John Spencer Trimingham (17 November 1904 – 6 March 1987) was a noted English 20th-century scholar on Islam in Africa.
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 (1937–1953) and travelled extensively carrying out detailed studies of Islam in Africa.
Subsequently, he was reader in Arabic and head of the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Glasgow University (1953–1964) and a visiting professor in the department of history at the American University of Beirut (1964–1970).
He then moved to the faculty of the Near East School of Theology in Beirut.