##  Life and Works


### 1.1 Life



'Abd al-Latif's intellectual position comes across in his
autobiography (*sira*). It seems to have formed part of a
larger work no longer extant which he wrote for his son Sharaf al-Din
Yusuf. The *sira* is contained in the *Sources of
Information on the Classes of Physicians* by Ibn Abi
Usaybi'a (Ibn Abi Usaybi'a, c. 1242 [1882-84],
*Kitab 'Uyun al-anba' fi tabaqat al-atibba'*,
A. Muller (ed.), al-Qahira: al-Matba'at al-wahbiyya,
1882-1884: II. 201-213; Martini Bonadeo 2013). At the
beginning of 19th century it was edited and translated into
Latin by Mousley (Mousley 1808) and re-edited and translated into
French by de Sacy (de Sacy 1810). A second autobiography is included
in the *Book of the Two Pieces of Advice* composed in Erzincan
in 1225 and preserved in the ms. Bursa, Il Halk Kutuphanesi,
Huseyin Celebi 823 (see Stern 1962; Dietrich 1964; Gutas 2011;
Martini Bonadeo 2013; Joosse 2014; Jad 2017; Fedouache - Ajoun - Ben
Ahmed 2018). A third autobiography, lost for us, is probably quoted by
his pupil Ibn Khallikan (Ibn Khallikan, Shams al-Din Ahmad ibn
Muhammad, d. 1282 [1968-1977], *Wafayat al-a'yan
wa-anba' abna' al-zaman*, I. Abbas (ed.), Beirut: Dar
Sadir, 1968-1977: IV.76-77). Other passages from 'Abd
al-Latif's autobiography have been preserved by
al-Dhahabi's *History of Islam* (Von Somogyi 1937; Cahen
1970). Finally, further information on 'Abd al-Latif can be
found in the report of his journey in Egypt entitled *Book of the
Report and Account of the Things which I Witnessed and the Events Seen
in the Land of Egypt*, a compendium extracted from his own history
of Egypt, *The Long Book about Egypt*, lost to us (Wahl 1790;
de Sacy 1810; Zand, Videan, & Videan 1965; Malallah 1987;
Martini Bonadeo 2017; Kzzo-Bellucci 2020).



He was born in Baghdad between February and April in 1162 from an
upper class family originating from Mosul and spent his formative
years in Baghdad until 1189. His contemporary Yaqut writes that
'by his descent (*qadiman*) he was known as
Ibn al-Labbad, a sort of family name (Yaqut al-Hamawi al-Rumi, d. 1229
[1993], *Mu'jam al-udaba'.* *Irshad al-arib ila
ma'rifat al-adib*, I. Abbas (ed.), Beirut: Dar al-Gharb
al-Islami, 1993: IV.1571). In the years of his youth in Baghdad,
under the guidance of his father - Abu l-'Izz ibn Muhammad
al-Mawsili who had been a student of Abu l-Barakat al-Baghdadi's
(d. 1165) (Ibn Abi Usaybi'a, c. 1242 [1882-84], *Kitab
'Uyun al-anba' fi tabaqat al-atibba'*, A.
Muller (ed.), al-Qahira: al-Matba'at al-wahbiyya,
1882-1884: I. 280; Toorawa 2004), 'Abd al-Latif
studied Islamic sciences and medicine with many renowned scholars,
including Kamal ad-Din 'Abd al-Rahman al-Anbari (d.1181), a
professor of *fiqh* (law), *adab*-literature,
*hadith* (traditions) and Arabic grammar at the Nizamiyya
madrasa, Wagih al-Wasiti (d.1215), a professor at the Zafariyya
Mosque, Ibn Fadlan (d.1199), an outstanding legal scholar versed in
the *khilaf* (divergence of the law) and dialectic, and leader
of the Shafi'is in Iraq, 'Abd Allah ibn Ahmad ibn
al-Khashshab (d.1171), master of *hadith*, grammarian,
mathematician, expert in *fara'id* (hereditary law) and
*nasab* (genealogy), Radi al-Dawla Abu Nasr (d.ca.1182), son of
the well-known physician Amin al-Dawla Ibn al-Tilmidh, professor of
medical subjects.



In his hometown 'Abd al-Latif made his first steps in philosophy
studying al-Ghazali's *Intentions of the Philosophers*,
the *Measure of Science in the Art of Logic*, the *Criterion
of Action on Ethics* and the *Touchstone of Reasoning in
Logic*. Then he turned to Avicenna's books including the
*Salvation*, the *Cure*, the *Canon*, and the
*Validation* by Bahmanyar, a pupil of Avicenna. Finally still
in Baghdad he studied Indian mathematics, Euclid's geometry, and
many books on alchemy by Jabir ibn Hayyan, but then he abandoned this
discipline which he considered an irrational practice.



At the age of twenty-eight, in 1189, he left Baghdad and began a long
period of travel in search for knowledge. First he was in Mosul for a
year. There he heard people saying great things about al-Suhrawardi.
He came across al-Suhrawardi's treatises the
*Intimations*, the *Glimmer*, and the *Ascending
Steps*; but he did not find in them the knowledge that he was
looking for. He left Mosul for Damascus where he joined the grammarian
al-Kindi al-Baghdadi (d.1216) and he worked on a certain number of
grammatical treatises. In Damascus he took more and more distance from
the study and practice of alchemy. Then 'Abd al-Latif went to
Jerusalem and then to the Saladin near Acre. Here he came into contact
with Saladin's entourage: Baha' al-Din ibn Shaddad
(1145-1234), his biographer and the chief of the army and the
city of Jerusalem, and 'Imad al-Din al-Katib al-Isfahani
(d.1201), the chronicler of Saladin's deeds. With a safe-conduct
document written by this latter 'Abd al-Latif arrived in
Cairo.



His aim in Egypt was to meet Yasin al-Simiya'i, a not well known
alchemist, and Moses Maimonides, the famous Jewish philosopher,
theologian, and doctor, born in Cordoba in 1135. 'Abd al-Latif
refused to work with the first for the senselessness of his teaching
and found the latter excellent, but dominated by the desire to excel
and by his political ambitions. 'Abd al-Latif read Maimonides
*Guide for the Perplexed* and found it a bad book which
corrupted the tenets of faith and religion. 



