AbdulMejjid II was the first of the last Caliphs, of the Republic of Turkey. He was the very last Caliph’s of the Ottoman Empire and the very last Caliph of Islam.
Born in Dolmabahce Palace, he was the 2nd child of AbulAziz I, born on the 29th of May 1868 in the Beskiktas district of Istanbul, Turkey. His mother, Hayranidil Kadin, was the 2nd wife of the Sultan Abdulaziz I. AbdulMejid was the only son but he had an older sister, Nizame Sultan, who was born a year earlier.
Nominally, AbdulMejid was the 37th Head of the Ottoman Imperial House. Though he only reigned between1922 til 1924, short lived due his deposition after which he was exiled and forced to leave Turkey. He lived out his final years in Switzerland and then in France where he eventually passed away on the 23th of August 1944 in Paris at the age of 76.
Abdul’s Early life
Abdul Mejjid was a cultured, sophisticated gentleman with many talents. He could, play the violin, speak Fluent French, horse ride and play musical instruments amongst other talents and was known to regularly entertained a mixed audience of men and women at concerts.
He was privately educated very well and in accordance with late Ottoman custom, he was confined to the palace until he was 40, during which time his father, Abdülaziz, and three of his cousins reigned.
Abdul Mejid made Crown Prince in 1918 & Caliph and Sultan in 1922
When his fourth cousin took the throne as Mehmed VI in 1918, Abdülmecid became crown prince aged 56. He was elected caliph by the Grand National Assembly on November 18, 1922, After the sultanate was abolished he lost his title of Crown Prince. At this point Mehmed VI left Constantinople (Istanbul) on the assumption of power by Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk), who was a Turkish field marshal, revolutionary statesman, author, and the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938.
4 Marriages and 2 children
Abdul Mejid II was married four times. On the first occasion his marriage took place at Ortakoy Palace where he wed Shahsuvar Bash Kadin Effendi on the 23rd of December 1896. She was born in Istanbul, on May 2nd, 1881 and lived til 1945. She perished in Paris and is buried in Bobigny cemetery. They had a son, together named Prince Shehzade Ömer Faruk Effendi, who was born on February 27, 1898 *d. March 28, 1969.
On June 18, 1902, AbdulMejjid married for the second time at the same Ortaköy Palace, Hair un-nisa Kadin Effendi was wife number two, born in Panderma on March 2, 1876. She died in Nice on September 3, 1936. They had a daughter, Princess Hadice Hayriye Ayshe Dürrühsehvar who was born on January 26, 1914 – February 7, 2006) who was famously married to Azam Jah, son of Osman Ali Khan, Asif Jah VII, the last Nizam of Hyderabad and one the riches men alive at the time.
AbdulMajjid’s third bride was the sister of Kamal Bey. Abdul Mejid wed her on April 16, 1912 in Çamlica Palace, Her name was Atiya Mihisti Kadin Effendi, born at Adapazarı, January 27, 1892. She passed away in London, in 1964. Bihurux Kadin Effendi, his fourth wife was from Izmir, born on the 24th of May, 1903. he married her on March 21, 1921 also at Çamlica Palace.
Princess Duruhsehvar’s marriage to Azam Jah, son of Osman Ali Khan, Asif Jah VII, the last Nizam of Hyderabad.
Abdel Mejid II many talents, his paintings and his love for art
Abdul Mejid was the apitomy of high society and the social scene of his days. He held gatherings of Turkish writers and musicians, and put on plays in his garden.” Although he was given the title of General in the Ottoman Army, he did not have strong military inclinations. Instead he had a more significant role as Chairman of the Ottoman Artists’ Society. He is considered as one of the most important painters of late period Ottoman art.
Amongst his paintings the most famous ones include
- Haremde Goethe, 1898/1917, housed in the State Art and Sculpture Museum
- Haremde Beethoven, 1915, housed in the İstanbul State Art and Sculpture Museum
- Cami Kapısı, 1920, which is in the Sakıp Sabancı Museum
- Painting of Abdülhak Hamit Tarhan, with the text in Ottoman Turkish saying, “made with the heart”.
