Ph.D., Ohio State University, History
M.A., Ohio State University, History
B.A. Koc University, History
B.A. Ankara University, School of Communication
Assistant Professor of History and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies & Director of Ottoman and Turkish Studies Initiative (OTS-NYU)
Ph.D., Ohio State University, History
M.A., Ohio State University, History
B.A. Koc University, History
B.A. Ankara University, School of Communication
Early Modern Middle East, Ottoman Empire, Iran, Sunni-Shiite Divide, Sects and Sectarianism in the Middle East, Empire and Identity Formation in the Middle East
I am a specialist in Middle Eastern history with a focus on early modern Ottoman and Safavid Empires. The questions surrounding the Sunni-Shi‘ite conflict during the early modern period and its enmeshment with issues of political, religious, and fiscal legitimacy in inter-confessional and inter-imperial contact zones is at the core of my research interests. By examining the religiosities of early modern Ottoman Anatolia/Iraq and Safavid Iran, my research provides an accurate picture for a deeper understanding of both the religious transformation of the Ottoman and Safavid polities in the early modern era and the current geo-political and demographic make-up in the region today. My current book project, tentatively titled Politics of Sectarianism in the Early Modern Middle East: Ottoman Sunnism, Safavid Shiism, and the Qizilbash, explores the Sunni-Shiite divergence in the early modern period, not merely as a religiously derived, but as a meticulously carried out geo-political and fiscal battle that formed the base of the sectarian configuration in the region today.
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study, 2020.
NYU Center for the Humanities Fellowship, 2020-2021.
Presidential Fellowship at Ohio State University, 2015-2016.
Ruth Higgins Research Grant, 2015.
Bradley Foundation Research Grant, 2013-2014.
Mershon Center for International Security Studies, Graduate Student Research Grant, 2013.
Sydney N. Fisher Award, Ohio State University, 2010.
“The Emergence of the Safavids as a Mystical Order and Their Subsequent Rise to Power in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries,” in The Safavids, ed. Rudi Matthee, (London: Routledge, forthcoming 2021).
Politics of Sect and Sectarianism in the Middle East: Ottoman Sunnism, Safavid Shiism, and the Qizilbash (book manuscript in preparation)