'Abd al-Latif's encounter with the Peripatetic tradition
took place in the vibrant cultural environment of Cairo where he met
Abu al-Qasim al-Shari'i, who had expert knowledge of the works
of the "Ancients" and of those of Abu Nasr al-Farabi.
Perhaps he was the renowned and famous master in the science of
*hadith* Abu al-Qasim al-Busiri (or al-Busayri d.1202), as
suggested with caution by de Sacy (de Sacy 1810). But this
identification remains problematic, given the fact that nine
contemporary of 'Abd al-Latif's bear the *nisba*
al-Shari'i, most of them members of scholarly families in Cairo,
and two of them also bear the *kunya* Abu l-Qasim. In
addition neither al-Busiri and nor the nine bearers of the
*nisba* al-Shari'i were known for their 
expert philosophical knowledge (Griffel 2023). In Cairo, for the first
time 'Abd al-Latif studied the books of the
"Ancients", namely Aristotle, Alexander of Aphrodisias,
and Themistius, and on the basis of these he began to test the cogency
of Avicenna's doctrines. From this he came to hold the
inferiority of the work of Avicenna. Nevertheless, 'Abd al-Latif
was intimately loath to renounce he who had been his master and the
inspiration behind his research from his youth.



After 13 September 1192, the date of the armistice of the Ayyubids
with the Franks, 'Abd al-Latif moved to Jerusalem where he met
the Saladin in person who awarded him a generous stipend to teach in
the Umayyad mosque in Damascus. After the death of the Saladin
(d.1193), the last years of 'Abd al-Latif's life took the
form of a long series of journeys, no longer in search of knowledge,
instruction, teachers and books, but all motivated by, or at the
behest of, patrons: in Damascus al-Malik al-Afdal, Saladin's
eldest son; in Cairo al-Malik al-Aziz, in Jerusalem al-Malik al-Adil
Sayf al-Din Abu Bakr ibn Ayyub, in Erzinjan al-Malik 'Ala'
al-Din Da'ud ibn Bahram, in many other places in Anatolia
(Erzerum, Kamah, Dvriji, Malatya) Seljuks patrons, in Aleppo Shihab
al-Din Tughril. He taught in many different Madrasas and mosques
including the al-Aqsa in Jerusalem, al-Azhar in Cairo, the
'aziziyya madrasa in Damasco. His contemporary al-Qifti 
reports that towards the end of his life he tried to practice
medicine, but was not successful because he was not enough a good
practical physician (Ibn al-Qifti, d.1248 [1950-1955], *Inbah
al-ruwat 'ala anbah al-nuhat*, M. Abu l-Fadl Ibrahim (ed.),
al-Qahira: Dar al-Kutub al-Misriyya, 1950-55: II.196; Griffel
2023). While he was in Aleppo, in autumn 1231, he wanted to go on
pilgrimage to Mecca, and he started his journey towards Baghdad to
leave some of his works to the 'Abbasid caliph al-Mustansir ibn
al-Zahir (r. 1226-1242). Once he arrived in Baghdad 'Abd
al-Latif fell ill and died at the age of 69 on 9 November, 1231. He
was buried next to his father in the Wardiyya cemetery.



'Abd al-Latif's students were: the *hadith*
scholar Zaki al-Din al-Birzali (d.1239), the botanist Ibn al-Suri
(d.1242), the judge al-Tifashi (d.1253), Ibn al-'Adim (d. 1262),
and the biographer Ibn Khallikan (d.1282).'Abd al-Latif's
harshest critic was al-Qifti who accused him of having been a
theoretician incapable of practicing medicine and a plagiarist.
Al-Qifti's hostility against him was probably caused by
'Abd al-Latif's accusation of quackery and murder against
Joseph ben Judah ben Simeon (Josse 2007; Griffel 2023).


### 1.2 Works



The oldest lists of 'Abd al-Latif's works are those given
by Yaqut (Yaqut al-Hamawi al-Rumi, d. 1229 [1993], *Mu'jam
al-udaba'. Irshad al-arib ila ma'rifat al-adib*, I.
Abbas (ed.), Beirut: Dar al-Gharb al-Islami, 1993: IV.1572-1573)
and Ibn Abi Usaybi'a at the end of the entry devoted to him in
the *Sources of Information on the Classes of Physicians* (Ibn
Abi Usaybi'a, c. 1242 [1882-84]: II. 211-213). Later
lists are found in Ibn Shakir al-Kutubi's *What was omitted
in the Obituaries* (Ibn Shakir al-Kutubi, before 1363 [1974],
*Fawat al-wafayat*, I. 'Abbas (ed.), Bayrut: Dar
al-Sadir, 1974: II. 385-388) and in al-Safadi (al-Safadi, Salah
al-Din khalil ibn Aybak, d. 1363 [1929-2013], *Al-Wafi
bi-l-wafayat*, H. Ritter et alii (eds.), Beirut: XIX.109-111).



The list presented by Ibn Abi Usaybi'a numbers one hundred and
seventy-three works, including brief essays and treatises. The
subjects reflect the variety of 'Abd al-Latif's interests.
Thirteen writings are listed which deal with the Arabic language,
lexicography, and grammar, two with *fiqh*, nine with literary
criticism, fifty-three with medicine, ten with zoology, three on the
science of *tawhid* (unity of God), three on history, three on
mathematics and related disciplines, two on magic and mineralogy, and
twenty-seven on other themes. There are forty-eight works concerning
philosophy: nineteen on logic--two of which are against Avicenna
and the theory of conditional syllogisms--ten on physics, eight
on metaphysics, and nine on politics. Two general works are also
mentioned, divided into three sections: logic, physics, and
metaphysics; one of these was in ten volumes and was completed by the
author over a span of twenty years.



Ibn Shakir al-Kutubi's list is shorter. It numbers fifteen
discourses by 'Abd al-Latif which are not mentioned by Ibn Abi
Usaybi'a and eighty-one works, all mentioned in the previous
list, with the exception of one about antidotes.



The works which have come down to us, or at least those contained in
manuscripts so far identified (Martini Bonadeo 2013, Fedouache - Ajoun
- Ben Ahmed 2018), concerning *hadith*, lexicography, and
grammar are


* the *Compendium for the Language of Hadith* (al-Radi 1977,
1979);
* the *Extract from the Book of the Essay on the Diadem in the
Swords of the Prophet*;
* 'Abd al-Latif's commentary on the caliph
al-Nasir's collection of traditions entitled *Rawh
al-'arifin*;
* the *Extract from the Expressions of the Prophet and the
Companions of the Prophet and his Followers*.



About *fiqh* (law) there are


* the *Brief Study of the Laws in the Codes of Egypt*;
* the *Commentary on the Collection by Abu Yahya 'Abd
al-Rahim ibn Nubata al-Fariqi*.



About mathematics there is


* the *Book of That Which is Evident in Indian
Mathematics*.



On medicine some works survived:


* the *Commentary on the Prognostics according to
Hippocrates* (Joosse & Pormann 2012);
* the *Commentary on the Aphorisms of Hippocrates* (Joosse
& Pormann 2012);
* the *Commentary on Hunayn's Medical Questions*;
* the *Commentary on the Anatomy of Lutfallah al-Misri*;
* the *Note on the Anatomy of the Commentary on the
Revision*;
* the treatise *On the Principles of Simple Medical Substances
and their Natural Qualities*.