Amongst his paintings there is a rather controversial one titled ‘ Women of the Court yard which features nude figures of ladies relaxing and casually lounging outdoors. Although the existence of this work had been a topic of much debate over whether he did or did not actually create it. According to some opinions it was not made by him. But proof is yet to be discovered.
His paintings of the Harem, showing a modern musical gathering, and of his wife, Şehsuvar Hanım, reading Goethe’s novel Faust, express the influence of western Europe in his elite circle.
Abdul Mejjid is considered as one of the most important painters of late period Ottoman art. His paintings of the Harem, showing a modern musical gathering, and of his wife, Şehsuvar Hanım, reading Goethe‘s novel Faust, express the influence of western Europe in his elite circle.These were displayed at a 1918 exhibition of Ottoman paintings in Vienna. His personal self-portrait can be seen at Istanbul Modern.
Abdulmejid was also an avid collector of butterflies, an activity that he pursued during the last 20 years of his life. His favourite magazine was Revue des deux Mondes.
Abdul Mejib reign as Sultan 1922-1924
Abdul Mejid, Aakhir Khalifatul Muslimeen Sultan Abd-ul-Mejid, Abdul Medjit reigned from November 19, 1922 – March 3, 1924.
As mentioned earlier, Abdulmejid was given the title of General in the Ottoman Army, but did not have strong military inclinations. On March 3, 1924, he was deposed as Caliph and expelled from the shores of Turkey with the rest of his family. His cousin Mehmed VI fled to Malta on a British warship, on the day the Sultanate was abolished.
The Abolishment of the Ottoman Empire 1924
The Ottoman Caliphate, was abolished on 3 March 1924 (27 Rajab 1342 AH) by decree of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The process was one of Atatürk’s Reforms which replaced the Ottoman Empire with the new Republic of Turkey. At a surface level, since the new, post-Ottoman Turkey was to be a secular state, it was decided to abolish the caliphate as well.
Abdulmejid II was deposed as the last Ottoman Caliph, along with Mustafa Sabri, who was the last Ottoman Shaykh al Islam. But this was no coincidence. The abolishment of the Caliphate had been pre-mediated and was an imperialist agenda in the making. Strategies and secret meetings had been ongoing for years and a plan had been hatched to bring down he Ottoman Empire along with its leadership and role as the uniting beacon of all Islamic countries and communities around the globe.
The Imperialists behind the fall of the Caliphate
Although Sunni Muslims around the world recognized the caliph, who in turn recognized the legitimacy of Muslim governments, they did not pay for his upkeep. Because the caliph was known as the Ottoman sultan, it was assumed he did not need outside financial support., despite being stripped of all his assets and wealth. The end of the caliphate corresponded with the period when almost the entire Muslim world came under colonial rule. In this circumstance, any role that a caliph might play would have been very restricted, since he would have little if any authority within the colonial space.
Turkish Nationalists did everything in their power to humiliate and belittle the Caliph. Within hours, the Imperial family was asked to leave Turkey. The passport issued to the deposed Khalifa referred to him simply as ‘Monsieur Abdul-Mejid file d’Abdul Aziz’ and the Italian Embassy was informed that it was not a case for a diplomatic visa.
Arguably, he was caliph until he died. However, once Turkey stopped paying for the upkeep of the office, sending him packing with no visible means of support, the office was a title which no longer had any real meaning.
The Turkish Nationalists also took special measures to ensure the omission of his name from the Friday khutba and substituted it with a prayer for the Republic. The dejected ex-Khalifa had to spend the rest of his life on a stipend from the Nizam of Hyderabad, donations from Indian Princes and magnates and funds from the Red Crescent Society
Source: (The Khilafat Movement in India, 1919-1924, Muhammad Naeem Qureshi, dissertation submitted to University of London, 1973, pp.269-271, 276).
He was given 2000 English pounds in cash, then placed on the “Orient Express” bound for Switzerland. He eventually settled in Paris.
