[5] Tahir al-Jaza'iri (full name: Arabic: طاهر بن محمد صالح بن أحمد بن موهوب السمعوني الجزائري الدمشقي, romanized: Ṭāhir bin Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ bin Aḥmad bin Mawhūb al-Samʿūni al-Jazāʿiri al-Dimashqi[5]) was born in 1852 in Damascus to an academic family of the Sam'un Amazigh tribe of Algeria.

[1][5] His father, Muhammad Salih, a mufti of the Maliki school of jurisprudence, had migrated from Algeria to Damascus in 1846.

[6] He also studied French, Hebrew, Syriac, Ethiopian, several ancient Semitic languages, and Tamazight, though he did not master these.

[6] 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.

[2] Soon after his return he was elected as a member of the Arabic Academy in Damascus and the Director of the Ẓāhirīyyah Library.