Concerning philosophy, there are:


* the *Essay on the Senses and Two Questions on their
Function* (Ghalioungui & Abdou 1972; reprint Ghalioungui
1985);
* the *Questions on Natural Science* (Ghalioungui & Abdou
1972; reprint Ghalioungui 1985);
* the *Book on the Science of Metaphysics* (Badawi 1955a,b;
Neuwirth 1976, 1977-78, 1978; Ajoun 2017; Martini Bonadeo
2017).



Besides these works further eleven treatises have been
preserved--among which is the already mentioned *Book of the
Two Pieces of Advice*--in the miscellaneous manuscript Bursa,
*Huseyin Celebi* 823 (Stern 1962; Jad 2017;
Fedouache - Ajoun - Ben Ahmed 2018, 3-236):


* 'Abd al-Latif's criticism of the notes written by
Fakhr al-Din al-Razi on several passages from the *Kulliyyat*
section of Avicenna's *Canon* (fols 1v-19v and
28r-34r);
* 'Abd al-Latif's criticism of the treatise on the
*Sura of Pure Intention* by Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (fols
34r-38v and 20r-23r);
* the treatise *On the Quiddity of Space According to Ibn
al-Haytham* (fols 23v-27v and 39r-52r; see Rashed
2002, 4, 908-53) in which 'Abd al-Latif's attempt to
refute Ibn al-Haytham's geometrization of place and to restore
Aristotle's definition is a sort of defense of the primacy of
philosophy compared to mathematics (El-Bizri 2007);
* the treatise *On Mixing* (fols 52v-62r) concerning
the combination of various elements in compound substances;
* the *Dispute Between an Alchemist and a Theoretical
Philosopher* (fols 100v-123v; Josse 2008, 2014; Jad
2019);
* the treatise *On Minerals and the Confutation of Alchemy*
(fols 124r-132r);
* the *Excerpta from the works of the philosophers* chosen by
'Abd al-Latif (fols 132v-135v; Rashed 2004) which are
related to Alexander of Aphrodisias' *Quaestiones* (I
11a, II 28, III 9) and an Arabic *Quaestio*, work number 39
ascribed to Alexander of Aphrodisias in Ibn Abi Usaybi'a's
list of Alexander's works;
* the *Excerpta from medical works* chosen by 'Abd
al-Latif (fols 138r-140v) in the form of a little handbook of
pharmacology, which presents the therapeutic effects of thirty-one
different plants;
* the treatise *On Diabetes* (fols 140v-149r; Thies
1971; Degen 1977).


## 2. What Philosophical Research is



In the *Book of the Two Pieces of Advice*, a diatribe against
false knowledge, composed between 1217 and 1225 in Aleppo or in
Anatolia, 'Abd al-Latif presents "two pieces of
advice" for would-be physicians and would-be philosophers, an
impassioned polemic against false physicians, and an equally harsh
invective against false philosophers (see Gutas 2011; Martini Bonadeo
2013; Joosse 2014; Jad 2017; Fedouache - Ajoun - Ben Ahmed 2018).



Those who, in his age, devote themselves to philosophy are bad
philosophers for many different reasons: their lack of interest, the
obscurity of philosophy and their lack of training and good teachers.
But the main reason for the decline of the philosophical production of
his age lies in the neglect into which the works of the Ancients have
fallen. The pages of these works are by now being used by bookbinders
and pharmacists as paper for packaging. No one--says 'Abd
al-Latif--wants to deny the contributions made by Avicenna to
philosophical research. He has, in fact, provided new energy to
philosophy, and he has been able in part to understand the books of
the Ancients and to offer an introduction to them. Nevertheless, if
one examines his works in more detail and compares them with those on
similar themes by ancient authors and, in particular, with Aristotle
or al-Farabi, their inferiority emerges. For this reason 'Abd
al-Latif proposes presenting the method followed by Plato and
Aristotle in their respective philosophies. In doing that, he follows
al-Farabi, summarizes and literally quotes al-Farabi's
*Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle* (Rosenthal & Walzer
1943; Mahdi 1961, 2001), where both Platonic dialogues and
Aristotelian treatises are set out in such an order as to constitute a
systematic and progressive investigation of all the areas of
philosophical research.



For 'Abd al-Latif, as for al-Farabi's Plato, philosophical
research begins with an investigation of what constitutes the
perfection of man as man, which does not consist of a healthy
physique, a pleasant face, noble descent, a large group of friends and
lovers; nor does it consist in riches, glory, or power, since none of
these is able to make man fully and truly happy. For man the
attainment of happiness consists in a particular type of knowledge,
the knowledge of the substances of all the beings and a certain
lifestyle, the virtuous life. Knowledge of things according to their
essence is not an end in itself, but is that which must characterize
the virtuous lifestyle of the philosopher: in him, in fact,
theoretical knowledge is the prolegomenon to action, ethics, and
politics. For this reason 'Abd al-Latif stresses that there is
no difference between a man who lives in ignorance and the life of
beasts because in ignorance man acts like a beast. A life in ignorance
is a life without the search for truth and, hence, inhuman in
itself.



In this perspective 'Abd al-Latif introduces Plato's
political philosophy. Since the perfection of the soul is possible
only in a city where justice reigns, Plato starts from analysis of
what justice is and how it ought to be. Then Plato examines the cities
which deviate from the good ways of life and from the philosophical
virtues. In the virtuous city, man must be educated in the knowledge
of the divine and natural beings and in following a virtuous way of
life. Human perfection is achieved by the man who combines the
theoretical, the political and the practical sciences. He will rule
and will possess the ability to conduct a scientific investigation of
justice and the other virtues and to form the character of the youth
and the multitude. He will be able to correct wrong opinions and to
cure every rank of his society with knowledge. The ruler will be the
one who has achieved human perfection at its utmost.



Then 'Abd al-Latif passes to present al-Farabi's Aristotle
who holds that the perfection of man sought by Plato is not
self-evident or easy to explain by way of a demonstration which leads
to certainty. He believes, therefore, that it is necessary to start
with a prior consideration. There are four things which by nature are
desired by man in so far as they are good: the soundness of the body,
of the senses, of the ability to discern that which leads to the
health of the body and the senses, and of the ability to obtain that
which leads to their soundness. In the second place man desires to
know the causes of the sensible things and also the causes of what he
sees in his soul, and he discovers that the more he knows the more he
feels pleasure. Thus according to Aristotle, the knowledge sought by
man can be said to be of two types: the first is a useful knowledge
sought for the soundness of the body, of the senses, and of the other
two abilities, the second is desired and desirable in itself for the
pleasure that a man experiences in apprehending it: for instance, the
myths or the stories of nations.



