M. Şükrü Hanioğlu earned a B.A. in Political Science and Economics as well as a Ph.D. in Political Science from Istanbul University. During the graduate years, he served as an instructor in the Political Science Department, specializing in late Ottoman diplomatic and political history. His doctoral research focused on the political activities and thoughts of Dr. Abdullah Cevdet, one of the founders of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). In 1981, Hanioğlu embarked on a project to investigate the history of the CUP from its inception in 1889 to the Young Turk Revolution in 1908. Given the underground nature of the organization, he relied on the CUP’s own papers to construct its history, necessitating a visit to Albania in 1982. The first volume of this project was published in 1986, followed by subsequent volumes in 1992 and beyond. In addition to the original CUP documents, he utilized archival sources from various countries, including Turkey, Germany, Austria, France, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, and Britain.

From 1981 onward, M. Şükrü Hanioğlu has been actively involved in teaching courses on late Ottoman political and diplomatic history, late Ottoman history, and Turkish political life at Istanbul and Bosphorus Universities, as well as the Turkish Naval Academy. He has also conducted teaching and seminars at prestigious institutions such as Columbia University, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Michigan, and the University of Chicago. Throughout his academic career, Hanioğlu has supervised numerous Ph.D. dissertations, totaling fourteen at Istanbul University, focusing on Ottoman intellectual and diplomatic history.