Archery, mathematics, and conceptualizing inaccuracies in medicine in 13th century Iraq and Syria.

Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi was born in March 1162 in his grandfather’s house in a street called Darb al-Faludhaj in Baghdad. He died there on 9 November 1231, and was buried in the Wardiyah cemetery next to his father, Yusuf. Abd al-Latif travelled extensively and spent a large part of his life in Aleppo, Cairo and Damascus, all three of which were important intellectual centres in the medieval Islamic world. Under the supervision of numerous famous teachers, he first studied introductory subjects – such as Arabic grammar, lexicology, and poetry – and later traditional (Islamic) and ancient (foreign) sciences. The former included law, jurisprudence, and hadith (the utterances of the Prophet Muhammad); the latter dealt with mathematics, medicine, and philosophy. Abd al-Latif had a strong preference for the ancient Greek physicians (Hippocrates, Dioscorides, Rufus of Ephesus and Galen). But he also clearly respected some Arab physicians, such as Ibn al-Tilmidh and Ahmad ibn abi l-Ashath, and cherished two Arabic medical handbooks in particular – the Small Compendium (al-Kunnash as-saghir) by Yuhanna ibn Sarabiyun, and The Hundred Books on the Medical Art (al-Kutub al-mi’a fi al-sina’a al-tibbiya) by Abu Sahl al-Masihi. He had a high regard for al-Razi’s Comprehensive Book of Medicine (al-Kitab al-Hawi fi al-tibb) (al-Razi 10th century) and other works by that author, and he drew extensively on al-Razi when composing his treatise on the disease now called diabetes (Fi l-marad alladhi yusamma diyabita). Abd al-Latif was able to concentrate on textual research and teaching without being bothered too much by the ‘annoyances’ of the practical side of medicine because he received ample royal patronage from Sultan Saladin and other Ayyubid rulers. In Abd al-Latif’s eyes, the most excellent scholars earned the right to be granted this kind of remuneration in order not to have to follow the ‘basic’ occupations. In this sense, he reflected Aristotle’s view, expressed at the beginning of the Metaphysics, that the highest level of intellectual activity is that which is free from material concerns and devoid of practical considerations and applications.