'Abd al-Latif goes on by explaining that in human knowledge
there are three sorts of cognitions: those acquired by senses,
frequently insufficient, those first necessary cognitions that
originate with man, and those acquired by investigation and
consideration. 'Abd al-Latif asks himself what type of knowledge
is most appropriate for man. Animals, too, in fact, have a body,
senses, and the ability to discern how and with what to safeguard
their health. They do not, however, possess the desire, provoked by
wonder, to know the causes of what can be seen in the heavens and on
earth.



This problem involves the following question: why should man ever
desire to know the causes if the type of knowledge that they involve
is not made for him? It is because man can grow in perfection by
knowing the causes; indeed, knowing the causes is an act of the
essence of man. Yet this statement opens up a series of problems. What
is the essence of man, what is his ultimate perfection, what is the
act whose realization leads to the final perfection of his essence?
Nevertheless, given that man is part of the world, if one wishes to
know the end of man and his activity he must first know the world in
its totality. The four causes of the world in its totality and in each
of its individual parts which must be sought are the what it is, the
how it is, the what it is from, and the what is it for.



The investigation which deals with the world, in its totality and in
each of its individual parts, is called natural investigation, while
that which regards what man possesses by virtue and will is called the
science of the things that depend on the will. Since that which is
natural and innate in man precedes in time that which is in man by
will and choice, the first type of investigation will precede the
second even if both must arrive at a certain science. Besides these
two types of research is the art of logic which forms the rational
part of the soul, leads it to certainty, to study and to research;
logic, moreover, guides and tests the validity of the other two fields
of research.



'Abd al-Latif reminds that in Aristotle's science of
nature the fundamental epistemological criterion holds that man must
start from what is attested to by the senses, to then proceed to what
is hidden, until he knows everything which he desires to know. For
this reason, he goes on in the study of plants and then of animals. He
catalogues their species, and explains the apparatus of organs which
each animal species is provided with. Since organs alone are not
sufficient to explain animal life, man feels the need to introduce a
further principle, which is the soul. Nevertheless, the soul is not a
principle sufficient to explain man, since the actions of man reveal
themselves to be more powerful than the acts of the soul. The soul is
not enough to explain the highest degree of substantiality reached by
man: Aristotle found man with speech and speech proceeds from
intellect or the intellectual principles and powers.



The human intellect is in potency and moves to act. All that which
passes from potency to act necessitates an agent of the same species
as the thing that must pass on to the act. The intellect as well,
therefore, in order to pass from potency to act, needs an active
intellect which is always in act and never in potency. When
man's intellect reaches its extreme perfection, it comes close
in its substance to the substance of this active intellect. In its
search for perfection, man's intellect tends to imitate the
model of this intellect, since it is that which makes man substantial
in so far as he is man. This intellect is also man's end because
it is that which provides him with a principle and an example to
follow in tending to perfection, which consists in approximating
himself as far as it is possible to it. It is therefore his agent, his
end, and his perfection. It is a principle in three different ways: as
an agent, as an end, and as the perfection to which man tends. It is,
however, a separate form with respect to man, a separate agent, and a
separate end.



The result of the enquiry undertaken leads to the conclusion that
human nature, the human soul, and the capabilities and the acts of
these two, just like the capabilities of the practical intellect, are
all finalized with respect to the perfection of the human intellect.
Nature, the soul, and the human intellect are, however, insufficient
to attain perfection and it is not possible to leave out of
consideration the acts generated by volition and choice which depend
on the practical intellect. For this reason, therefore, these acts
must also become the object of investigation like all that which
constitutes human will. Desire and the things, which depend on sense
and discernment--which the other animals also possess--on
the other hand, are neither human, nor useful for attaining
theoretical perfection. According to this criterion it is necessary to
re-examine completely all the scientific fields already established in
the search for that which contributes to the attainment of perfection
by man and that which, on the other hand, impedes this search.



Finally 'Abd al-Latif mentions the *Metaphysics* saying
that in Aristotle's *Metaphysics* beings are investigated
according to a different method from that used in the science of
nature. Unlike his Farabian source, al-Farabi's *Philosophy
of Plato and Aristotle*, ' as we know it, Abd al-Latif
begins to analyze the metaphysical science which has as its objects of
inquiry the divine and noble things. He seems to mention the
pseudo-*Theology of Aristotle*, the paraphrastic selection from
Plotinus' *Enneads* (IV to VI) translated by 'Abd
al-Masih ibn Nai'ma al-Himsi and corrected by al-Kindi. He
states that Aristotle in the *Theology* (*Kitab
bi-utulugiyya*) said that God created the terrestrial world for
man and also created in man the intellect and dispersed it in his soul
so that it might be a weapon which strengthens man to make him able to
live in the earth (i.e., practical intellect) and to investigate the
creation of the heavens and the earth and the wonders which are found
in the heavens and on the earth (i.e., theoretical intellect). And he
says that God is provident and takes care of qualitatively better men
and inspires them as a result of the mediation of the active intellect
either through the way of meditation, or through the way of the
effulgence of soul or through the way of revelation.



Of course since men are different there are different forms of assent
to the truth: the absolute certainty of the man who follows the
demonstrative way as indicated by Aristotle in the *Posterior
Analytics* and the persuasion produced by examples and images as
indicated by Aristotle in the *Rhetoric* and the
*Poetics*. Hence, philosophy comes into being in every man in
the way that is possible for him.



For 'Abd al-Latif, Plato and his disciple Aristotle pursue the
same purpose and the same end in their philosophical speculation, that
is to say, the perfection of man as man, which both identify in
knowledge of the truth of things. Moreover, they describe a system so
perfect in its organic constitution and completeness that the
generations following them are left with nothing but the task of
studying it in an attempt to understand their thought correctly. The
exceptional nature of Plato and Aristotle's philosophy, says
'Abd al-Latif, has three causes: first, their philosophy is
useful in motivating one to study, second, for a long time they had
influence in this field, and third, the absolute primacy of their
philosophy lies in their research into the causes from the more
distant to the closest to the object. This method of inquiry does not
need anything else and it is impossible to confute. It is therefore a
great mistake to believe that the works of the Moderns are clearer,
more useful, or qualitatively superior with respect to those of the
Ancients.


## 3. Criticisms against the Moderns



Abd al-Latif constantly held authors defined by him as Moderns
distinct from the Ancients and he unleashed a harsh polemic attack
against the works of the former. His privileged targets were Avicenna
and Fakhr al-Din al-Razi whom he considered, as far as it was
possible, even worse than Avicenna. The writings of these authors in
fact, if compared with those of the Ancients, reveal their low
scientific level, are confused, and lack detailed analysis.


