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 Bibliography Allemann, Franz, ʿAbdallaṭīf al-Baġdādī: Risālah fī Mudjādalat al-ḥakīmain al-kīmiyāʾī wan-naẓarī (“Das Streitgespräch zwischen dem Alchemisten und dem theoretischen Philosophen” or The Argument Between the Alchemist and the Theoretical Philosopher). Eine textkritische Bearbeitung der Handschrift: Bursa, Hüseyin Çelebi 823, fol. 100-123 mit Übersetzung und Kommentar, PhD dissertation Bern 1988. Degen, Rainer, Zum Diabetestraktat des ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baġdādī, Annali Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli, 37 (N.S. 27) (1977), 455–62. Dietrich, Albert, Ein Arzneimittelverzeichnis des Abdallaṭīf Ibn Yūsuf al-Baġdādī, in: Wilhelm Hoenerbach, Der Orient in der Forschung. Festschrift für Otto Spies zum 5. April 1966 (Wiesbaden 1967), 42–60. Gannagé, Emma, “Médecine et philosophie à Damas