Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi

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For the 20th-century Egyptian politician, see Abdel Latif Boghdadi (politician).
Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi
عبداللطيف البغدادي
Born
Muhammad ibn Yusuf

c. 1162
Islamic golden age
(Later Abbasid era
)
Known for
ParentYusuf al-Baghdadi

ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī (

physician, philosopher, historian, Arabic grammarian and traveller, and one of the most voluminous writers of his time.[1]

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

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 (according to al-Latif) turned him away from Avicenna and alchemy.[2]

In 1192 he met Saladin in

Kamakh, Divriği and Malatya. He died in Baghdad two years later.[2]

Account of Egypt

ʿAbd al-Laṭīf was a man of great knowledge and of an inquisitive and penetrating mind. Of the numerous works (mostly on medicine) which Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿah ascribes to him, one only, his graphic and detailed Account of Egypt (in two parts), appeared to be known in Europe.[3]

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.[4][5]

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:[6]

  • "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

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.[7]

Egyptology

Further information: Human cannibalism § Whole-body roasting and baking

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.[3][8] He also wrote detailed descriptions on ancient Egyptian monuments.[9]

Autopsy

Al-Baghdādī wrote that during the famine in Egypt in 597 AH (1200 AD), 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 [mandible], coccyx and sacrum.[10]

Translation

Al-Baghdādī's Arabic manuscript was discovered in 1665 by the English

Silvestre de Sacy in 1810.[13][14]

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 (Endress, in Martini Bonadeo, Philosophical journey, xi). ʿAbd al-Laṭīf composed several philosophical works, among which is an important and original commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics (Kitāb fī ʿilm mā baʿd al-ṭabīʿa). 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 (d. circa 185-252/801-66) and al-Fārābī (d. 339/950). The philosophical section of his Book of the Two Pieces of Advice (Kitāb al-Naṣīḥatayn) 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 (Martini Bonadeo, Philosophical journey; Gutas). ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī may therefore well be an exponent of what Gutas calls the “golden age of Arabic philosophy” (Gutas, 20).

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 (Joosse, Rebellious intellectual, 29–62; Joosse, Unmasking the craft, 301–17; Martini Bonadeo, Philosophical journey, 5-6 and 203–5; Stern, 66–7; Allemann).

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 (Joosse, Geest, 221–9). The Bodleian Library (MS Pococke 230) and the interpretation of the Videans (Zand-Videan, 8–9) 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.

References

  1. ISBN 0-550-18022-2
    , page 3
  2. ^ a b Leaman 2015, p. 44; Meri 2005, p. 2.
  3. ^ a b c  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Abdallatif". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 30–31.
  4. ISBN 978-1-78023-774-9
    .
  5. ISBN 978-1-84472-063-7
    .
  6. ^ El Daly 2004, p. 10.
  7. ^ El Daly 2004, p. 36.
  8. ISBN 978-0-8128-1756-0
    .
  9. ^ El Daly 2004.
  10. ^ Savage-Smith 1996, p. 951.
  11. ^ Toomer 1996, p. 272-273.
  12. ^ al-Baghdādī, M.D.A.L.; Hyde, T.; Pococke, E.; White, J.; Oxford University Press (1800). Abdollatiphi Historiæ Ægypti compendium,: Arabice et Latine. Abdollatiphi Historiæ Ægypti compendium,: Arabice et Latine. Typis academicis, impensis editoris; prostat venalis apud J. Cooke, Hanwell et Parker, Oxonii; J. White, Fleet Street; D. Bremner, Strand; et R. Faulder, Bond Street, Londini.
  13. ^ Toomer 1996, p. 275.
  14. ^ al-Baghdd, M.D.A.L.; de Sacy, A.I.S. (1810). Relation de l'Égypte (in French). Imprimerie impériale, chez Dreuttel et Würtz.

Bibliography

External links

Media related to Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi at Wikimedia Commons

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