Ottoman Caliphate

Ottomans actively used the title only sporadically, from 1517 onwards the Ottoman Sultan came to be viewed as the de facto leader and representative of the Muslim World. From Istanbul (formerly Constantinople ), the Ottomans ruled over an empire that, at its peak, covered Anatolia , most of the Middle East , North Africa , the Caucasus , and extended deep into Eastern Europe . But the latter half of the Ottoman era was a period of general decline in the Muslim World’s strength and position vis-à-vis Western Europe. Strengthened by the Peace of Westphalia , the Reformation , and the Industrial Revolution , European powers regrouped and challenged Ottoman dominance. Owing largely to poor leadership, archaic political norms, and an inability to keep pace with technological progress in Europe, the Ottoman Empire could not respond effectively to Europe’s resurgence and gradually lost its position as a pre-eminent superpower. No other state in the Muslim World arose to challenge the Ottomans’ faltering leadership and revitalize Muslim power, and the balance shifted decisively in Europe’s favor. By the late nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire’s problems had evolved into crises. Territorial losses in conflicts such as the Russo-Turkish Wars substantially reduced Ottoman strength and influence, and years of financial mismanagement came to a head when the Empire defaulted on its loans in 1875. Sultan Abdul-Hamid II , who ruled 1876-1909, felt that the Empire’s desperate situation could only be remedied through strong and determined leadership. He distrusted his ministers and other officials that had served his predecessors and gradually reduced their role in his regime, concentrating absolute power over the Empire’s governance in his own hands. Taking a hard-line against Western involvement in Ottoman affairs, he emphasized the Empire’s Islamic character, reasserted his status as the Caliph , and called for Muslim unity behind the Caliphate. By building numerous schools, reducing the national debt, and embarking on projects aimed at revitalizing the Empire’s decaying infrastructure, Abdul-Hamid strengthened the Empire’s position somewhat and succeeded briefly in reasserting Islamic power. But his autocratic style of governance created a backlash that led to the end of his reign, setting into motion a chain of events that would finally destroy the Ottoman Empire and with it, the Caliphate. Western-inclined Turkish military officers opposed to Hamid’s rule had steadily organized in the form of secret societies within and outside Turkey . By 1906, the movement enjoyed the support of a significant portion of the army, and its leaders formed the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), informally known as the Young Turk Party. The Young Turks sought to remodel administration of the Empire along Western lines. Their ideology was nationalist in character, and was a precursor of the movement that would seize control of Turkey following World War I . Though privately disdainful of Islam and the religious establishment, CUP leaders presented their ideas to the public as a revival of true Islamic principles. Under the leadership of Enver Pasha , a Turkish military officer, the CUP launched a military coup against the Sultan in 1908, proclaiming a new regime on July 6. Though they left Abdul-Hamid on his throne, the Young Turks compelled him to restore the parliament and constitution he had suspended thirty years earlier, thereby creating a constitutional monarchy and stripping the Caliphate of its authority. A counter-coup launched by soldiers loyal to the Sultan threatened the new government but ultimately failed, and Abdul-Hamid was deposed on April 13, 1909. He was replaced by his brother Rashid Effendi, who was proclaimed Sultan Mehmed V on April 27. Meanwhile, Ottoman territory was splintering away at the edges. Several Balkan territories that had been effectively autonomous since the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 but nominally tied to the Ottomans were formally severed from the Empire soon thereafter. In 1908, Bulgaria declared itself completely independent of Turkey. Bosnia-Herzegovina was annexed that same year by Austria , which had claimed the territory as a colony and was angered by the Young Turks’ attempts to have Bosnia represented in the Empire’s new parliament. In 1911 Italy warred with the Ottomans over Libya , and Turkey’s failure to defend these regions demonstrated the weakness of the Ottoman military. In 1912 Bulgaria, Serbia , Montenegro , and Greece formed the Balkan League , an anti-Turkish alliance that subsequently launched a joint attack on the Ottoman Empire. The ensuing Balkan Wars eliminated what little presence the Ottomans had left in Europe, and