### 3.1 Against Avicenna



'Abd al-Latif makes a series of criticisms on Avicenna's
philosophy (Martini Bonadeo 2013; Ben Ahmed 2019). In the first place,
he explains that Avicenna did not manage to present an exhaustive
philosophical system in which every field of philosophical research
could receive adequate treatment. 'Abd al-Latif criticizes
Avicenna's lack of reflection on the practical field. Even in
his most famous summa, the *Kitab al-Shifa'*, Avicenna
neglected the contents of Plato's *Republic*,
Aristotle's *Ethics*, and his *Politics*.
'Abd al-Latif explains this omission as a total lack of
familiarity by Avicenna not only of practical philosophy, but also of
philosophy in general.



In the second place, according to 'Abd al-Latif, Avicenna seems
to have distorted or not to have had any knowledge of the fundamental
Aristotelian epistemological criterion according to which research
must begin with that which is more easily knowable to us (cf.
Aristotle, *Physics* I.1, 184a16-21; *Nicomachean
Ethics* I.4, 1095b3-4). This is why, for example Avicenna
mistakenly placed zoology after his treatment of the soul.



Next, 'Abd al-Latif points out that Avicenna has produced
numerous works, which have been copied from one another, as in the
case of the *Kitab al-Shifa'* and the *Kitab
al-Najat*. He observes that Avicenna decided to introduce all his
treatises with the discourse presented by Aristotle at the beginning
of the *Posterior Analytics* (ll, 71a1-3) on every form
of knowledge. But this is all that Avicenna knows of the *Posterior
Analytics*. In fact, he has not dealt with what constitutes the
end of logic, that is to say, the five logical arts which are the
object of the *Posterior Analytics*, the *Topics*, the
*Sophistical Refutations*, the *Rhetoric*, and the
*Poetics*, and he has dwelt on an analysis of the contents of
the *Isagoge*, *Categories*, *De Interpretatione*
and *Prior Analytics* which, according to 'Abd al-Latif,
constitute a preparatory introduction to true logic. Even the
*Kitab al-Shifa'*, which deals with logic at greater
length, presents a confused discourse. 'Abd al-Latif provides
examples which strengthen his strong criticism. In the first place it
is surprising to him that Avicenna has not clarified the category of
"having" (*ekhein*; for
its Arabic translations see Afnan 1964: 89-90). But, in fact, in
the section on the categories (*al-Maqulat*) of the *Kitab
al-Shifa'*, Avicenna devotes few words to his explanation of
the meaning and the value of this category. He maintains that it is
not a clear category and recognizes that he has not managed to
understand it because he does not see how it can contain species.
Moreover, 'Abd al-Latif is amazed by the fact that Avicenna
places the movement of the sky in the category of
"Being-in-a-position"
(*keisthai*), even
though he himself has written a book on the *De Caelo et mundo*
and on the *Physics*. The category of
*keisthai* is
explained by Avicenna both in the *Kitab al-Shifa'* and
the *Kitab al-Najat* as the manner of being of the body in as
far as the fact that its parts constitute, one with another, a
relation of inclination and parallelism in relation to the directions
and the parts of the place, if the body is in a place, such as, for
example standing up and sitting down. 'Abd al-Latif's
third criticism is of Avicenna's claim that he can define one of
two relative terms without having recourse to the other. 'Abd
al-Latif stresses that in the *Isagoge* Avicenna defines genus
separately and species separately and father separately and son
separately. Then in his definition of father as a "living thing
which creates from his sperm another living thing similar to
him" Avicenna finds himself obliged to seek recourse to four
distinct relations.



'Abd al-Latif proceeds to criticize Avicenna's theory of
the syllogism and in particular his admission of the hypothetical
syllogisms. Finally, 'Abd al-Latif makes a series of further
criticisms of Avicenna without, however, going into each of them in
detail. Avicenna has enlarged the book of the *Poetics* with an
amount of material which actually derives from the *Rhetoric*.
Since Avicenna's *Kitab al-Shifa'*, despite its
numerous errors, has become the philosophical encyclopedia of
reference among 'Abd al-Latif's contemporaries, he
believes that Avicenna is the indirect cause of the vast spread of
philosophical errors, such as the confusing, for example, the object
proper to the *Physics*, that is, nature, with that of the
*Metaphysics*.


### 3.2 Against Fakhr al-Din al-Razi



'Abd al-Latif presents two sets of reasons why al-Razi's
works, full of errors, should not be the object of people's
admiration. In the first place this writer does not possess a specific
technical knowledge of the various sciences which he has decided to
consider: his use of the medical terminology is inaccurate, for
example, in his notes on Avicenna's *Canon*. In the
second place, since he lacks any didactic method, he simply raises
continual sophisms. For these reasons, 'Abd al-Latif maintains
that he should not even try to take on the holy text of the
*Koran* as he did in his commentary on sura 112 or on sura 95
and sura 87 (Gannage 2011: 227-256; Stern 1962:
57-59).


## 4. Metaphysics


### 4.1 Metaphysics as Research into the Causes and First Philosophy



'Abd al-Latif's main work, the *Book on the Science of
Metaphysics*, is survived in two manuscripts: the first, the ms.
Cairo, Dar al-kutub, *Ahmad Taymur Pasha Hikma* 117, 16-178,
which was probably produced in Egypt in 1529; the second ms Instanbul,
Suleymaniye Kutuphanesi, Carullah 1279, fols 140v-187v,
which was produce around 1477 in Sa'da in Yemen by a bookseller
and copyst Muhammad ibn Hasan al-Nihmi (d. after 1480) who collected
in it 40 different texts of philosophy for his personal use (Rosenthal
1955; Griffel 2023).



In the twenty-four chapters of his *Book on the Science of
Metaphysics* 'Abd al-Latif paraphrases and summarizes a sort
of "library" of treatises on metaphysics (Zimmermann 1986)
which were assimilated in the formative period of *falsafa* and
imposed themselves to the point of becoming canonical. The editorial
plan of the *Book on the Science of Metaphysics* follows the
ordering of the metaphysical and divine science according to
al-Farabi's *Enumeration of the Sciences*. It consists in
fact of three distinct parts which reflect al-Farabi's
tripartite division: in the first part, which includes the first four
chapters, there is the study of beings and their accidents; the second
part, which goes from chapter five to chapter twelve, deals with the
principles of definition and demonstration; the third and last part,
comprising chapters thirteen to twenty-four, is devoted to a
description of the hierarchy of the immaterial and intelligible
realities until it reaches the First Mover, the First Principle, the
First Cause, the One, which is nothing but the one God of the
*Koran*, the provident Creator, in a synthesis of Aristotelian
metaphysics, Neoplatonic metaphysics, and Islamic monotheism (Neuwirth
1976).



