I was educated in the University of London, primarily
but not entirely at the School of Oriental and African
Studies, where I took both my B.A. (Honors in History) and
my Ph.D. My B.A. degree was in History with special
reference to the Near and Middle East; my Ph.D. in the
History of Islam. I also studied Law, and went part of the
way towards becoming a barrister, but decided that I
didn't like it, and returned to study, and later teach,
Middle Eastern History. It was a choice that I have never
regretted. I also did part of my graduate work in the
University of Paris, and spent some months touring the
Middle East. I received my first teaching appointment in
1938, as an assistant lecturer (the lowest form of human
life in British universities) in Islamic History at the
School of Oriental and African Studies. With the exception
of the years 1940 to 1945, when I was otherwise engaged, I
remained a University teacher until my formal retirement
in 1986, and, in a less formal sense, ever since. Until
1974, I taught at the University of London; since 1974 at
Princeton.
Like most university teachers, I have had a somewhat
narrow field in which I conducted my own research, a
rather wider one in which I was willing to assist others
undertake research, and a still wider one in which I was
willing to risk undergraduate teaching. My earliest
interest was in medieval Islamic History, especially that
of religious movements such as the Ismailis and Assassins.
The war years awakened and nourished an interest in the
contemporary Middle East, which I have retained ever
since. My major research interest for some time past has
been the history of the Ottoman Empire. At the present
time I am trying to combine all three by studying the
history of the relations between Europe and Islam from
early through Ottoman to modern times.
As an emeritus professor I teach no courses -- that is,
not at Princeton, though an occasional invitation gives me
the opportunity to ply my trade elsewhere. At the moment
of my retirement, seven students were preparing
dissertations under my guidance. Six of them--Müge Göçek,
Leslie Peirce, Amy Singer, Shaun Marmon, Corinne Blake and
Dina Le Gall--have obtained their doctorates. Of these
Müge Göçek is teaching at Michigan, Leslie Peirce at
Cornell, Amy Singer at the University of Tel-Aviv, Corinne
Blake at Rowan College, Shaun Marmon in the Religions
Department here and Dina Le Gall at Macalester College in
Minnesota. Their dissertation topics were as follows: Muge
Göcek - "Toward a Theory of Westernization and Social
Change: Eighteenth & Nineteenth Century Ottoman Society"
(1988); Leslie Peirce - "The Imperial Harem: Gender and
Power in the Ottoman Empire 1520-1656" (1989); Amy Singer
- "Ottoman Officials and Palestinian Peasants: Rural
Administration in the Sancak of Jerusalem in the
Mid-Sixteenth Century" (1989); Shaun Marmon - "The Eunuchs
of the Prophet: Space, Time, and Gender in Islamic
Society" (1990); Corinne Blake - "Training Arab-Ottoman
Bureaucrats: Syrian Graduates of the Mulkiye Mektebi
1890-1920" (1990); Dina Le Gall - "The Ottoman
Naqshbandiyya in the Pre-Mujaddidi Phase: A Study in
Islamic Religious Culture and Its Transmission" (1991).
Some representative publications:
The Arabs in History, London 1950;
The Emergence of Modern Turkey, London and New York
1961
The Assassins, London 1967
The Muslim Discovery of Europe, New York 1982
The Political Language of Islam, Chicago 1988
Race and Slavery in the Middle East: an Historical
Enquiry, New York 1990
Islam and the West, New York, 1993
Islam in History, 2nd edition, Chicago, 1993
The Shaping of the Modern Middle East, New York,
1994
Cultures in Conflict, New York, 1994
The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000
Years, New York, 1995
The Future of the Middle East, London, 1997
The Multiple Identities of the Middle East, London,
1998
A Middle East Mosaic: Fragments of life, letters and
history, New York, 2000