Lacking any means of support but still styling himself Caliph, his precarious financial situation became the source of embarrassment to some people in the Muslim world including the Nizam of Hyderabad, who was both the premier Prince in British India and one of the richest men in the world. He obtained permission from the Governor-General of India to remit a monthly allowance to Paris for the upkeep of Abdul Mejid II and his family
The Nizam’s support did not include establishing an organizational base or an office from which Abdul Mejid could play any significant leadership or even advisory role within the affairs of the Muslim world. Always intended to combine spiritual and political leadership, the question was whether the latter could be exercised if the holder did not actually possess any power? This is similar to the challenge that confronted the papacy during the long period in Christian history when Popes claimed ultimate temporal as well as spiritual authority. In their case, they acquired the Papal States as a platform from which they could claim to speak as a temporal ruler. With the loss of these states following Italian unification, the Popes realized that the leadership they ought to offer is moral and spiritual.
Could a caliph who lacked any political authority or power try to provide moral and spiritual leadership instead? Arguably, the challenge is more difficult for the caliph, because he is not so much a religious leader as leader of a religious community. In Sunni understanding, the role of the Caliph was to provide leadership to the community but over and above leadership it was to symbolize unity. On the other hand, the caliph had no privileged right to tell Muslims how to interpret Islam, whereas the Pope does have the right to tell Catholics how they should understand their faith.
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Abdul_Mejid_II
In exile in Paris, Abdul Mejid II was maintained through the generosity of the Nizam of Hyderabad. However, the Nizam’s princely state in India was itself subject to British oversight or paramountcy, so he needed permission, which he was granted, to remit money to the exiled caliph. Arguably, Abdul Mejid was still caliph but lacked any mechanism to act as one. Without his own state, Abdul Mejid could not hope to exercise any type of authority over Muslim governments or rulers across the world. Between the Fall of Baghdad in 1258 and the ceding of the caliphate to the Ottoman sultan in 1517, the Abbasids had also lacked their own state. However, they had been maintained by the Mamluks of Egypt. I
Sadly In the world of 1924, no Muslim state was in a position to assume a similar role, once Turkey had relinquished this. Abdul Mejid II cuts a somewhat tragic figure. He was a victim of history rather than a mover behind history. The end of the caliphate, however, has left one of the world’s largest communities less unified than it was in the past, since there is no longer a “deputy” to symbolize the unity of all Muslims.
The Plotted Ending of the Ottoman Empire and the Islamic Caliphate started way before WW1
The actual disintegration of the empire began before way before World War I, with the loss of Greece (1821) followed by the Balkan provinces in the 1870s. On the one hand, the European great powers were jealous of the Ottoman’s vast empire while on the other hand they were divided in their views about its future.
Austria-Hungary saw its own future as an autocratic empire linked with that of the Ottoman empire.
Germany had developed close links with the Ottomans, aiding the empire financially and assisting her with building a railway system. Britain was concerned that a weaker Ottoman empire would result in a Russian expansion.
Dismemberment of the Ottoman empire was on the agenda from the onset, but avoided at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, which met to decide how the Balkans should be reorganized and to deal with the Ottoman’s debt.
A financial oversight committee was established, with a representative from each of the main powers. Various concessions were also negotiated. Known as “capitulations,” these gave trade and tax privileged to the holders, mainly the French and the British who in certain areas operated as if they were the colonial power.
Authority was also claimed over various religious minorities in the Ottoman space. The collapse of the empire was in the main due to a succession of incompetent but greedy rulers as well as to failure to implement necessary reforms.
Abdul Mejid II was in no measure responsible for the empire’s decline or fall, which took place before he was elected caliph.
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Abdul_Mejid_II
The Point of Having a Khalifa
AbdulMejid was 101st Caliph in succession to Abu Bakr. The Kaliphate was itself a leading state in economy, science, technology, commerce, architecture and jurisprudence. The Khilafah provided peace and security for its citizens, allowing them to live in harmony together as a single state. The Khilafah even provided sanctuary for those who were persecuted because of their beliefs., thus its role was poinient in the Islamic world.
