Efe Murat Balıkçıoğlu
Balıkçıoğlu is a textual scholar and an intellectual historian whose research focuses on the intersection of philosophy, theology, and Sufism in the early modern Ottoman Empire. He is particularly interested in the Ottoman synthesis of Graeco-Arabic philosophy with Sharia, as well as on the social, political and religious networks of early modern scholars in comparative perspective with early modern Europe and the Islamic world. His first monograph, Verifying the Truth on Their Own Terms: Ottoman Philosophical Culture and the Court Debate Between Mollā Zeyrek and Ḫocazāde (Ca’ Foscari University, 2024), is based on a recovered manuscript thought to be long lost. It reconstructs a six-day debate at Sultan Meḥmed II’s court over Avicenna’s thesis that in God existence, essence, and necessity are one—long cited in literary sources but never studied through archival evidence. Drawing on two overlooked manuscripts, the book provides the first philological reconstruction and analysis of this debate, situating Ottoman interventions within wider theologico-philosophical traditions. He is currently working on his second monograph, (with the working title) "Natural Sciences and Religion in Postclassical Islam, 1450–1600."
During the last five years, Balıkçıoğlu also conducted research on the rise of political Islam in modern Turkey and published several co-authored articles and studies with Kristin E. Fabbe. He is an anthologized poet, and has published several volumes of poetry and poetry translations under the pseudonym Efe Murad, including the first complete translation of Ezra Pound’s Cantos in Turkish, as well as volumes by American poets Susan Howe, Jack Spicer, Ron Padgett/Tom Clark, and Lyn Hejinian.
Education
BA 2010, Philosophy w/ minors in Judaic and Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University
AM 2012, History and Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University
PhD 2019, History and Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University
Select Publications
Book
Verifying the Truth on Their Own Terms: Ottoman Philosophical Culture and the Court Debate Between Mollā Zeyrek and Ḫocazāde Muṣliḥuddīn (Venice: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, 2023).
Select Peer-Reviewed Articles
"Quatrains of Many Receptions: A Survey of ‘Omar Khayyām’s Perceptions in Ottoman and Turkish Translations," Journal of Iranian Studies 57.2 (2024): 1-29.
"In the Crucible of Ottoman Taḥqīq: A Fifteenth-Century Case of Verifying Philosophy and Theology under Sufi Agnosticism," Journal of Early Modern History 27.4 (2023): 321-337.
(w/ Kristin E. Fabbe) "When Fifth Columns Fall: Religious Groups and Loyalty-Signaling in Erdoğan’s Turkey," in Enemies Within: The Global Politics of Fifth Columns, eds. Harris Mylonas and Scott Radnitz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), 248-270.
(w/ Kristin E. Fabbe and Ümit Özlale) "Islamic Capitalism in Turkey," in Business, Ethics and Institutions: The Evolution of Turkish Capitalism in Global Perspective, eds. Asli M. Colpan and Geoffrey Jones (New York: Routledge, 2019), 97-122.
(w/ Kristin E. Fabbe) "Political Islam in Turkey," in Routledge Handbook of Turkish Politics, eds. Alparslan Özerdem and Matthew Whiting (New York: Routledge, 2019), 55-68.
(w/ Sidney Wade) "The Garip Preface (1941)," in Global Modernists on Modernism, eds. Alys Moody and Stephen J. Ross (London: Bloomsbury, 2020): 199-204.
"Poetry in the Text: The Use and Function of Poetry in Rāwandī’s Rāḥat al-ṣudūr and Yazıcızāde ‘Alī’s Translation of the Same Work in Tevārīkh-i Âl-i Selçūḳ," Journal of Ottoman Studies 42 (Winter 2013): 349-372.