Muḥsin Sayyid Mahdī (Arabic: محسن مهدي; cited Muhsin S. Mahdi; June 21, 1926 – July 9, 2007) was an Iraqi-American Islamologist and Arabist.
After finishing high school in Baghdad, he was awarded a government scholarship to study at the American University of Beirut, where he earned both a B.B.A.
Here he studied at the Oriental Institute under Nabia Abbott and began his lifelong exploration of political philosophy under the guidance of Leo Strauss.
Grounded in the methods of critical editions of manuscripts developed by European scholars for the ancient and medieval texts, he tried to establish the same standards in the fields of Arabic philology and philosophy.
With Ralph Lerner at Chicago and Ernest Fortin at Boston College, he co-edited Medieval Political Philosophy, a path-breaking sourcebook that includes selections in translation from Arabic, Hebrew and Latin texts.