'Abd al-Latif devotes a full sixteen out of twenty-four chapters
to a discussion of Aristotle's *Metaphysics*, which he
probably knew in more than one translation. The books of the
*Metaphysics* he freely paraphrases are, in order, *Alpha
Elatton/Alpha Meizon*, *Beta*, *Delta*,
*Gamma*, *Epsilon*, *Zeta*, *Eta*,
*Theta*, *Iota*, and *Lambda* (Neuwirth 1976,
1977-78; Martini Bonadeo 2001, 2010, 2013, 2018; Ajoun 2017).
Three whole chapters (13-15) are devoted to the latter one.
'Abd al-Latif is strongly influenced by Themistius'
paraphrase (Brague 1999) in his reading of *Lambda*. The
presentation of *Lambda* ends with an entire chapter (16)
containing an epitome of Alexander Arabus's treatise *On the
principles of the Universe* (Badawi 1947; Genequand 2001; Endress
2002; Ajoun 2017). 'Abd al-Latif's use of the
*Metaphysics* reflects that of its first Arabic interpreters,
in particular al-Kindi, who centered on the contents of books
*Alpha Elatton*, *Epsilon*, and *Lambda* and was
tied to the criterion of the doctrinal unity of Greek metaphysics: the
natural theology of *Lambda* is only a premise for a
characterization of the First Principle, which is of clear Neoplatonic
origin (D'Ancona 1996).



This is particularly clear from the very beginning of the *Book on
the Science of Metaphysics*. For 'Abd al-Latif, in fact,
there are different causes for different kinds of being and different
sciences for different causes, but there is one first science leading
all the others, for two different reasons. First, as al-Farabi taught,
it is able to demonstrate the principles of the other sciences,
because it is only this science, which investigates absolute beings
and from them it provides an explanation of the principles of the
particular sciences, comprised in it and below it. Second, this
science includes speculation about the First Principle, which every
other thing needs in its own existence. 'Abd al-Latif claims
that this First Principle is the absolute final cause and that the
science of this cause is the wisdom (*hikma*) which precedes
all other knowledge (Martini Bonadeo 2010; 2017a).



The First Principle is described by 'Abd al-Latif in a typical
Avicennian phrase as the Pure Being (*al-wujud al-mujarrad*),
the aim of everything, and the First mover immobile, pure act, eternal
and everlasting, i.e., the First Principle whose knowledge is the end
of our inquiry. The First mover not only produces the movement of the
things, but it is their perfection, namely the paradigmatic cause, and
their final cause. Abd al-Latif introduces the example of the law,
which he derives from Themistius' paraphrase (on Abd al-Latif's use of
Themistius' Paraphrase of Book *Lambda* of
Aristotle's *Metaphysics*: Meyrav 2019). The law
moves politics in so far as it is chosen for itself. The First
Principle, as God, is the cause for being of the worlds and their
ordering according to their beauty and their duration and it is a
substance which equals his science. The First Principle is also
described as the True One (*al-wahid al-haqq*), one by essence,
without any kind of multiplicity. The way to know this True One is to
ascend from the things which have some degree of unity. So we say one
army, one city, that Zayd is one, that the celestial sphere is one,
and that the world is one. Then we proceed through souls and
intellects, and through the things which in this ascent loose
multiplicity and acquire unity until we reach the Absolute One
(*al-wahid al-mutlaq*), the architectural principle of
everything and the supreme intelligible which makes the world be,
preserves its existence, and orders it. The First Cause is for
'Abd al-Latif that cause which has within it all things in
purely Neoplatonic vein. It is not surprising therefore that in
paraphrasing chapter 10 of *Lambda* he speaks of emanation from
the First Principle.



The characteristics of the Neoplatonic One are thus grafted onto the
Aristotelian characterization of the First Principle. The point of
fusion lies in the doctrine of the self-reflection of divine thought,
which for 'Abd al-Latif, who is influenced by the exegesis of
Themistius, is not a reason for composition and multiplicity within
the First Principle, as it was for Plotinus. If the thinking
principle, the act of thinking and the object of thought coincide in
the First Principle, which by now is called God, there is in It no
multiplicity.


### 4.2 Providence



The exposition of *Lambda* is followed by three chapters which
discuss the theme of Providence
(pronoia) of the First Principle.
'Abd al-Latif's main source is Alexander of
Aphrodisias' *De Providentia* (Ruland 1976, 1979;
Zimmermann 1986; Thillet 2003; Martini Bonadeo 2017a). 'Abd
al-Latif therefore mutually harmonizes two solutions which are in
reality quite different from one another, not to say alternative: that
put forward by Alexander regarding the problem of divine
providence--the First Principle thinks and knows primarily only
itself, but it eternally knows the events of the world too, subject to
becoming, in so far as it exercises its own direction over them
through the celestial order--and that of Themistius, which
'Abd al-Latif had already made his own in the course of his
paraphrase of *Lambda*, whereby God knows that which is
different from him without for this reason coming out of himself,
since he contains in him all the ideas of all things, and is the norm
and the condition of the intelligibility of the world.



'Abd al-Latif maintains that the action of God's
providence expresses itself both in the superior and in the inferior
world; but if in the first case the relationship between divine
providence and the superior world is immediate, in the second case it
is mediated by the superior world. The relationship between divine
providence and those who receive it, however, cannot be thought of as
a causal relationship, since in this case "the noble would come
into being because of the ignoble and the earlier because of the
later" (Rosenthal 1975: 156), which is shameful, nor can this
relationship be thought as purely accidental. Both situations are
unsuitable for the First Principle, which cannot therefore exercise
providence as its primary action, but cannot either be considered as
that from which providence derives accidentally. 'Abd al-Latif
then affirms that the existence and the order of things derive from
the existence of God, who is absolute good and returns to the image of
fire which warms everything: God concedes to all existing things as
much good as they, for their proximity to him, are able to receive.
The bodies of the sublunary world are able to enjoy the potency which
emanates from God and so they tend to move towards him. Among the
existing things of the sublunary world, man has been given the
capacity for reason, due to which he can carry out those actions that
lead him to acquire the happiness appropriate to him. The same
rational capacity allows him to know divine things and, in virtue of
this knowledge, man is superior to all other things that come to being
and pass away. At times, however, he uses this rational capacity to
obtain, not the good and virtues, but vices. This can happen because
providence allows man the capacity to be able to acquire virtues, but
the success of this enterprise lies in the will and in the choice made
by man himself.



Following the lead of Alexander's treatise *On
Providence*, 'Abd al-Latif introduces the problem of evil
and places his examination of those aspects of the doctrine of
providence that regard man and his actions within the framework of a
discussion more of a cosmological nature. For this reason, though he
favours Themistius' solution whereby God knows all things in
that he contains within him the ideas of all things, which he holds to
be closest to the dogma of the Koran, 'Abd al-Latif has recourse
to Alexander concerning the problems of evil, man's free will,
and divine justice.


