J. Trimingham

Who is J. Trimingham?

John Spencer Trimingham was a noted 20th century scholar on Islam in Africa. Trimingham was born in Thorne to John William Trimingham and Alice Ventress. In Jerusalem Trimingham married Wardeh, who died in 1980.

Trimingham studied social sciences at Birmingham University, Arabic and Persian at Oxford University, and trained for the ministry of the Church of England at Wells Theological College. He served with the Church Missionary Society in the Sudan, Egypt, and West Africa and travelled extensively carrying out detailed studies of Islam in Africa. He first published on Arabic and on the Christian approach to Islam, later on the history of Islam in Africa and Sufi orders. Subsequently he was reader in Arabic and head of the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Glasgow University and a visiting professor in the department of history at the American University of Beirut. He then moved to the faculty of the Near East School of Theology in Beirut.

Triminghan died in 1987 in Lingfield.