Halil Inaldžik (prof. dr. Halil İnalcık, 07. 09. 1916 – 25. 07. 2016.)
Halil İnalcık, PhD (07.09.1916-25.07.2016)

Summary/Abstract: Halil İnalcık was an authority in the field of social and economic history of the Ottoman state in the East as well as in the West. He didn’t start his engagement in this field at a time when it was socially popular to talk about the last caliphate, an Islamic empire that had survived six centuries.Though, should his scholarly moral have allowed it, in certain periods it would have been better for him had he interpreted and eliminated historical facts in accordance with daily politics, or with the one in zeal with Kemalism and its ideas and Prime minister Inonu’s firm hand which glorified the idea of the nation-state, or with that which strived to raise ethnicity to idols, and finally with the one that nostalgically and romantically spoke about Ottomans equalizing the ashab and tabi’in. For Halil İnalcık, scientific truth was only one and it could be based on authentic sources, be it of the Ottoman or European provenance, but it could not be limited to the mere interpretation of the sources, but it observed them from the perspective of socio-economic, cultural, political and many other aspects in the way inherent to İnalcık himself.

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