Tahir al-Jaza'iri (full name: ) was born in 1852 in Damascus to an academic family of the
Sam'un Amazigh tribe of
Algeria. His father, Muhammad Salih, a mufti of the
Maliki school of
jurisprudence, had migrated from Algeria to
Damascus in 1846. Tahir studied with his father until the latter's death around 1868, after which he studied under
Abd al-Ghani Al-Maydani, Abd ar-Rahman al-Bustani, and Abd ar-Rahman al-Bushnaqi at the next to the
Umayyad Mosque. Tahir al-Jazairi was interested in Arabic and in Arabic literature, particularly old manuscripts. His mastery of
Persian was comparable to his mastery of Arabic, and he was also proficient in
Ottoman Turkish. He also studied French, Hebrew, Syriac, Ethiopian, several ancient Semitic languages, and Tamazight, though he did not master these. At the age of 22, he started teaching at al-Madrasa al-Zahiriyeh in Damascus. Under the reforms of the governor
Midhat Pasha, al-Jazairi became inspector of education. According to
Muḥammad Kurd ʿAlī, al-Jazairi also designed curricula for elementary education and wrote the necessary textbooks, in topics including Arabic grammar, ethics, religion, and history. Under Midhat Pasha, al-Jazairi also founded
Dar al-Kutub az-Zahiriyah, the
library of the Az-Zahiriyah, with manuscripts he collected from around Damascus. He then established
Khalidi Library in
Jerusalem in the name of Sheikh Raghib al-Khalidi of the
Khalidi family. He associated with intellectuals such as
Jamal al-Din Qasimi, , and . In 1902 he was dismissed from his position as inspector of libraries. Under continued pressure from Ottoman authorities, he left for Cairo in 1905 where he associated with
Ahmad Zaki Pasha and
Ahmed Taymour Pasha. In Cairo he supported himself as a book merchant, dealing in valuable manuscripts. He remained in Cairo for about thirteen years and in 1920 he became seriously ill, and he returned to Damascus. One of his pupils during this period was
Muhib al-Din al-Khatib who would be a significant figure for the Salafi movement in Egypt. Soon after his return he was elected as a member of the Arabic Academy in Damascus and the Director of the Ẓāhirīyyah Library. He died four months later in 1920 and was buried on the Qāsiyūn Mountain in Damascus, Syria. == Works ==