Adam Smith, the 18th Century founder of modern economics whose picture is printed on the current UK £20 note, was exceedingly inspired by the Islamic method of governing. He proclaimed that:
“…the empire of the Caliphs seems to have been the first state under which the world enjoyed that degree of tranquility which the cultivation of the sciences requires. It was under the protection of those generous and magnificent princes, that the ancient philosophy and astronomy of the Greeks were restored and established in the East; that tranquility, which their mild, just and religious government diffused over their vast empire, revived the curiosity of mankind, to inquire into the connecting principles of nature.” *
Adam Smith(* Adam Smith, ‘History of Astronomy’, The Essays of Adam Smith (London, 1869), p. 353)
However, not all ‘white Colonial men’ shared the same liberal views as Adam Smith.
The British Foreign Minister Lord Curzon addressing the British Prime Minister shortly before the Second World War. He stated,
“We must put an end to anything which brings about any Islamic unity between the sons of the Muslims. As we have already succeeded in finishing off the Khilafah so we must endure that there will never arise again unity for the Muslims whether it be intellectual or cultural unity” (this means the unity on the viewpoint about life, something that affects daily affairs, namely the social, economic, education and ruling systems of Islam).
Lord Curzon
Effectively, by 1924 the Ottoman Empire was over. In his famous quote Curzon pronounced the following:
“The situation now is that Turkey is dead and will never rise again because we have destroyed its moral strength, the Khilafah and Islam.” (The Khilafah Osmania)
Lord Curzon, an Enemy of Islam
Lord Curzon pronounced this in front of the House of Commons after the Lausanne Treaty of July 24th 1924 and it was obvious his hatred and despise for Islam and jealousy over the ottoman Territory was apparent along with others like him.
The Demise of the Ottoman Empire
The Messenger said:
“Verily, the knots of Islam will be undone one by one. Whenever one knot is lost, then the people grabbed onto the one which came after it. The first of these knots will be the ruling (al-hukm) and the last will be the salah.” [al-Bukhari, Tarikh al-Kabir, 4:233]
Prophet Mohammad PNUH
The disintegration of the empire began before World War I, with the loss of Greece (1821) followed by the Balkan provinces in the 1870s. On the one hand, the European great powers were jealous of the Ottoman’s vast empire while on the other hand they were divided in their views about its future. Austria-Hungary saw its own future as an autocratic empire linked with that of the Ottoman empire.
Germany developed close links with the Ottomans, aiding the empire financially and assisting her with building a railway system. Britain was concerned that a weaker Ottoman empire would result in Russian expansion.
Dismemberment of the Ottoman empire was on the agenda but avoided at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, which met to decide how the Balkans should be reorganized and to deal with the Ottoman’s debt.
A financial oversight committee was established, with a representative from each of the main powers. Various concessions were also negotiated. Known as “capitulations,” these gave trade and tax privileged to the holders, mainly the French and the British who in certain areas operated as if they were the colonial power.
Authority was also claimed over various religious minorities in the Ottoman space. The collapse of the empire was in the main due to a succession of incompetent but greedy rulers as well as to failure to implement necessary reforms. Abdul Mejid II was in no measure responsible for the empire’s decline or fall, which took place before he was elected caliph.
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Abdul_Mejid_II
WW1 How Turkey went from ‘Neutral’ to being cornered into forming an alliance with Germany
The First World War was one of the deadliest and most tragic events in modern history. For more than four years, two powerful groupings of nations have fought against each other as humanity witnessed violence of a scale unprecedented in history. When the guns were silent again, nine million soldiers and seven million civilians were lying dead. Many millions survived, but life could never be the the same again for them. In fact, things would never be the same for the world.
The Ottoman Empire was said to be the sick man of Europe. This was true, after seven centuries of conquests in three different continents the Empire had shrunk to a large extent. Territories were lost and the Porte was struggling to cope with nationalist movements and a decaying economy, in an futile attempt to keep the Empire intact. There was a weak Sultan on the throne, and the government was in the hands of a political entity called Committee of Union and Progress, which saw an alliance with Germany as the only way out.
Dr. Altay Atlı.
