The Custodian of Spirits: Abū al-Barakāt al-Baghdādī's Theriac Called Amīn al-Arwāḥ (Study, Edition and Translation)

In this study, the philosopher and physician Abū al-Barakāt al-Baghdādī’s antidote called Amīn al-arwāḥ was analyzed, published and translated into Turkish. The text, of which there is only one copy, survived in a valuable medical collection (Manisa YEK, nr. 1781). The manuscript copied by ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī’s student Zakariyyā ibn Bilāl al-Marāghī, contains manuscripts of 12 different works, some of which were copied only here, as well as records of recitations between the master and the student. Amīn al-arwāḥ is a medicinal compound that is especially good for chronic febrile diseases, chronic coughs, and poisonous bites. The work, like the author’s other medicinal formula al-Barshatha, is written in a coded language that only specialists could understand. The physician Badr al-Dīn Siwār b. Bakhtiyār al-Zanjānī included the text in his book Jawāmiʿ al-adwiya al-mufrada wa al-murakkaba and deciphered the relevant part.