Abdülmecit II

1868 - 1944

Last Ottoman caliph.

The son of Sultan Abdülaziz (r. 1861 - 1876) and cousin of Sultan Mehmed VI Vahideddin (r. 1918 - 1922), Abdülmecit II (also Abdülmecid) was known as a mild and scholarly man. He was elected caliph on 18 November 1922 by the Grand National Assembly in Ankara which, under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk), had abolished the Ottoman sultanate on 1 November. As caliph, Abdülmecit encouraged the loyalty of Muslims in Turkey and elsewhere, particularly India. His growing influence was seen as a threat to the new Turkish republic, and on 3 March 1924 the assembly abolished the Ottoman caliphate and sent Abdülmecit into exile aboard the Istanbul-to-Paris train known as the Orient Express.

Bibliography

Lewis, Bernard. The Emergence of Modern Turkey, 2d edition. New York; London: Oxford University Press, 1961.

Shaw, Stanford J., and Shaw, Ezel Kural. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Vol. 2. Reform, Revolution, and Republic: The Rise of Modern Turkey, 1808 - 1975. New York; Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1977.

— ELIZABETH THOMPSON UPDATED BY ERIC HOOGLUND