only infighting between the Balkan League allies prevented them from advancing into Anatolia. Internally, the Ottomans continued to be troubled by political instability. Nationalist uprisings that had plagued the Empire sporadically for the past fifty years intensified. The masses were growing frustrated with chronic misgovernance and Turkey’s poor showing in military conflicts. In response, the CUP led a second coup d’etat in 1913 and seized absolute control of the government. Though the Sultan was retained, he made no effort to exercise power independent of the Young Turks and was effectively their puppet. The Caliphate was thus held nominally by Mehmed V, but the authority attached to the office rested with the Young Turks. As World War I broke out in Europe, the Young Turks struck an alliance with Germany , a move that would have disastrous consequences. The Empire entered the war on the side of the Central Powers in November 1914, and Britain , France , and Russia immediately declared war on Turkey. Turkish forces performed well initially, denying the Allies the quick and decisive victory over the Empire they had hoped for. Ottoman forces prevented the Russians from advancing through the Balkans and, under the leadership of a young officer named Mustafa Kemal , repelled an Allied attempt to conquer Istanbul at the now-famous Battle of Gallipoli in 1916. But Turkey’s successes were short lived, and the Ottomans were gradually overcome by their adversaries’ superior technology and military strength. A full frontal assault launched by Enver Pasha against Russian positions in the Caucasus was a catastrophic failure. Russia retaliated by invading Eastern Anatolia and driving the Turks out of Armenia . Though Russian forces eventually withdrew after their commander was recalled due to the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the campaign cost the Empire 86% of its forces in the Caucasus. Furthermore, the Young Turks made the Armenians a scapegoat for Turkey’s defeat, accusing them of having collaborated with the Russian invaders. Between 1915 and 1917, Ottoman forces under the direction of the CUP massacred, detained, and deported over a million Armenians in what has been termed the Armenian genocide . The Young Turks’ brutality against the Armenians did little to aid Turkey’s war effort. The Empire’s position continued to deteriorate, and even the Middle East—the very heartland of the Muslim World —would soon be lost. Though the Young Turks had compelled the Sultan in his capacity as the Caliph to declare a global jihad urging all Muslims to resist Allied encroachment on their lands, the effort was largely unsuccessful. With the help of Arab leaders, Britain and France defeated the Ottomans in the Middle East and took control of the Arab provinces one by one. Baghdad fell in March 1917, followed by Jerusalem in December. Ottoman forces collapsed after their defeat at the Battle of Megiddo in September 1918, and the Allies encountered little resistance in conquering Beirut , Damascus , Homs , and Aleppo shortly thereafter. Meanwhile Germany, the Empire’s strongest ally, had suffered crushing losses in Europe at the hands of the Allies and was in no position to help Turkey. Isolated and outfought on every front, the Ottoman Empire capitulated on October 19, 1918. The Young Turk government resigned en masse and Enver, Talat, and Cemal fled Turkey aboard a German warship. Sultan Mehmed VI , who was proclaimed Sultan after his brother Mehmed V died of a heart attack in July, agreed to an armistice. The Armistice of Mudros formalizing Ottoman surrender was signed aboard a British warship on October 30, 1918. Allied troops arrived in Istanbul and occupied the Sultan’s palace shortly thereafter. By the end of the war, the Ottomans had lost virtually their entire Empire. Hoping to keep his throne and preserve the Ottoman dynasty in some form or another, the Sultan agreed to cooperate with the Allies. He dissolved parliament and allowed an Allied military administration to replace the government vacated by the Young Turks. The Allies compelled Ottoman courts to hold military tribunals that tried and convicted in absentia Young Turk leaders responsible for the Armenian massacres. A burgeoning nationalist movement opposed to foreign occupation of Turkey resented such moves and campaigned against Ottoman collaboration with the Allies. Under Allied direction, the Sultan pledged to suppress such movements and secured an official fatwa from the Sheikh ul-Islam declaring them to be un-Islamic. But the nationalists steadily gained momentum and began to enjoy widespread support. Many sensed that the nation was ripe for revolution. In an effort to neutralize this threat, the Sultan agreed to hold elections, with the hope of placating and