طاهر الجزائري

Depth

At a glance

Roles: Scholar
Era: The Modern Era
Region: Levant & Iraq
Review: Draft Completeness 2/5 · Help complete it

Life in time

The Colonial Era · The Gunpowder Empires · The Modern Era Contemporaries: Abadi Bano Begum · Akbar Allahabadi (Urdu satirical poet, 1846–1921) · Ali-Hajji of Akusha · Badreddin al-Hasani · Deli Fuad Pasha

Overview

Shaykh Tahir ibn Muhammad Salih al-Samnuni al-Jaza'iri (1852–1920 CE), a researcher and one of the great scholars of language in Damascus ².

Manuscripts and libraries

al-Zirikli reports that he was keen on acquiring manuscripts and searching for them. He helped establish the Zahiriyya Library in Damascus, gathering in it what had been scattered across the public collections, and he helped establish the Khalidiyya Library in Jerusalem ².

His last years

He moved to Cairo in the year 1325 AH, then returned to Damascus in the year 1338 AH. He was appointed a working member of the Arab Academy and director of the Zahiriyya Library, and he died three months later ².

His learning and works

He had a good command of most of the Eastern languages, such as Hebrew, Syriac, Ethiopic, Turkish and Persian. He wrote about twenty works, among them "al-Jawahir al-Kalamiyya fi al-Aqa'id al-Islamiyya", "Badi' al-Talkhis", and "Iqd al-Lali fi al-Asanid al-Awali" ².