Abd al-Rahman al-Sa'di

Abd al-Rahman al-Sa'di (1596 – c. 1656) was a West African jurist, imam and historian born in Timbuktu. He served as a notary in Djenné and from 1627 as imam of the Sankoré mosque, then returned to Timbuktu around 1637, where as kātib, or government secretary, he mediated between local Songhai rulers and the Moroccan Arma administration.

Around 1655 he began writing the Tarikh al-Sudan, an Arabic chronicle of the Songhai Empire down to the Moroccan invasion of 1591 and of Timbuktu under Moroccan rule, which remains a major source for Songhai history.