Speaker: Dr. Mesut Idriz

Venue: IAIS Malaysia

Dr. Mesut Idriz developed his expertise in the study of Islamic civilization through his historical studies of Manastir, modern day Bitola in the Balkans. He researched the 18^th century Ottoman legal records to inform his view of how the shariah functioned in this region.

This research led to his Ph.D. from ISTAC in 2002 titled “MANASTIR IN THE SECOND HALF OF 18TH CENTURY: A HISTORY OF A BALKAN CITY WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE OTTOMAN JUDICIAL RECORDS.”

He was Assistant Professor at ISTAC until 2005 working in the field of History and Turkish Language and Associate Professor until 2007 at IIUM in Muslim History, Islamic Civilization, and Muslim Historiography. Recently, he was Chief Editor (Academics) at MPH Group Publishing.

He speaks Turkish, Albanian, English, Arabic and Macedonian. He has translated “Najib Razak:  The Prime Minister of Malaysia” into Arabic and has supervised the translation of Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s book “The Challenge” into Albanian. During Dr. Mahathir’s state visit in 1996, he was the translator, in three languages—Albanian, Arabic, and Turkish. He is currently working on a book which will be a “conceptual and contextual reexamination” of Islamic civilization. He is also interested in gathering research for a look at Ottoman-Malay relations.