### 4.3 Intellect and First Cause



'Abd al-Latif then proceeds in his treatise by epitomizing the
*Book of the Exposition of the Pure Good*, that is to say, the
*Liber de causis* of the Latin Middle Ages, proposition 54, on
the difference between eternity and time (Endress 1973; Jolivet 1979:
55-75; Zimmermann 1994: 9-51) from Proclus'
*Elements of Theology*, *Metaphysics Lambda*, and the
pseudo-*Theology* (Martini Bonadeo 2017b, Ajoun 2017).
'Abd al-Latif reproduces all the propositions of the *Liber
de causis*, except numbers 4, 10, 18, and 20, and follows the same
order in which they are set out (Badawi 1955b; Anawati 1956:
73-110; Taylor 1984: 236-248). Abd al-Latif's aim is to
establish, on a Farabian model, an identification between the First
Cause, One and Pure Good, as presented in the *Liber de causis*
and the Aristotelian First Principle, Unmoved Mover and Intellect in
actuality, described in his paraphrase of *Metaphysics
Lambda*.



Abd al-Latif stresses the primacy of the most universal cause, which
is, therefore, further from its effect with respect to the causes
nearer to the effect and hence apparently more important. The First
Cause transcends any possibility of our knowledge. If knowing the true
nature of things in fact means knowing their causes, since by
definition the First Cause has no causes that precede it, it is
unknowable in its true nature. It can only be known by approximation,
through a description of the secondary causes. A long section, which
describes intellect, follows this theory of the transcendent
ineffability of the First Cause which precludes any proper
predication. The intellect is with eternity, above time, and is not
subject to division, because everything which is divisible is
divisible in magnitude, in number, or in motion, but all these kinds
of division are under time. It is one, in so far as it is the first
thing which originated from the First Cause, but it is multiple with
respect to the multiplicity of the gifts that come to it from the
First Cause. The intellect knows what is above it--the gifts that
come to it from the First Cause--and what is below it--the
things of which it is the cause. But intellect knows its cause and its
effect through its substance, that is to say that it perceives things
intellectually. It grasps intellectually either the intellectual
things or the sensible ones. The First Cause, which is the Pure Good,
pours all that is good into the intellect and into all that which
exists through the mediation of the intellect. There is, however, a
certain fluctuation in 'Abd al-Latif's attempt to
establish a perfect conformity between the First Cause as presented in
the *Liber de causis* and the First Principle presented in his
chapters devoted to the paraphrase of *Metaphysics Lambda*.
According to 'Abd al-Latif God precedes the intellect in ruling
things: he orders the intellect to govern. But, having stated that the
self-subsistent substance is not generated from something else,
'Abd al-Latif maintains that intellect does not need anything
other than itself in its conceptualizing and formation
(*tasawwuri-hi wa taswiri-hi*), that it is perfect and complete
eternally, and that it is the cause of itself.


### 4.4 Metaphysical Science as of Science of Sovereignty



At this point 'Abd al-Latif introduces the description of the
Science of Sovereignty (*'ilm al-rububiyya*) which echoes
that of the first chapter in the *Theology of Aristotle*: it is
not a physical science that limits itself to ascend from effects to
causes, but a science which, when it comes close to causes, is able to
go back to consider the effects in greater depth approaching the
divine knowledge of things.



Moreover, 'Abd al-Latif summarizes in the contents, but not in
the order, a selection of twenty propositions of Proclus (1-3,
5, 62, 86, 15-17, 21, 54, 76, 78, 91, 79, 80, 167, and
72-74: see Zimmermann 1986), four *quaestiones* of
Alexander of Aphrodisias (Van Ess 1966; Fazzo & Wiesner 1993) and
the adaptation of John Philoponus' *De aeternitate mundi
contra Proclum* IX,8 and IX,11 (Hasnawi 1994), entitled *What
Alexander of Aphrodisias Extracted from the Book of Aristotle Called
Theology, Namely the Doctrine of Divine Sovereignty* (Endress
1973). In doing that 'Abd al-Latif sets for himself three
objectives. In the first place, he wants to stress the crucial aspects
of the doctrine of the First Cause understood as One, presented in the
previous chapters. In the second place, he discusses the relationship
between the One and the many, and, not by chance, he does so after a
series of chapters (16-20) devoted to the relationship between
the First Cause and the world. As for these two objectives, he
stresses the basic features of the First Cause: it is One and it gives
unity to that which is multiple; it is One in itself and the True One
without composition; it is the cause of all that which is multiple in
that, although it is by essence One, its causal action propagates in a
multiplicity of effects; it is above eternity and time; it is life
that does not end, light that does not extinguish, it is Pure Being,
it is the first agent, it is ineffable and nothing can be properly
predicated of it, it is unknowable, the apex of the hierarchy of being
which is composed of the intellect, intelligible realities, the Soul,
the souls, and, finally, the corporeal realities of nature. Then he
turns to the providence of the First Cause with regard to its effects:
this providence exists, is mediated by the spheres and preserves the
species on earth. The divine power acts upon the sublunary world by
contact, and, starting from the first sphere of fire, the divine power
is in matter according to the receptivity of the various matters.



'Abd al-Latif ends his presentation of the metaphysical science
by summarizing the text of the pseudo-*Theology* from chapter 2
to chapter 10 (chapter nine is not included), more or less literally
(Badawi 1955a, Ajoun 2017). Through the
pseudo-*Theology*--as we have seen before, an item of the
Arabic Plotinus--'Abd al-Latif was exposed to a Neoplatonic
doctrine on the causality of the Platonic ideas which took into
account the Aristotelian themes of the immobile causality of the First
Mover and the coincidence of the nature of what is the supreme
intelligent and what is the supreme intelligible. 'Abd al-Latif
writes about the First Principle, True One, and Creator, which is
known only through imperfect images and which is infinite in its
essence, the process of emanation and the hierarchy from the First
Principle to the word of coming to be, the nature and movement of the
celestial bodies which move out of the desire to imitate the
perfection of the First Unmoved Mover and to assimilate themselves to
the Pure Good to the extent to which they are capable; the movement of
the first sphere and the life in the world of coming to be; the
ontological anteriority of the First Cause with respect to the
proximate causes, the ascent of human soul from sensible to
intellectual knowledge up to the First Principle, which is true
intellect, true being, true perfection, true science and true
substance. At the end he deals with the limits of our senses and of
the human intellect in understanding the First Cause and the others
separate beings: our intellect is weak in understanding concepts such
as movement, time, matter, privation, and possibility, and it can
attain them only through analogies and long meditation. Moreover, for
our intellect the First Principle is the condition of knowing without
being known by us, as the sun is the condition of our vision even
though we cannot bear the direct sight of it. The *Book on the
Science of Metaphysics* ends with the announcement of a treatise
on political philosophy to follow, entitled *The Conditions of the
Perfect State and its Consequences*: if people are educated to
grew up in virtues, it will be possible to realize *al-madina
al-fadila*, the Farabian perfect state.



