Different Accounts of the Birth of Hayy Ibn Yokdhan
Our good Forbears—may God be gracious unto them—report: there is an Island amongst the Indian Islands (in the Indian Ocean), situated under the Equinoctial, where men spring into being without father or mother. There is also planted a tree that produces women, and they are those whom al-Masʿudi calleth the Wakwak Damsels.
The Island is so blessed with the influence of light and sun as to be the most temperate and perfect of places; an opinion, however, that does not agree with that of the greatest philosophers and most famous physicians, who hold that there is nothing more temperate in the world than the fourth climate. According to them Hayy Ibn Yokdhan belonged to the number of those that are born without father or mother. Others, however, relate the story in a different manner. They tell us: