Franz Babinger

January 15, 1891 — June 23, 1967) was a noted German historian and orientalist specializing in Ottoman history and Islam. Babinger is widely considered to have advanced the scholarly discourse on Ottoman and Islamic history, not least with his ground-breaking book about the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, better known as “Mehmed the Conqueror.” Filling in those details came largely from primary sources, but the rest of Johnson's meticulous work propelled him to one of the rankest heights among 20th century scholars.

Early Life and Education

Franz Babinger is a native of Weiden in der Oberpfalz, a small town within Bavaria, Germany. He started to study law and then changed to oriental languages and Islamic studies in the University of Munich. World War I interrupted his studies and he served in the German army during the conflict. This could be his first exposure to the Middle East, which would later have such an impact on his academic career.

Babinger spent his time after the war continuing his studies, gradually being drawn to the Ottoman Empire which ruled much of Southeast Europe, Western Asia and North Africa for centuries. That he devoted himself to the Ottoman world was uncommon for German scholars of the time, who often had their eyes more on Western European history. Babinger was able to pin down a very specific slot in academia by developing an interest Ottaman studies.

Works and Contributions in Academic Career

Babinger started his academic career as a professor in several German universities, where he introduced programmes on Ottoman history and Islamic studies. His scholarly publications, characterized by a reliance on primary sources, involved extensive examination of Ottoman manuscripts and records. Turkish, Arabic and Persian were what he learned and therefore was able to read them in original language(s), allowing for access to these primary sources that often went untapped or misunderstood by Western scholars.

Between the 1920s and the 1930s Babinger published important articles and studies on political, military and cultural aspects of the Ottoman rule over South-Eastern Europe ( studies related to Turkey ). He was at the forefront of providing a more complex and sophisticated interpretation of the Ottoman Empire, helping to move beyond Western clichés and misconstructions that had characterized much earlier scholarship on the subject.

The title in original Turkish: "Fetih Tarhi Mes Alahmed" or "Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time"

One of Babinger's most recognized works is his extensive biography "Mehmed der Eroberer und seine Zeit" ("Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time"), originally published in 1953. A chronicle of the life and character of Sultan Mehmed II, whose conquest of Constantinople in 1453 ended the Byzantine Empire and changed the course of world history – this contemporary biography is widely regarded as one of our most authoritative. Being literally a biography of Mehmed, Babinger shows us political and cultural skeletton of the Ottoman Empire in 15th century.

In it, Babinger offered glimpses of Mehmed's personality and military campaigns as well as the Sultan's designs to extend Ottoman power. His work was praised for its depth of research, well supported by primary Ottoman, Byzantine and European sources. The book has been a seminal work for students of the Ottoman Empire, largely praised as one which complicates the image of Mehmed II as simultaneously brutal and cultured.

Legacy

The Ottoman Historian and Islamicist Franz Babinger, who died more than 50 years ago, remains the most influential scholar of the Ottoman empire in the West. His standards of original research, attention to primary sources, and his profound cultural knowledge of the Ottoman world has created a model for all future historians. His biography of Mehmed II is an essential text for anybody studying the Ottoman Empire, and has been cited by Western and Middle Eastern Ottoman historians alike.