Mustafa Akyol
Few seem to have noticed, but this year, 2024, is the centennial of a pivotal event that deeply impacted the course of the modern Middle East, if not the world: the abolition of the Caliphate, or the “successorship” to the Prophet Muhammad, which led the worldwide Muslim community politically since the birth of Islam in the early seventh century.
The Caliphate had its ups and downs, and was at times more symbolic than effective, but it had meaningfully survived into the twentieth century under the banner of its last seat, the Ottoman Empire. But the latter collapsed in the aftermath of World War I, allowing one of its generals, the staunchly secular Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk), to abolish the Ottoman monarchy in 1922 and proclaim the Republic of Turkey a year later.
However, there is a little-noted detail in this revolution: Initially, Kemal did not touch the Caliphate. While his republic commenced in the new capital, Ankara, the old Caliphate, now held by the last Ottoman crown prince Abdulmejid II, continued in Istanbul as a non-political but still prestigious institution. If things continued like that, it could have turned into an entity like the Vatican State, preserving a moral authority not just in Turkey but also in the broader Sunni world. Yet Kemal had little patience for any authority other than his own. About sixteen months after the abolition of the monarchy, he also abolished the Caliphate on March 3, 1924. On the very same day, he immediately expelled the last caliph, along with all Ottoman family members, from Turkey.
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