I want to talk about a novel i read today. This novel is the first philosophical novel that has been ever known. It´s name is Hay Bin Yakzan. It was written by Ibn Tufeyl who was a very famous Arabic scholar of his time in 12. century. The theme of the novel is knowing effort of a man (who was grown up by a gazelle in a desolate island) himself and other creatures by observing environment,recognizing the difference of himself than other creatures, discovering the reason of this difference (because he has a different self) and at the end understanding the existence of a creator who created him and other creatures.
The perfect life of Hay Bin Yakzan (who perfected his understanding by mystic experiences) was disturbed by coming of a person named Absal to the island. Absal was a person who was sick of other people´s ignorance and for this reason he came to this neighbor island for meditation. He taught Hay Bin Yakzan how to talk and he benefited from Yakzan´s knowledge about God.Hay bin Yakzan wanted to share his knowledge with other people and convinced Absal to return to neighbor island together. At first he drew attention of people, they gathered around him to listen. But the teachings that Yakzan teaching were very different what they had known until that day.In time they started to get angry to Yakzan. He was also aware of this situation. He witnessed the ignorance of people and their unwillingness of listening and learning new things. At the end he returned to desolate island with Absal and they lived their life by meditating.
Now the situation is also same. It was like this before and maybe it will in the future.When we look at the history, we see lots of people who were killed by other people because of telling new or different things.Socrates, Jesus, Giordino Bruno are only a few of them. Also many people faced with death risk;for example Aristoteles, Mohammed, Galileo.
What is the reason of this intolerance? Why do most of people prefer to silence instead of listening? Can this behavior change in the future?
Edited (10/22/2010) by gokuyum
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