Imber, Colin

PERSONAL:

Education: Royal Institute of Technology, doctorate, 1970.

ADDRESSES:

Office—School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures, University of Manchester, Oxford Rd., Manchester M13 9PL, England. E-mail—colin.h.imber@manchester.ac.uk.

CAREER:

Historian, educator, and writer. University of Manchester, Manchester, England, senior lecturer in Turkish.

WRITINGS:

(With William Brice and Richard Lorch) The Dā'ire-yī Mu'addel of Seydī'Alī Re'īs, University of Manchester (Manchester, England), 1976.

(With William Brice and Richard Lorch) The Aegean Sea-Chart of Mehmed Reis Ibn Menemenli, AD 1590-1, University of Manchester (Manchester, England), 1977.

The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1481, Isis Press (Istanbul, Turkey), 1990.

(Editor, with Colin Heywood) Studies in Ottoman History in Honour of Professor V.L. Ménage, Isis Press (Istanbul, Turkey), 1994.

Studies in Ottoman History and Law, Isis Press (Istanbul, Turkey), 1996.

Ebu's-su'ud: The Islamic Legal Tradition, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 1997.

(Editor and contributor, with Çigdem Balm-Harding) The Balance of Truth: Essays in Honour of Professor Geoffrey Lewis, Isis Press (Istanbul, Turkey), 2000.

The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650: The Structure of Power, Palgrave Macmillan (New York, NY), 2002.

(Editor, with Keiko Kiyotaki) Frontiers of Ottoman Studies: State, Province, and the West, I.B. Tauris (New York, NY), 2005.

The Crusade of Varna, 1443-45, Ashgate (Burlington, VT), 2006.

Contributor to books, including Islamic Legal Interpretation: Motifs and Their Fatwas, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1996; Jurists: Profiles in Legal Theory, Edinburgh University Press (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1997; Studies in Middle Eastern Texts and Traditions in Memory of Norman Calder, Oxford University Press (Manchester, England), 2000; and The Kapudan Pasha, His Office and His Domain, Crete University Press (Rethymnon, Greece), 2002. Contributor to professional journals, including Eurasian Studies and the Journal of Turkish Studies.

SIDELIGHTS:

According to Colin Heywood, writing on the Institute of Historical Research Web site, Colin Imber "is perhaps the leading … of the painfully few Ottoman historians … working in British universities." Heywood went on to write in the same article that, "forced to choose between classifying him as a historian equipped with oriental languages, or as an orientalist who happens to write history, we would unhesitatingly—and correctly—place him in the former group." Imber's areas of expertise include Ottoman history, 1300-1600; Ottoman literature; and Islamic and Ottoman law. He has written both journal articles and books on these and other related topics.

Imber's book The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1481, published in 1990, focuses on the early history of the Empire. The author provides a documented chronology of Ottoman history from the earliest reasonably fixed dates until the death of Sultan Mehmed II. Writing in the English Historical Review, R.C. Repp noted that the early history of the Ottoman Empire is shrouded in obscurity and "that very little can be regarded as established fact." Repp went on to write in the same article: "The outstanding virtue of Colin Imber's [book] … is that it returns to basics, to a close examination of what exists in the way of source materials … and builds up a chronology based closely upon those sources. On the whole, the author rigorously eschews speculation." Rudi Paul Lindner also commented on the lack of reliable information on the Ottoman Empire in a review of The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1481 in the Journal of the American Oriental Society. Noting that Imber's goal is "to provide a trustworthy chronology of Ottoman history" within the time period examined, Lindner went on in the same review to call the book "a careful, limited, and superior examination of some important facets of early Ottoman history." He added: "As such, it replaces a number of other accounts and will be required reading for scholars and students both."

In Ebu's-su'ud: The Islamic Legal Tradition, Imber examines Islamic law through the jurist Ebu's-su'ud, who holds a prominent position in the history of Islamic Law. Serving under the Sultan Süleiman I, who was known in the West as "the Magnificent," Ebu's-su'ud held a senior judicial position in the Ottoman Empire for nearly forty years. The author writes of the Ottoman concept of the ideal law as being traditional Islamic Law, which, however, was impractical in many respects and had to coexist with secular systems of law. Writing in the book's introduction, the author notes: "However, an Ottoman tradition which began, it seems, in the early seventeenth century and which modern historians frequently reiterate, asserts that during the reign of Süleiman I, Ebu's-su'ud succeeded in harmonising the secular law with the shari'a, creating, in effect, the ideal Islamic legal system." In the book, Imber explores the validity of this belief through an analysis of various areas of Islamic law. In an attempt to allow the reader to make up his or her own mind concerning Ebu's-su'ud's success in reconciling the religious and secular aspects of law in the Ottoman Empire, the author provides English translations of texts by the jurist.

