The Regime of the Solitary (Tadbir al-mutawahhid)

Introduction

An unfinished Arabic treatise; the word “tadbir” means governance or regime, here applied to a single person rather than a city. Ibn Bajja takes up al-Farabi’s distinction between virtuous and imperfect cities and asks what a philosopher should do where no virtuous city exists. Such individuals, called “weeds” (nawabit) after al-Farabi, must order their own lives by reason. Much of the text analyses human actions and the hierarchy of “spiritual forms”, from the images of the senses to purely intelligible forms. The work survives in few manuscripts; Miguel Asín Palacios edited it with a Spanish translation in 1946. Ibn Tufayl and Averroes knew and discussed it.

Connections

Builds on

• The Virtuous Cityc. 942 · al-Farabi

Taken up in

• Hayy ibn Yaqzanc. 1175 · Ibn Tufayl