Abd al-Rahman bin Ali bin Abi Bakr al-Saqqaf was a Ba Alawi scholar of Tarim born in 850 AH. Al-Mashra al-Rawi records that he memorised the Quran and studied foundational works in jurisprudence, Arabic and devotional literature before pursuing advanced learning with scholars of Hadramawt.
His teachers included his father, members of his wider scholarly family, and jurists in Tarim. He later travelled to Aden, where he studied for several years with Abdullah bin Ahmad Bamakhramah and Muhammad bin Ahmad, and then to Zabid, where he studied with leading scholars including Yahya al-Amiri and Safi al-Din Ahmad bin Umar al-Mazjad. He subsequently travelled to the Hijaz, performed Hajj and studied in Mecca with the hadith scholar al-Sakhawi, who granted him ijazah.
Al-Mashra al-Rawi portrays Abd al-Rahman as a scholar of jurisprudence, hadith and the religious sciences who combined formal study with a life of worship. It also preserves traditional accounts of dreams, spiritual experiences and karamat associated with him and his scholarly circle. These reports are retained as part of the received devotional biography and are presented as attributed tradition rather than independently verified historical events.
He died in 923 AH and was buried at Zanbal Cemetery in Tarim. His identity and life dates are independently corroborated by the published edition of his diwan, while modern academic work on Hadrami scholarly travel also identifies Abd al-Rahman bin Ali bin Abi Bakr al-Saqqaf as a scholar of this period who travelled to the Hijaz and studied with al-Sakhawi.
Lineage and source note
Primary source: Al-Mashra al-Rawi fi Manaqib al-Sada al-Kiram Al Abi Alawi, volume 2, full mapped biography section. The section explicitly preserves his Ba Alawi lineage, education, travels and death. A published edition of his diwan independently gives his life dates as 850-923 AH, and modern historical scholarship corroborates his scholarly travel and study in the Hijaz. Traditional spiritual and karamat material is retained only as attributed received tradition.
Scholarly connections
The primary source names several teachers in Tarim, Aden, Zabid and the Hijaz. None is linked here unless the corresponding live BaAlawi profile can be resolved to the same historical person without generational ambiguity.