Imber's 2002 book The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650: The Structure of Power provides a history of the Ottoman Empire from its obscure beginnings in the fourteenth century through the time it became a world power, and on to the mid-seventeenth century, by which time the Empire was facing serious problems. Focusing on an exploration of the growth and development of the institutions through which the Sultans ruled the Empire, the author provides a narrative of key events and explores the internal structure and politics of the Ottoman dynasty. Drawing from numerous multilingual sources, Imber provides a new perspective on one of the most important empires of the premodern age.

The author begins his book with a chronological history of the Ottoman Empire. Commenting on this chronology on H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online, Renee Worringer wrote: "What could have been merely a dry list of the many Ottoman conquests and defeats over time is instead a vibrant discussion of the multiculturalism of the Ottoman Empire." After providing the chronology, Imber goes on to discuss a variety of topics, including the Empire's legal system, military organization, and its administrative control over its territory.

Calling the book "a valuable contribution to the small number of general histories of the Ottoman Empire," Christine Isom-Verhaaren also wrote in the same review in the Historian: "In summary, this is an excellent text for the study of Ottoman political and institutional history and could profitably be used by both the general reader and Ottomanists." Amy Singer commented in the English Historical Review: "As an Ottomanist, it seems to me that this readable volume is aimed at a general audience seeking a serious introduction to the Ottoman empire. It assumes no prior knowledge, and is careful not to overwhelm the reader with technical terminology."

The Crusade of Varna, 1443-45 was published in 2006 and examines one of the crucial events of the late Middle Ages. The book recounts the Crusade brought about by Pope Eugenius IV in 1439, which was aimed at "liberating" Byzantium and the Balkan Peninsula from domination by the Ottoman Empire. The Crusade included a number of events and battles between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. In this book, Imber recounts how the troops of the Ottoman Sultan Murad II secured a crushing defeat of the Hungarian troops in the Battle of Varna, which took place November 10, 1444. He goes on to describe how the Sultan then secured Ottoman domination of the Balkan Peninsula. In telling the story, the author presents for the first time in English translation three texts that have been largely ignored in western historiography: an anonymous Ottoman text on The Holy Wars of Sultan Murad; a section of the Anciennes Chroniques d'Angleterre by the Burgundian Jehan de Wavrin; and a German ballad on the Crusade by Michel Beheim.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Imber, Colin, Ebu's-su'ud: The Islamic Legal Tradition, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 1997.

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, June, 2000, Bernard Weiss, review of Ebu's-su'ud, p. 1048.

American Journal of Legal History, January, 1999, Gregory C. Kozlowski, review of Ebu's-su'ud, pp. 101-103.

Booklist, January 1, 2003, Jay Freeman, review of The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650: The Structure of Power, p. 840.

English Historical Review, April, 1994, R.C. Repp, review of The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1481, p. 418; September, 2003, Amy Singer, review of The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650, p. 1002.

Historian, summer, 2006, Christine Isom-Verhaaren, review of The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650, p. 329.

History: Review of New Books, spring, 2003, Jonathan Grant, review of The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650, p. 120.

Journal of Legal History, December, 1999, Urfan Khaliq, review of Ebu's-su'ud, pp. 115-134.

Journal of the American Oriental Society, July-September, 1993, Rudi Paul Lindner, review of The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1481, p. 508.

Law and History Review, summer, 1999, Wael B. Hallaq, review of Ebu's-su'ud, pp. 404-406.

Reference & Research Book News, November, 2006, review of The Crusade of Varna, 1443-45.

Sixteenth Century Journal, spring, 2004, Hulya Canbakal, review of The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650, p. 268.

Times Higher Education Supplement, February 27, 2004, Ulrike Freitag, review of The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650, p. XIV.

Times Literary Supplement, October 17, 2003, Kate Fleet, review of The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650, p. 15.

Yale Journal of International Law, winter, 1998, Michael Durham, review of Ebu's-su-'ud, pp. 287-288.

ONLINE

GetCITED Web site,http://www.getcited.org/ (May 2, 2008), information on author.

H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online,http://www.h-net.org/ (October, 2004), Renee Worringer, review of The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650; (March, 2005), Christoph K. Neumann, review of The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650.

Institute of Historical Research,http://www.history.ac.uk/ (May 2, 2008), Colin Heywood, review of The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650.

University of Manchester Web site,http://www.manchester.ac.uk/ (May 2, 2008), faculty profile of author.