Turkey seeks an Alliance with Briton and France but is Deliberately Rejected
The Ottoman government was in search of allies and wanted an alliance with Britain and France, but was turned down. Russia, also allied with Britain and France, and offered terms that amounted to a protectorate (it was the desire to keep Russia in the alliance that motivated the French rejection) due to the vagaries of imperialist politics. So, Germany was the only possible ally if Turkey went to war. While many in the government still sought neutrality, the pro-war faction, led by Enver Pasha, won out.
http://www.turkeyswar.com
ENVER WAS AN EARLY MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE OF UNION AND PROGRESS (CUP), A YOUNG TURK ORGANIZATION THAT AGITATED AGAINST ABDUL HAMID II‘S ABSOLUTE RULE. HE WAS A KEY LEADER OF THE 1908 YOUNG TURK REVOLUTION, AND ALONG WITH AHMED NIYAZI AND EYUB SABRI WAS HAILED AS “HERO OF THE REVOLUTION”. AFTER THE 1913 OTTOMAN COUP D’ÉTAT THAT BROUGHT THE CUP DIRECTLY TO POWER, ENVER PASHA BECAME (4 JANUARY 1914) THE MINISTER OF WAR, AND WAS PART OF A GROUP KNOWN AS THE “THREE PASHAS” (ALONG WITH TALAAT PASHA AND CEMAL PASHA) WHICH HELD DE FACTO RULE OVER THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE FROM 1913 UNTIL THE END OF WORLD WAR I IN 1918.
The Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire & The 1920 Treaty of Sèvres
(French: Traité de Sèvres) was a 1920 treaty signed between the Allies of World War I and the Ottoman Empire. The treaty ceded large parts of Ottoman territory to France, the United Kingdom, Greece, and Italy, as well as creating large occupation zones within the Ottoman Empire. It was one of a series of treaties[3] that the Central Powers signed with the Allied Powers after their defeat in World War I. Hostilities had already ended with the Armistice of Mudros.
The treaty was signed on 10 August 1920 in an exhibition room at the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres porcelain factory[4] in Sèvres, France.. It marked the beginning of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire and the dismemberment of the empire. The treaty’s stipulations included the renunciation of most territory not inhabited by Turkish people and their cession to the Allied administration.[6]
The ceding of Eastern Mediterranean lands saw the introduction of novel polities, including the British Mandate for Palestine and the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon.
The terms stirred hostility and Turkish nationalism. The treaty’s signatories were stripped of their citizenship by the Grand National Assembly, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk,[8] which ignited the Turkish War of Independence. Atatürk led the Turkish nationalists in the war to defeat the combined armies of the signatories of the Treaty of Sèvres. The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, which superseded the Treaty of Sèvres, ended the conflict and saw the establishment of the Republic of Turkey.
WW1 and the Secret Plot to divide the Ottoman Empire and to bring down the Caliphate
Once the war WW1 started, the British, French and Russian Allies made secret plans to divide up the Ottoman empire among themselves (the Sykes-Picot agreement and the Constantinople Agreement).
The Constantinople Agreement signed in March 1915, assured the Russian government that it would be given the Ottoman capital after an Allied victory. Russian aggression was the pretext for the Armenian genocide which began at the same time as the Dardanelles campaign, and which Australia still does not recognise.
There had been increasing attempts to recast the Great War as a fight for freedom rather than the pointless slaughter it actually was. The pro-war apologists have demonstrated clearly enough that the Central Powers were aggressive militarists. But the conduct of the Allies with respect to the Ottoman Empire, the only area where they stood to make any real territorial gains, shows that they were little better.
The British-French narrative placed the blame on the Sultan, and not the Turkish people, for being responsible for crimes against peace. Since the new, post-Ottoman Turkey was to be a secular state, this facilitated the decision to abolish the caliphate, which was always the plan. Although Sunni Muslims around the world recognized the caliph, who in turn recognized the legitimacy of Muslim governments, they did not pay for his upkeep. Because the caliph was also the Ottoman sultan, he did not request outside financial support. The end of the caliphate corresponded with the period when almost the entire Muslim world came under colonial rule. In this circumstance, any role that a caliph might play would have been very restricted, since he would have little if any authority within the colonial space.
