Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi (medieval writer)

Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, short for Muwaffaq al-Din Muhammad Abd al-Latif ibn Yusuf al-Baghdadi (Arabic: موفق الدين محمد عبد اللطيف بن يوسف البغدادي‎‎; 1162–1231), or Abdallatif al-Baghdadi (Arabic: عبداللطيف البغدادي‎‎), born in Baghdad, Abbasid Caliphate (modern Iraq), was a physician, historian, Egyptologist and traveler, and one of the most voluminous writers of the Near East in his time.

Many details of Abd al-Latif's life are known from his autobiography. 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 for a while in Mosul (in 1189) where he studied the works of al-Suhrawardi before travelling on to Damascus (1190) and the camp of Saladin outside Acre (1191). It was at the latter 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 (according to al-Latif) turned him away from Avicenna and alchemy.

He met Saladin himself in 1192 at Jerusalem, then went to Damascus again before returning to Cairo. In later years he again journeyed to Jerusalem and to Damascus in 1207-8, and eventually made his way via Aleppo to Erzindjan, where he remained at the court of Ala’-al-Din Da’ud until the city was conquered by the Seljuk ruler Kayqubadh. ‘Abd al-Latif returned to Baghdad in 1229, travelling back via Erzerum, Kamakh, Diwrigi and Malatiya. He died in Baghdad two years later.

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