The author, Abd al-Sadi, was born on 28 May 1594, and died at an unknown date sometime after 1655-56, the last date to be mentioned in his chronicle.[1] He spent most of his life working for the Moroccan Arma bureaucracy, initially in the administration of Djenné and the massina region of the Inland Niger Delta. In 1646 he became chief secretary to the Arma administration of Timbuktu.