Biography
An interesting memoir of Abdallatif, written by himself, has been preserved with additions by Ibn Abu-Osaiba (Ibn Abi Usaibia), a contemporary. From that work we learn that the higher education of the youth of Baghdad consisted principally in a minute and careful study of the rules and principles of grammar, and in their committing to memory the whole of the Qur'an, a treatise or two on philology and jurisprudence, and the choicest Arabic poetry.
After attaining to great proficiency in that kind of learning, Abdallatif applied himself to natural philosophy and medicine. To enjoy the society of the learned, he went first to Mosul (1189), and afterwards to Damascus. With letters of recommendation from Saladin's vizier, he visited Egypt, where he realized his wish to converse with Maimonides.
He afterwards formed one of the circles of learned men whom Saladin gathered around him at Jerusalem. He taught medicine and philosophy at Cairo and at Damascus for a number of years, and afterwards, for a shorter period, at Aleppo.
His love of travel led him to visit different parts of Armenia and Asia Minor in his old age. Also, he was in the process of setting out on a pilgrimage to Mecca when he died at Baghdad.
Read more about this topic: Abd Al-Latif Al-Baghdadi (medieval Writer)
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“A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.”
—André Maurois (1885–1967)