Life in exile
The caliph was nominally the supreme religious and political leader of all Muslims across the world, with the main goal to prevent extremism or protect the religion from corruption. In the last session of the budget negotiations on 3 March 1924, Urfa Deputy Sheikh Saffet Efendi and his 53 friends demanded the abolition of the caliphate, arguing it was not necessary anymore.
This was approved by majority of the votes and a law was established. With the same law, it was decided to expel all members of the Ottoman dynasty. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, however, was Muslim, and offered the caliphate to Ahmed Sharif as-Senussi, on the condition that he reside outside Turkey; Senussi declined the offer and confirmed his support for Abdulmejid.
Although Abdülmecid and his family were upset about this decision, they did not want the people to revolt, so they secretly went to Çatalca by car from the Dolmabahçe Palace at 5:00 the next morning. Here, after being hosted by the head of the Rumeli Railways Company for a while, they were put on the Simplon Express.
Exile in Switzerland
When Abdulmejid II arrived in Switzerland, he was detained at the border for a while, but was admitted to the country after a delay. In Switzerland, he said multiple times that he was upset about the abolition of the caliphate, and that this would bring chaos to the Islamic world, with the rise of extremism. But after the Turkish government put pressure on the Swiss government, Abdulmejid was never allowed to give such speeches in Switzerland again. After staying in Switzerland for a while, he moved to Nice, France in October 1924.
From Nice to Paris
Abdulmejid lived a quiet life in Nice, France. At first he was poor, hungry, and almost homeless. His daughter Dürrüşehvar Sultan and his niece Nilüfer Hanım Sultan married the Sons of the Nizam of Hyderabad, one of the richest people in the world; thanks to this, his financial situation improved. Because he did not see interest in restoring the caliphate from the Islamic world, he became depressed and focused more on worship, painting and music.
Abdulmejid, who later settled in Paris, used to perform Friday prayers at the Grand Mosque of Paris with other Muslims in the region. After the departure of his very fond grandchildren and son, who left France to marry the Kavala princes of Egypt, he spent painful days alone. He wrote a 12-volume book of memoirs, preserved by his daughter Dürrüşehvar Sultan.
WW2 Liberation of Paris
On 23 August 1944, the day Paris was liberated from German occupation, Abdulmejid II died of a heart attack at his Parisian house, the Boulevard Suchet His funeral was held at the Grand Mosque of Paris,
Dürrişehvar Sultan, his daughter had tried hard to get Turkey to agree to having her her fathers funeral accepted in Turkey. However they refused. The Grand Mosque of Paris held his body for up to 10 years and after the mosque’s Board of trustees informed that they could no longer hold his body, He was buried in the blessed Al-Baqi’ cemetary in Medina, Saudi Arabia in honour of his Caliphate status.
His Legacy
As the last person to bear the title caliph, Abdul Mejid II’s legacy is in some respects that of the caliphate itself. For 1400 years, the caliph symbolized Muslim unity. The caliph also symbolized the unity of religion and state, of spiritual and political leadership. Even when the Muslim world had fragmented into separate entities, most Muslim rulers obtained recognition from the caliph in order to legitimize their rule. A few chose not to do so. Some made rival claim to the title of caliph. Nonetheless, no one enjoyed as much support as did the 101 official successors to the office of “deputy of the prophet of God.”
In the absence of the caliph, no such system exists to legitimize Muslim rule. Technically at least, the caliph could withhold legitimacy to a ruler who failed to fulfill the responsibilities of good governance, as described in Islamic law. With the ascendancy of nation-states, governments derive their legitimacy with reference to constitutions and membership of the United Nations, not from a caliph. Arguably, there is no system within the Muslim world to police Islamic legitimacy. The Organization of Islamic Conference founded in 1969 could exercise this function, and can be said to have substituted membership of an intergovernmental agency for recognition of the Caliph.
Abdul Mejid II himself was not so much as actor in history as a bystander, watching events unfold around him that brought his own world, and his own role within that world, to its end.
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Abdul_Mejid_II