A Description Before the "Description de l'Égypte": Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi's Book on Egypt

Egypt holds a crucial position in history. Throughout the years, its ruins and its River have attracted every form of human curiosity. It is known that Egyptology began following Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt, with a series of publications (23 volumes) entitled Description de l’Egypte; the first volume appeared in 1809 and the last one in 1829. The Description de l’Egypte deals with Egypt from multiple perspectives: natural, archaeological, social and architectural. However, there is an earlier Arab monograph about Egypt, which is dated 1204 AD. This article aims at analyzing the Kitab al-Ifadah, the monograph of Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, which describes Egypt’s geographical characteristics such as its mountains, the Nile River and its floods, as well as its diverse flora and fauna. In addition, Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi describes Egypt’s incredible ruins, including the Giza pyramids, the Sphinx, Heliopolis, and the library of Alexandria attempting to interpret those ruins.