h because of certain traces in the Barbary States had been
generally considered the work of Ahmed Baba. The explorer Barth, the
first to make a study of this document, was of the same opinion. Felix
DuBois expresses his surprise that a man so well informed on Arabian
subjects as Barth could be so easily misled, when the very extracts
themselves quote Ahmed Baba as an authority. This misconception was
due to the failure of the German scholar to read anything but the
fragments which he discovered at Gando and to his suspicion that the
author in quoting Ahmed Baba was following the Arabs' custom of
quoting themselves. Felix DuBois found an excellent copy in Jenne and
made from it a duplicate which was corrected from a copy of
Timbuctoo,[195] so that he now has the work in what he considers as
complete a form as possible.[196]

In establishing the authorship of this work, Felix DuBois emphasizes
the fact that the book contains the date, year, month and day of
Ahmed Baba's death and that elsewhere the author gives a very
circumstantial account of himself and his belongings. "His name,"
according to this authority, "is Abderrahman (ben Abdallah, ben Amran,
ben Amar) Sadi el Timbucti, and he was born at Timbuctoo, (the 'object
of his affections'), of one of those families in which science and
piety are transmitted as a patrimony."[197] It seems that he was
trained by a distinguished professor who inspired him with the desire
to be intellectual. This book shows, too, that he was a mature man
some time between 1625 and 1635, during the period when the star of
Timbuctoo was waning. That he should still maintain himself as a
scholar and obtain the respect of the destructive invaders was due to
the reverence with which they held the learned men of the fallen
Empire. Having established a reputation which far transcended the
bounds of his native country, Abderrahman Sadi was received with marks
of honor and presented with gifts during all of his travels to Massina
and the regions of the Upper Niger. He was made iman of a mosque of
Jenne in 1631, but was later deprived of that honor. He then returned
to Timbuctoo, where he was received with sympathy and consoled by
friends.

Abderrahman Sadi spent his remaining years, first at Timbuctoo, then
at Jenne. It seems that because of his unusual learning and knowledge
of politics and government he was employed by the pashas in diplomatic
affairs. Although there was then no longer the same