Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and dissolution of Caliphate

Abstract

after the Ottoman Sultan Selim I`s the conquest of Egypt ,Islamic Caliphate was transferred from Egypt to Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century. Sincethen, Ottoman Sultans were both sultans and caliphs till their overthrow in 1922.Ottoman government lost some of its political power in theeighteenth century after its continuous losses to the European governments; and Ottoman religious power and situation declined in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Nationalists opposed the Ottoman government after the occupation of Ottoman at the end of world war I and during independence war. Inability of the government to stand against the occupiers alongside with the contribution of the sultan ,who was considered as the Islamic caliph , to the allies had a grave damage on the political and religious status of the Sultan . Having used this opportunity in 1922,Mustafa Kemal Ataturk overruled the monarchy by legislating a law and then he overruled the caliphate after passing a law in the Turkish parliament, having the last caliph leave the country .In addition to political factors which brought about the decline of the Ottoman caliph there were other factors which were effective in Sultans religious status decline. Ataturk established a laicsystem and this new system stood against the religious-based Ottoman government. Therefore ,collision of both systems brought about the dissolution of caliphate.

Keywords

• kemal ataturk
• the ottoman government
• monarchy
• caliphate
• dissolution of caliphate