John Spencer Trimingham (17 November 1904 – 6 March 1987) was a noted English 20th-century scholar onIslam in Africa.^[1] Trimingham was born inThorne to John William Trimingham and Alice Ventress. In 1932, Trimingham married Wardeh in Jerusalem. Wardeh later died in 1980.

Trimingham studied social sciences atBirmingham University, Arabic and Persian atOxford University, and trained for the ministry of the Church of England atWells Theological College. He served with theChurch Missionary Society in the Sudan, Egypt, and West Africa (1937–1953) and travelled extensively carrying out detailed studies ofIslam in Africa. He first published on Arabic and on the Christian approach to Islam, later on the history of Islam in Africa andSufi orders.Subsequently, he was reader in Arabic and head of the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies atGlasgow University (1953–1964) and a visiting professor in the department of history at theAmerican University of Beirut (1964–1970). He then moved to the faculty of theNear East School of Theology inBeirut.

Triminghan died in 1987 inLingfield.

• Sudan colloquial Arabic. 2nd. rev. ed., London, 1946
• The Christian approach to Islam in the Sudan. London, Oxford University Press, 1948
• Islam in the Sudan. London, Oxford University Press, 1949
• Islam in Ethiopia. London, Oxford University Press, 1952
• Islam in West Africa. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1959
• A history of Islam in West Africa. London, Oxford University Press, 1964
• Islam in East Africa. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1964. (Repr. New York, 1980:ISBN 0836992709)
• The influence of Islam upon Africa. London, Longmans, 1968 (Second edition, 1980)
• The Sufi orders in Islam. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1971.ISBN 0198265247 (Repr. 1998:ISBN 0-19-512058-2)
• Two worlds are ours. A study of time and eternity in relation to the Christian Gospel freed from the tyranny of the Old Testament reference. Beirut, Librairie du Liban, 1971
• Christianity among the Arabs in pre-Islamic times. London, Longman, 1979.ISBN 0582780810

• Scanned copy of the entire bookIslam in the Sudan (failed OCR)

• British scholars of Islam
• Islam in Africa
• 1904 births
• 1987 deaths
• Alumni of Wells Theological College
• Alumni of the University of Birmingham

• Use dmy dates from April 2022