Niyazi Berkes

In 1935, he then became an assistant at the same faculty. In the same year, he had gone to United States and he had studied sociology at the University of Chicago until 1939. In 1939 he returned to Turkey and as an associate professor of sociology he attended to the faculty of languages, history and geography of Ankara University which had just opened a Philosophy Department. He had worked there until 1945. In 1952, he was appointed visiting professor at the Institute of Islamic Studies, the McGill University in Canada. In 1956, he became professor at the same university. He retired from McGill in 1975 and settled in England. Berkes wrote no more books after his retirement, but continued to write for the Turkish press. He died on 18 December 1988 in Hythe in England.

Niyazi Berkes (21 October 1908 – 18 December 1988) was a Turkish Cypriot sociologist.

Berkes was born in Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, on 21 September 1908, shortly after the Young Turk Revolution in Turkey. He started his secondary education in Nicosia. During his education, he later, went to Istanbul and graduated from Istanbul Erkek Lisesi (Istanbul Lycée, or Istanbul Boys' High School) in 1928. He began his university years studying law, but transferred to philosophy in hopes of broader intellectual engagements. In 1931, Berkes graduated from the department of philosophy, Istanbul University.