Abdeljelil Temimi

Abdeljelil Temimi, also transliterated as Abdoljalil Tamimi (عبد الجليل التميمي; born July 21, 1938), is a Tunisian historian. He specialises in the cultural and architectural influences of the Ottomans and Moriscos in the Arab world.

Life
Temimi was born on July 21, 1938, in Kairouan. He followed primary, secondary and higher education in Tunisia, Turkey, Iraq and France, and obtained his doctorate in 1972 in modern history at the University of Aix-Provence. Furthermore, he obtained several academic diplomas in Architecture, Information Science and Library and information science at the National Archives of France, the University of Pittsburgh and the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C.

From 1972 to 2000 he was a professor in contemporary history at Tunis University.

Temimi stood at the beginning of several research institutes. At the beginning of the seventies, he was one of the founders of ARBICA in Rome. In 1985 he founded the Fondation Temimi pour la Recherche Scientifique et l'Information (FTERSI) in the city of Zaghouan, and in 1986 he founded the Arab Federation of Libraries and Information. Since his superannuation in 2000 he is honorable chairman of this federation. Furthermore, he is chairman of the Arab Committee for Ottoman Studies (Comité Arabe d’Etudes Ottomanes) since 1982 and of the International Committee of Morisco Studies (Comité International d’Etudes Morisques) since 1983.

Besides, he established a number of scientific magazines, like the Revue d'Histoire Maghrébine in 1974, the Arab Historical Review for Ottoman Studies in 1990, and the Revue Arabe d'Archives and the Documentation et d'Information in 1997. He organized dozens of congresses in the field of Social sciences and Humanities of the Arab, Morisco, Turkish and Ottoman worlds. His institute FTERSI grew to be a center of civilian and scientific dialogue, and accommodates a library with a collection of 18,000 books, 24 residential studios and two conference halls.

Acknowledgement
Professor Emeritus at the University of Tunis, he is member of the Tunisian Academy of Sciences, Letters, and Arts and of the Turkish Historical Society.

In 1990, he was honored by the University of Cairo for his role in the rapprochement between Arab academics. In 1997, he was honored by the Prince Claus Award for his research of Ottoman architecture and culture in the Arab world. In the same year, he received an honorary degree from Istanbul University.

In 2001 the Institut Supérieur de Documentation published Mélanges Abdeljelil Temimi to his honor, for his contribution in library and information science and information science in Tunisia and the Arab world. In 2017, the 18th Congress of Moorish Studies of the Faculty of Letters, Arts and Humanities of Manouba pays tribute to him for his entire scientific output.

Honours

 * Knight of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France, 1984)
 * Commander of the Order of Cultural Merit (Tunisia, 1991)
 * Order of Merit of the Republic of Turkey (Turkey, 2014)