Georges-Henri Bousquet (21 June 1900, Meudon – 23 January 1978, Latresne) was a 20th-century French jurist, economist and Islamologist. He was a professor of law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Algiers where he was a specialist in the sociology of North Africa (Berbers, Islam).[1] He is also known for his translation work of the great Muslim authors, Al-Ghazali, a theologian who died in 1111 and Tunisian historian Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406). He was known as a polyglot, spoke several European languages (Dutch, his second mother tongue, English, German, Italian, but also Spanish, Danish, Norwegian) and Eastern ones (Arabic, Malay).
After studying law, economics and political science in Paris, Bousquet was appointed in 1927 as a lecturer in economics at the Faculty of Law of Algiers. By this time, he learned Arabic and became interested in Islamic studies while preparing the agrégation in political economy, which he passed in 1932. He became a professor and continued his academic career in Algiers for three decades, as an economist and scholar of Islam. The titles of his chair were successively Économie et sociologie nord-africaine (in 1947), to become Histoire comparée des coutumes de l'Islam et économie et sociologie algériennes one year later and finally Droit musulman et sociologie nord-africaine. After the independence of Algeria, Bousquet moved to Bordeaux to complete his academic career: he taught both Muslim sociology and the history of economic thought.
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