Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi (medieval writer)

Muwaffak ad-Din Abu Muhammad ibn Yusuf al - Abd al- Latif Baghdadi, Abd al- Latif al short - Baghdadi (Arabic عبد اللطيف البغدادي, DMG ʿ Abdu l - Latif al - Baghdadi, * 1163 in Baghdad, † 1231 ibid.) was an Arab traveler, polymath, historian and physician.

Life

He studied in his hometown of grammar, law and Arabic tradition. At 26, he traveled to Mosul from 1189 to 1190, and Damascus to Palestine, where he met Sultan Saladin, who also came from Mesopotamia. There he met several Persian and Arab scholars and know their knowledge, about which he wrote. He continued his journey to Jerusalem, where he spent some time and kept in touch with Saladin. A new journey through Damascus led him to Cairo, where he spent several years and small trips undertaken within Egypt. He saw and described the Great Sphinx of Giza still intact, albeit buried. He turned back to Jerusalen 1206 and 1208 to Damascus. From there he traveled to several years to Aleppo and thence to 1223 Erzincan ( Arzinjan, Erzindhan ) in Armenia at the headwaters of the Euphrates River in modern-day Turkey. There he stayed at the court of Mengücekherrschers Ala al -Din Da'udşah ( ' Ala ' al- Din Da'udshah ). When Sultan Ala ad-Din Kaikobad I. ( ' Ala ' al- Din Kay- Qubadh I. ), the ruler of the Sultanate of Rum - Seljuks, Erzincan in 1228, besieged and Da'udshah with its city surrendered to, left al - Latif town and country. He made quite a few trips within Syria and returned to 1229/1230 back to Baghdad, where he died.

Work

Abd al - Latif al - Baghdadi was suitable on his travels through contacts with other scholars a comprehensive knowledge of that science at leaving behind a monumental work on almost all the knowledge of his time, especially in the fields of philology, philosophy, grammar, law, Arab tradition, medicine, mathematics. The Frenchman Antoine Isaac, Baron Silvestre de Sacy, the founder of modern Arabic, has its well-known in Europe work " Al- Ifada wa'l - I'tibar " (Al- Ifadah Wa'l - I'Tibar, " The eastern key "), a short travelogue of Egypt, under the name relation de l' Égypte translated.

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