Making Sense of History

Gül Şen, (Ph.D. 2012, Habil. 2021, University of Bonn), is Interim Professor of Middle Eastern Studies (Turkish, Persian), University of Heidelberg. She has published books and articles on Ottoman history and historiography.

"In the introduction to The Sultan’s Servants: The Transformation of Ottoman Provincial Government, 1550–1650, 5 Metin Kunt tells of his studies at Princeton. Among the courses that encouraged him to look closer into the Islamic background of Ottoman institutions he mentions David Ayalon’s seminar on the Mamluk state. And indeed, students of Mamluk historiography would benefit from Şen’s meticulous research. Her insights into the motives, structure and style of Naʿīmā’s chronicle serve as an inspiring study."--Yehoshua Frenkel, University of Haifa, in Mamlūk Studies Review, Vol. 25 (2022)[...] "In exposing Naʿīmā’s work to the tools and insights of literary criticism and cultural studies, she invites us into the intellectual world of his contemporaries".[...] "So highly valued was the writing of history in the Ottoman middle period that Şen describes the work of the court historian as an “almost divine mission”. Her exemplary volume is a model for the study of the chronicles of subsequent Ottoman court historians" [...].Caroline Finkel, London, in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (2023), pp. 1–2