Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi


ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī, short for Muwaffaq al-Dīn Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Laṭīf ibn Yūsuf al-Baghdādī, was a physician, philosopher, historian, Arabic grammarian and traveller, and one of the most voluminous writers of his time.

Biography

Many details of ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī's life are known from his autobiography as presented in Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿah's literary history of medicine. As a young man, he studied grammar, law, tradition, medicine, alchemy and philosophy. He focused his studies on ancient authors, in particular Aristotle, after first adopting Avicenna as his philosophical mentor at the suggestion of a wandering scholar from the Maghreb. He travelled extensively and resided in Mosul where he studied the works of al-Suhrawardi before travelling on to Damascus and the camp of Saladin outside Acre. It was at this last location that he met Baha al-Din ibn Shaddad and Imad al-Din al-Isfahani and acquired the Qadi al-Fadil's patronage. He went on to Cairo, where he met Abu'l-Qasim al-Shari'i, who introduced him to the works of al-Farabi, Alexander of Aphrodisias, and Themistius and turned him away from Avicenna and alchemy.
In 1192 he met Saladin in Jerusalem and enjoyed his patronage, then went to Damascus again before returning to Cairo. He journeyed to Jerusalem and to Damascus in 1207–1208, and eventually made his way via Aleppo to Erzindjan, where he remained at the court of the Mengujekid Ala’-al-Din Da’ud until the city was conquered by the Rūm Seljuk ruler Kayqubād II. ‘Abd al-Latif returned to Baghdad in 1229, travelling back via Erzerum, Kamakh, Divriği and Malatya. He died in Baghdad two years later.

''Account of Egypt''

ʿAbd al-Laṭīf was a man of great knowledge and of an inquisitive and penetrating mind. Of the numerous works which Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿah ascribes to him, one only, his graphic and detailed Account of Egypt, appeared to be known in Europe.
In addition to measuring the structure, alongside the other pyramids at Giza, al-Baghdadi also writes that the structures were surely tombs, although he thought the Great Pyramid was used for the burial of Agathodaimon or Hermes. Al-Baghdadi ponders whether the pyramid pre-dated the Great flood as described in Genesis, and even briefly entertained the idea that it was a pre-Adamic construction.

Archeology

ʿAbd al-Laṭīf was well aware of the value of ancient monuments. He praised some Muslim rulers for preserving and protecting pre-Islamic artefacts and monuments, but he also criticized others for failing to do so. He noted that the preservation of antiquities presented a number of benefits for Muslims:
  • "monuments are useful historical evidence for chronologies";
  • "they furnish evidence for Holy Scriptures, since the Qur'an mentions them and their people";
  • "they are reminders of human endurance and fate";
  • "they show, to a degree, the politics and history of ancestors, the richness of their sciences, and the genius of their thought".
While discussing the profession of treasure hunting, he notes that poorer treasure hunters were often sponsored by rich businessmen to go on archeological expeditions. In some cases, an expedition could turn out to be fraudulent, with the treasure hunter disappearing with large amounts of money extracted from sponsors.

Egyptology

His manuscript was one of the earliest works on Egyptology. It contains a vivid description of a famine which occurred during the author's residence in Egypt. The famine was caused by the Nile failing to overflow its banks and according to ‘Abd al-Latif's detailed account, the food situation became so dire that many people turned to cannibalism. He also wrote detailed descriptions on ancient Egyptian monuments.

Autopsy

Al-Baghdādī wrote that during the famine in Egypt in 597 AH, he had the opportunity to observe and examine a large number of skeletons, through which he came to the view that Galen was incorrect regarding the formation of the bones of the lower jaw, coccyx and sacrum.

Translation

Al-Baghdādī's Arabic manuscript was discovered in 1665 by the English orientalist Edward Pococke and is preserved in the Bodleian Library. Pococke published the Arabic manuscript in the 1680s. His son, Edward Pococke the Younger, translated the work into Latin, although he was only able to publish less than half of his work. Thomas Hunt attempted to publish Pococke's complete translation in 1746, although his attempt was unsuccessful. Pococke's complete Latin translation was eventually published by Joseph White of Oxford in 1800. The work was then translated into French, with valuable notes, by Silvestre de Sacy in 1810.

Philosophy

As far as philosophy is concerned, one may adduce that ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī regarded philosophers as paragons of real virtue and therefore he refused to accept as a true philosopher one lacking not only true insight, but also a truly moral personality as true philosophy was in the service of religion, verifying both belief and action. Apart from this he regarded the philosophers’ ambitions as vain. ʿAbd al-Laṭīf composed several philosophical works, among which is an important and original commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics. This is a critical work in the process of the Arabic assimilation of Greek thought, demonstrating its author's acquaintance with the most important Greek metaphysical doctrines, as set out in the writings of al-Kindī and al-Fārābī. The philosophical section of his Book of the Two Pieces of Advice contains an interesting and challenging defence of philosophy and illustrates the vibrancy of philosophical debate in the Islamic colleges. It moreover emphasises the idea that Islamic philosophy did not decline after the twelfth century CE. ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī may therefore well be an exponent of what Gutas calls the “golden age of Arabic philosophy”.

Alchemy

ʿAbd al-Laṭīf also penned two passionate and somewhat grotesque pamphlets against the art of alchemy in all its facets. Although he engaged in alchemy for a short while, he later abandoned the art completely by rejecting not only its practice, but also its theory. In ʿAbd al-Laṭīf's view alchemy could not be placed in the system of the sciences, and its false presumptions and pretensions must be distinguished from true scientific knowledge, which can be given a rational basis.

Spiritualism

During the years following the First World War, ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī's name reappeared within the spiritualistic movement in the United Kingdom. He was introduced to the public by the Irish medium Eileen J. Garrett, the author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the spiritualist R.H. Saunders and became known by the name Abduhl Latif, the great Arab physician. He is said to have acted as a control of mediums until the mid-1960s. The Bodleian Library and the interpretation of the Videans may also have prompted the whimsical short-story ‘Ghost Writer’, as told to Tim Mackintosh-Smith, in which ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī speaks in the first person.