would be achieved only when human be deprived of all his/her human qualities.