Muhammad Al-Tahir Ibn 'Ashur

Muhammad Al-Tahir bin Ashour is a Tunisian scholar, interpreter, jurist, and linguist. His family is from Andalusia, and its origins go back to the Idrisid nobility. This family settled in Tunisia after the Christianization campaigns and the Inquisition to which the Muslims of Andalusia were subjected. His time was the time of European colonialism in the Arab world, especially in Tunisia under French protection, and with the emergence of religious and intellectual reform movements. His translation stated: “The birth of Al-Tahir came in an era filled with reformist and renewal calls that wanted to move religion and its sciences from the realm of stagnation and tradition to renewal and reform, and to bring the nation out of the swamp of backwardness and colonialism to the arena of progress, freedom and independence. The ideas of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Muhammad Abduh, and Muhammad Rashid Reda had a resounding echo in Tunisia and its ancient mosque, to the point that the men of Zaytouna began to reform their mosque from an educational standpoint before the Al-Azhar Mosque.