Muwaffaq al-Din Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi

Al-Muwaffaq Abu Muhammad 'Abd al-Latif ibn Yusuf, the polymath Dhu'l-Funun of Baghdad — Shafi'i jurist, grammarian, philologist, physician, philosopher and author of many works; born in 557, he heard a large circle including Ibn al-Batti and Abu Zar'a, studied fiqh under Abu'l-Qasim ibn Fadlan, resided at Aleppo and memorised many books. ²

His works include a sharh of Ibn Babshadh's grammar primer, sharhs of the Maqamat and of Ka'b's Banat Su'ad, the Jami' al-kabir on logic, physics and metaphysics in ten volumes, the Refutation of Jews and Christians, Gharib al-hadith in three volumes (abridged too), and a sharh of Ibn Maja's medical hadiths; al-Dhahabi called him one of the brilliant masters of language, letters, medicine and the ancient sciences though his many claims diminished him — among his sayings: "whoever cannot bear the pain of learning never tastes the sweetness of knowledge." Travelling from Aleppo intending hajj, death overtook him at Baghdad. ²

The Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.) entry, signed S. M. Stern, gives him as born in Baghdad in 557/1162-3 and dying there in 629/1231-2. In Baghdad he studied grammar, law and tradition, and a Maghribi wandering scholar led him to philosophy, following Ibn Sina, and to natural science and alchemy. Mosul (585/1189-90), where he found al-Suhrawardi al-Maqtul's works inept, Damascus, and the camp of Saladin before Akka (587/1191) followed, where he met Baha' al-Din ibn Shaddad and Imad al-Din al-Isfahani. Cairo then turned him from Ibn Sina to al-Farabi, Alexander of Aphrodisias and Themistius. His al-Ifada wa'l-I'tibar, a short description of Egypt, was translated into Latin, German and French; the encyclopaedia says his other works cover philology, tradition, medicine, mathematics and philosophy, and that al-Dhahabi used his account of the Mongol invasion. ³