Franz Babinger

Franz Babinger (15 January 1891 – 23 June 1967) was a German orientalist and historian of the Ottoman Empire, best known for his biography of the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II, known as "the Conqueror", originally published as Mehmed der Eroberer und seine Zeit. An English translation by Ralph Manheim is available from the Princeton University Press, under the title Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time.

Life Babinger was born in Weiden in der Oberpfalz, Bavaria, as the eldest of four children into a middle-class family. His father was a Roman Catholic, his mother was a Protestant and maternal grandmother of Jewish background. He continued to work and publish actively until his death in Albania on 23 June 1967, the circumstances of which are unclear.

Work In addition to his bibliographical work, Babinger published numerous articles and books on a wide variety of subjects. Babinger knew Turkish, Romanian and Arabic as well as the principal European languages,

Principal publications Geschichtsschreiber der Osmanen und ihre Werke (1923) Mehmed der Eroberer und seine Zeit (1953)