Ottoman Caliphate

 Ottoman Caliphate was the Caliphate of the Ottoman Dynasty of the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman Dynasty used the title of Sultan and the Caliph only sporadically. As the Ottoman Empire grew in size and strength, Ottoman rulers beginning with Mehmed II began to claim caliphal authority.

Mehmed II and his grandson Selim used it to justify their conquest of Islamic countries. The demise of the Ottoman Caliphate took place in part because of a slow erosion of power in relation to Europe and end of the state in consequence of partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. Abdul Mejid II, which lost the Sultanate, kept the Caliph position for couple years but with the Atatürk's reforms to create the modern Turkish state, the caliph position was dismembered.

 Insignia

A chief symbol of the Ottoman Caliphate was the "Great Banner of the Caliphs", a huge green banner embroidered with texts from the Qur'an and with the name of Allah emblazened upon it 28,000 times in golden letters. It was passed down in the Ottoman dynasty from father to son and only carried into battle if the Sultan himself or his specifically designated representative was there in person.

 History

 1517-1875

For the last 400 years of its existence, the Caliphate was claimed by the Turkish Sultans of the Ottoman Empire. Though the 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 Islamic world. From Constantinople (now Istanbul), 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.

 Decline

But the latter half of the Ottoman era was a period of general decline in the Islamic 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 Islamic 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.

Abdul-Hamid strengthened the Empire’s position somewhat and succeeded briefly in reasserting Islamic power, by building numerous schools, reducing the national debt, and embarking on projects aimed at revitalizing the Empire’s decaying infrastructure. His autocratic style of governance created a backlash that led to the end of his reign,

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.

 Dissolution of the Empire

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.

 Second Constitutional Era

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.