Feroz Ahmad (26 January 1938 – 20 February 2025) was a Turkish-American academic, historian, and political scientist who taught at different universities, including the

University of Massachusetts Boston The University of Massachusetts Boston (stylized as UMass Boston) is a Public university, public US-based research university. It is the only public research university in Boston and the third-largest campus in the five-campus University of Ma ...

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university in Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts, United States, with additional facilities in Boston and Grafton, as well as Talloires, France. Tufts also has several Doctor of Physical Therapy p ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

, and

Yeditepe University Yeditepe University () is a private non-profit university situated in Istanbul, Turkey. Established by the Istanbul Education and Culture Foundation ('', İSTEK Vakfı'') in 1996, Yeditepe University now claims to be the largest of the 74 priva ...

. He was one of the leading scholars studying modern history of Turkey.

Early life and education

Ahmad was born in

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, but spread chiefly to the west, or beyond its Bank (geography ...

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

, in 1938. He received a bachelor's degree in history from

Delhi University The Delhi University (DU, ISO 15919, ISO: ), also and officially known as the University of Delhi, is a collegiate university, collegiate research university, research Central university (India), central university located in Delhi, India. It ...

and a master's degree in the same field from the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

. He obtained a PhD from the University of London under the supervision of

Bernard Lewis Bernard Lewis, (31 May 1916 – 19 May 2018) was a British-American historian specialized in Oriental studies. He was also known as a public intellectual and political commentator. Lewis was the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near ...

in 1966, and his thesis was about the

Young Turk Revolution The Young Turk Revolution (July 1908; ) was a constitutionalist revolution in the Ottoman Empire. Revolutionaries belonging to the Internal Committee of Union and Progress, an organization of the Young Turks movement, forced Sultan Abdul Hamid II ...

in 1908. It was first published by

Clarendon Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

in 1969 with the title ''The Young Turks: The Committee of Union and Progress in Turkish Politics, 1908-1914''.

Career

Ahmad worked at several U.S. universities between 1966 and 2003, including

and

. He was

Emeritus Professor ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...

of history at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. From 2006 he taught at Yeditepe University,

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

Work and views

Ahmad published many books and articles, most of which are concerned with Ottoman and modern Turkish history. His major books are as follows: ''The Young Turks: The Committee of Union and Progress in Turkish Politics, 1908–1914'' (1969); ''An Annotated Chronology of Multi-Party Politics in Turkey'' (1976, with Bedia Turgay Ahmad); ''From Unionism to Kemalism, Essays'' (1985); ''Turkish Experiment in Democracy'' (1994); ''The Making of Modern Turkey'' (1995); ''Turkey: The Quest for Identity'' (2006); ''From Empire to Republic: Essays on the Late Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey'' (2008); and ''The Young Turks and the Ottoman Nationalities: Armenians, Greeks, Albanians, Jews, and Arabs, 1908–1918'' (2014). In ''From Empire to Republic: Essays on the Late Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey'' Ahmad argued that the reports of the

British Foreign Office The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is the ministry of foreign affairs and a ministerial department of the government of the United Kingdom. The office was created on 2 September 2020 through the merger of the Foreign an ...

and of the Istanbul correspondents of ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' newspaper, and the conservative

publications To publish is to make Content (media), content available to the general public.Berne Conv ...

in the Ottoman Empire are the roots of the popular

anti-semitic Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

conspiracy theories in Turkey.

Personal life and death

Ahmad's wife was a Turkish woman, Bedia Turgay Ahmad (died December 2018), whom he married in 1964. He had twin girls from this marriage. He lived at Darüşşafaka Residence in Istanbul from 2017 until his death. Ahmad died in Istanbul on 20 February 2025, at the age of 87.

Honors

Ahmad was the recipient of the

Order of Merit of the Republic of Turkey Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * ...

, which was awarded to him in August 2014.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ahmad, Feroz 1938 births 2025 deaths 20th-century Indian historians Academic staff of Yeditepe University Scholars from Delhi Delhi University alumni Alumni of the University of London University of Massachusetts Boston faculty 21st-century Indian historians Indian expatriate academics in the United States Scholars of Ottoman history Historians of Turkey Indian expatriates in Turkey