co-opting the nationalists. To his dismay, nationalist groups swept the polls, prompting him to again dissolve parliament in April 1920. This time, the nationalist movement reacted much more aggressively. On April 23, 1920, nationalists led by Mustafa Kemal, who had gained the reputation of a national hero for his leadership of the Ottoman resistance at Gallipoli, established the Turkish Grand National Assembly , a provisional government based at Ankara . The National Assembly repudiated the Sultan and affirmed a temporary constitution. The rival government seemed destined to replace the crumbling Ottoman regime once the Sultan signed the Treaty of Sèvres on August 10, 1920, which reduced the Empire to a fraction of its previous size and effectively rendered Turkey an Allied colony. Kemal and his supporters were incensed by the treaty. Though he cared little about its provisions that formally severed Arab and other non-Turkish lands from the Empire, he was outraged by the Sultan’s concessions that gave parts of western Anatolia to the Greeks, granted the Kurds an independent state in the southeast, and allowed the Allies to retain control over Turkey’s affairs. He and his government refused to recognize the treaty, and it would turn out to be the Ottoman dynasty’s death warrant. With remnants of the Ottoman military at his command, Kemal reorganized Turkish forces, rallied more troops, and established a new army to confront Greek forces that had arrived to claim the land they had been promised. Over the next two years in what is now known in Turkey as the War of Independence , he and his army drove the Greeks out of Anatolia and reasserted Turkish control over the Kurdish areas, preventing the Kurds’ promised state from ever coming into existence. In the process, Kemal and the National Assembly consolidated their control over Turkey. Upon seizing Istanbul, Kemal abolished the sultanate on November 1, 1922, prompting Mehmed to flee the country under a British escort. Any semblance of authority the Ottomans had managed to retain over Turkey evaporated. The Armenian military tribunals were suspended, and the nationalists destroyed evidence of official Turkish complicity in the massacres. Exhausted by four years of war, the Allies did not wish to intervene, especially to suppress a nationalist movement of the kind they had supported elsewhere in the Empire’s former dominions. Kemal, now recognized as the de facto representative of Turkey, secured formal recognition of the nation’s independence and new borders on July 23, 1923 through the Treaty of Lausanne , which revised some of the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres in Turkey’s favor. The National Assembly declared Turkey a republic on October 29 and proclaimed Ankara its new capitol. Initially, the National Assembly seemed willing to allow a place for the Caliphate in the new regime, agreeing to the appointment of Mehmed’s cousin Abdul Mejid II as Caliph upon Mehmed’s departure. But the position had been stripped of any authority, and Abdul Mejid’s purely ceremonial reign would be short lived. Mustafa Kemal had been a vocal critic of the Ottoman House and its Islamic orientation. He detested Islam, blaming it for centuries of decline and pervasive "backwardness" in Turkey. Now that he controlled Turkey and had the people’s overwhelming support, he could run the nation as he pleased. When Abdul Mejid was declared Caliph, Kemal refused to allow the traditional Ottoman ceremony to take place, bluntly declaring, "The Khalifa has no power or position except as a nominal figurehead." In response to Abdul Mejid's petition for an increase in his allowance, Kemal wrote, "Your office, the Khalifate, is no more than an historic relic. It has no justification for existence. It is a piece of impertinence that you should dare write to any of my secretaries!" On Kemal’s initiative, the National Assembly abolished the Caliphate on March 3, 1924. Abdul Mejid, who would turn out to be the last Caliph in a virtually unbroken line dating back to Muhammad , was sent into exile along with the remaining members of the Ottoman House, marking the official end of the Ottoman Dynasty. As the Republic of Turkey 's first president, Kemal would complete the nation’s transition from Islamic empire to republican nation-state by embarking on an aggressive campaign of secularization. He formally abolished Shariah law, which had been in force only nominally since the Young Turk coup, and replaced it with European-based civil and penal codes. All political, social, and educational institutions were purged of Islamic influences and radical Western reforms were introduced into Turkish society. Turkey distanced itself from its Islamic past and began to emphasize European aspects of its culture and heritage.¹