Osmanlı History and Institutions

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Osmanlı History and Institutions by Prof. Dr. Mehmet Maksudoğlu

Western literature about the Osmanlı Devlet, however scholarly it may seem, comprises a huge monument of distortion. “ … for too long the Ottomans have been studied without use of any of their sources, resulting in serious distortion and error. No history of France would be considered methodologically sound and balanced if it were written on the basis of English and Italian observations.” (Stanford J. Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Cambridge University Press, 1992, II, x.)

This book is based mainly on Osmanlı sources and represents an entirely new approach.

Mehmet Maksudoğlu was born in Eskişehir in 1939. He graduated from Ankara University Faculty of Theology and taught Arabic, Persian, English and Hadith as a Vocational Teacher at Izmir Imam Hatip High School completing his doctorate in 1966 (Ankara University), and teaching Turkish at the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge (1967-70), U.K. He taught Islamic History and Arabic at İlâhiyât Fakültesi, Marmara University, İstanbul for more than twenty years. As Head of Department of History and Civilization at the International Islamic University, Malaysia he taught Osmanlı History (1991-95) and Arabic and Turkish History at the International Turk-Qazak University, Qazakistan (2003-2004). 

Professor Maksudoğlu acted as founder Dean of İlâhiyat Fakültesi, Eskişehir Osmangazi University in 1996, retiring in 2006.

As an author he has written works on Osmanlı History and on Arabic, and contributed to scholarly journals and reference books.