Saadi, Abd al-Rahman ibn Abd Allah al-

Saadi, Abd al-Rahman ibn Abd Allah al- 

Born 1596 in Tombouctou; died there 1656. African historian.

Al-Saadi wrote, in Arabic, the chronicle Tarikh al-Sudan (History of the Sudan). The chronicle contains a wealth of information on the history of the Songhai state in the 15th and 16th centuries and the history of other states in the valley of the middle Niger River from 1591 to 1656; it also deals extensively with the history of Muslim culture in Tombouctou and Djenné. The German explorer H. Barth discovered al-Saadi’s chronicle during his stay in Tombouctou in 1853 and 1854.

WORKS

Tarikh es-Soudan: Texte arabe et trad, française, vols. 1–2. Edited and translated by O. Houdas. Paris, 1898–1900. Second ed., Paris, 1964.