This overview of the reception and use of the Greek and Arabic sources
by 'Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi in his *Book on the Science of
Metaphysics* proves that, in the framework of al-Farabi's
awareness of the manifold nature of metaphysics--ontology,
knowledge of causes, universal science, and divine science or
theology--the return to the Ancients, and to Aristotle, declared
by 'Abd al-Latif to be necessary in his biography, was certainly
not a return to the Aristotle of the Greek sources, linguistic access
to which had by that time been lost for a couple of centuries. Rather
it was a return to the Aristotle of his own tradition: that strongly
Neoplatonized Aristotle of the origins of the Kindian
*falsafa*. 'Abd al-Latif's treatise on metaphysics
is in fact deeply rooted in the whole set of Greek works on first
philosophy that had been translated or paraphrased into Arabic under
the impulse and direction of al-Kindi: in al-Kindi as in 'Abd
al-Latif's project where the knowledge of the causes comes to
coincide with a natural theology that investigates the First
Principle, the *De Providentia* of Alexander of Aphrodisias,
Proclus' *Elements of Theology*, and the last three of
Plotinus' *Enneads* constitute a natural development of
book *Lambda* of the *Metaphysics*.


## 5. Good and bad Epistemologies and Practices



'Abd al-Latif's attitude towards contemporary medicine and
the practice of alchemy helps us understand his consideration for the
epistemology of the sciences, which must be based on universal grounds
as that of the Ancients, and it explains once more the primacy
'Abd al-Latif assigns to the philosophy of the Greeks which he
considered the right way of thinking and therefore of acting.


### 5.1 Medical Epistemology



'Abd al-Latif in the first part of his above mentioned
autobiographical work (Joosse 2011, 2014) focuses on the
epistemological status of the art of medicine using different
comparisons which seem to be in contradiction: medicine is like both
mathematics and the art of archery (Joosse & Pormann 2008).
Medicine is an art concerned with universals. For this reason it does
not make errors. Mathematics is also a science which considers
abstract concepts, but even in this theoretical science approximation
occurs (the examples are that of the impossibility of squaring a
circle and the approximation in writing an irrational number).
Concerning the physicians, they are like the expert in the art of
archery "who hits the mark in most cases" (Joosse 2014:
66), but they can make mistakes because they are concerned with
particulars. Good physicians, even if they do not hit the target, do
not miss it entirely. For 'Abd al-Latif his contemporaries are
like those whose arrows which do not hit the targets, but on the
contrary, fall in the opposite direction (Joosse & Pormann
2010).



The pitiful state of contemporary medicine, in contrast to the
medicine of the Ancients Hippocrates, Dioscorides and Galen, is caused
first of all because the contemporaries do not follow a medical
epistemology. 'Abd al-Latif observes that, even in antiquity,
medical sects had existed which taught false medicine. 'Abd
al-Latif recalls, in particular, the Empirical and Methodist sects
which were in opposition to the Dogmatic or Rationalist one, according
to the classic tripartite division of medical schools which were known
to Arabic authors due precisely to the Arabic translation of many
introductory works by Galen and pseudo-Galen. The Empirical sect of
Sceptical inspiration, in fact, was neither concerned to study the
anatomical structure of the human body nor the internal secrets of
illnesses. It rejected any possible analogy between the dead body and
the living body. It denied any general theory. The medicine which it
taught, therefore, translated itself into a medical practice totally
alien to the anatomic-physiological basis of symptoms and was wholly
linked to clinical phenomena and the classification of symptoms and
medicines. The Methodist sect of Stoic and Epicurean inspiration, for
which human life was the natural place for moral and physical
suffering, held that the human body was formed of atoms which could
not be perceived by the senses and which were in continual movement
through pores and channels. According to this sect, illness came about
in the case of an alteration in the quality and the movement of the
corpuscles or in the case of an excessive tightening or relaxing of
the pores through which the atoms moved. Therapy, therefore, was
reduced to baths designed to provoke sweat in cases of the tightening
of the pores and astringents and tonics in the case of dilation, in
order to return to an intermediate perviousness. 'Abd al-Latif
holds that the above sects are far removed from the medicine practiced
by the Dogmatic doctors of Platonic and Aristotelian inspiration who
considered anatomy and physiology to be the basic sciences and for
whom the detailed study of the internal causes of an illness was
primary and necessary. Nevertheless, the criteria followed by the
Empirical and the Methodist sects were thus far scientific: the
physicians followed a theory and did not proceed by pure and simple
supposition, as most contemporary physicians did (Joosse & Pormann
2010).



In 'Abd al-Latif's opinion, the medicine of his age must
rediscover and apply Greek medicine with its principles, descriptions
of diseases, and therapies. Greek theoretical medicine is concerned
with universals and is founded on the ground of universal principles
which are valid everywhere. In this respect, according to him, Greek
medicine is far superior to his contemporaries' practice and
must be learned by the physicians of his age according to the
principle of accumulation of knowledge which also guides 'Abd
al-Latif's philosophical project.


### 5.2 Against Alchemy



'Abd al-Latif was profoundly averse to alchemy, which was much
in vogue in his time (Wiedeman 1907; Joosse 2008, 2014: 29-62).
It can in no way be placed in the system of the sciences. It is a
complete fraud: the false alchemists are all engaged in the production
of elixirs or the "Philosophers' stone". They
believe



> 
> 
> in the substantial transmutation of metals and thought that the
> "differentia specifica" of metals could be produced during
> an artificial process, which in the end would always lead to the
> transformation of lead and other base metals into precious metals gold
> and silver. (Joosse 2008: 304)
> 
> 
> 



Alchemy and its false presumptions must be distinguished from
scientific knowledge, such as mathematics, mineralogy, chemistry,
zoology, and botany. Proof of this is that the Ancients never spoke of
it: Pythagoras has not devoted a treatise to it, Plato and Aristotle
never speak of it, and thus neither do the Greek commentators after
them. There is not a single word on alchemy in all of Galen's
voluminous works, nor in that of John Philoponus. In the Islamic age
al-Jahiz, Hunayn ibn Ishaq, his son Ishaq, his grandson Hunayn, Abu
Bishr Matta, and Abu al-Faraj ibn al-Tayyib keep all silent on the
subject. The father of this false science would seem to have been
Jabir ibn Hayyan who has turned generations of students after him
astray. Al-Farabi, the greatest Islamic philosopher, mentions elixirs
(*al-iksir*) in a highly negative way only once. Even Avicenna,
in his treatise on alchemy does not give this art a rational basis.
Alchemy is guilty of having waylaid generations of scholars.



'Abd al-Latif's life and works testifies the crucial role
played by many Muslim men of learning and science, who attended the
milieus of the Islamic schools between the 12th and
13th centuries, in the transmission of the Greek
philosophical and medical knowledge, still perceived as essential to
the training of the learned Muslim.