He served as the editor of Dergi, one of the publications of the Institute for the Study of the USSR in Munich, and was among the first scholars to explore the fate of ethnic minorities living in the Soviet Union.

Edige's father Mustafa Shinkievich, who was descended from a Lipka Tatar family, had moved to Crimea before World War I.

The Soviet repression, marked by the arrest, execution and deportation of thousands of Tatars, forced Edige to flee to Azerbaijan and then to Iran.

After World War II ended, Kirimal pursued his graduate studies and received his doctorate degree from the University of Münster in Germany.

His often quoted monograph, 'Der Nationale Kampf der Krim-türken - The National Struggle of the Crimean Tatars' (Emsdetten/Westfalen, 1952), was based on his dissertation.