Seyyid Bey and The Abolition of The Cali PDF

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Middle Eastern Studies

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Seyyid Bey and the Abolition of the Caliphate
Michelangelo Guida
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To cite this Article: Guida, Michelangelo (2008) 'Seyyid Bey and the Abolition of the
Caliphate', Middle Eastern Studies, 44:2, 275 - 289
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Middle Eastern Studies,
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Seyyid Bey and the Abolition of the

Caliphate
MICHELANGELO GUIDA
One of the key events of the political genesis of the modern Middle East is the
abolition of the Caliphate by the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TGNA) in
1924. This event was not the obvious consequence of a process of secularization. On
the contrary, it could be interpreted as an attempt to reform the Ottoman Empire by
modernist Muslim intellectuals, backed by European minded secular Ottoman
intellectuals and men of arms, who eventually monopolized power after 1924.
This study attempts to reread the abolition of the Caliphate through the life and
works of Seyyid Bey, one of the main advocates of this development in the TGNA as
well as a leading Ottoman Islamist political thinker. Although little is known about
him in Turkey and the Islamic world, his ideas may help us understand the evolution
of Muslim political thought in the first quarter of the twentieth century as well as
comprehend the episode of the abolition of the Caliphate.
Firstly, we will analyze Seyyid Bey’s life and political career, then his perception of
the Caliphate after the National Independence War and, finally, his famous speech
during the debate in the TGNA.
We do not know very much of the early life of Seyyid Mehmed Emin.1 We know
that he was born in Izmir in 1873 into a family that emigrated from Central Asia and
that he received his education in a medrese. In the first years of the twentieth century,
Seyyid Bey graduated from the Hukuk Mektebi, the Law School which was
established in 1878 by the reformer Ahmet Cevdet Paşa for the study of secular law.
The school curriculum included Fıkıh (Islamic jurisprudence) and Usûl-i Fıkıh
(Islamic Legal Methodology) as well as Roman Law, French Law, Ottoman and
French language, and Islamic and European history. The school was attended by
Muslim and non-Muslim pupils (nearly 10 per cent of the students) as well as
experienced civil officers.2
Seyyid Bey taught Usûl-i Fıkıh in the school, and was included in the academic
staff when it became a faculty of the Dar-ül’fünun, the first Ottoman university,
established in 1908. He would retain this job until his death. Notes from his lessons
were collected in a book called Usûl-i Fıkıh Dersleri (Lessons of Usûl-i Fıkıh), and
published in Istanbul in 1910.3
Seyyid Bey began his political career in 1908 in the ranks of the Committee of
_
Union and Progress (Ittihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti, CUP). He represented the
moderate Islamist wing of the party in the Ottoman Parliament and proudly defined
himself as an unusual person: ‘On my head there is no turban [in contrast to the
ISSN 0026-3206 Print/1743-7881 Online/08/020275-15 ª 2008 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/00263200701874917
276 M. Guida
ulema tradition] but I’ve read several books of fıkıh, I’ve studied as a müderris [as a
medrese professor] and as muallim [a university professor] and furthermore I’m a

man of debate.’4 As Hüseyin Cahit (Yalçın), a famous journalist in the late Ottoman
and early Republican periods, wrote about him: ‘Seyyid Bey’s leadership [of the
CUP] was able to assemble the rightists and the leftists in one place’ but also ‘his
medrese education did not blind his eyes and conscience’.5 Besides his religious
orientation, it is important to note that he had a good familiarity with the secular
lifestyle so that he could compare Karşıyaka red wine with the wine offered during
his visit to Germany in 1916.6 This ambiguity possibly raised sympathies among the
‘secular’ wing of the CUP.
He was elected three times (1908, 1912 and 1914) in his hometown constituency of
Izmir to the Meclis-i Mebusan, the Ottoman Parliament in Istanbul. Probably his
role as a moderate Islamist was crucial to balancing the various and contrasting
wings of the CUP. When the Committee was very close to a debacle in 1911, he
substituted Talât Paşa in the leadership in order to defend the CUP from accusations
of unreligiosity, opportunism and Freemasonry, accusations formulated by the
conservative groups at the time.7
The leadership brought him to the Merkez-i Umumi, the CUP’s elite central
committee.8 On 13 November 1916, he was nominated to membership of the
Ottoman Senate (Meclis-i Âyân), a seat that he occupied until the suppression of the
Senate.
In 1918, after the dissolution of the CUP and only ten days after the signature of
the Mondros Treaty, he established, together with other members of the disbanded
party, the Teceddüd Fırkası (the Party of Renewal). The party was intended as the
continuation of the CUP. Evidence points to the fact that the new party acquired its
patrimony and was advocating the abolition of the death penalty for political
charges, which former CUP leaders were possibly going to face.9
In April 1920, Seyyid Bey was exiled by the British occupying authorities to the
isle of Malta because he was seen by them as an ‘unwanted nationalist’.10 When freed
in October 1921, he briefly visited Ankara, the National Liberation War’s
headquarters, but then he returned to teach at the Dar-ül’fünun and to his seat in
the Senate.
However, while living in Istanbul, Seyyid Bey gave legal advice to Mustafa Kemal
(Atatürk). In 1922, he also presided over a commission that prepared and published
a pamphlet entitled Hilafet ve Hakimiyet-i Milliye (The Caliphate and National
Sovereignty), which obviously prepared the ground for the abolition of the Sultanate
in the same year.11
He could not take part in the 1919 elections but he was elected to the TGNA with
822 votes in the July 1923 elections. The following August he was nominated by the
TGNA as Justice Minister in the government led by the moderate Ali Fethi (Okyar).
However, Fethi Bey resigned on 27 October. His resignation anticipated by two days
the proclamation of the Republic of Turkey, which was immediately followed by the
election of Mustafa Kemal to the Presidency. The new President nominated Mustafa
_
Ismet _
(Inönü) as the new Prime Minister, and Seyyid Bey was again elected Justice
Minister. A few months later, according to news reports, disagreements emerged
inside the government but there was no reshuffle or resignations until 5 March 1924.
The previous day the debate on the abolition of the Caliphate took place in the
Seyyid Bey and the Abolition of the Caliphate 277
Ankara Assembly. Seyyid Bey – as we will see shortly – took part in the debate and
delivered an uninterrupted seven-hour speech.12 Eventually, his revolutionary

interpretation convinced all the members of the Assembly to abolish the Caliphate.
On 6 March 1924, the new appointment of Ismet _ Bey as Prime Minister implied
the reconfirmation of many ministers that had served in the previous government.
Seyyid Bey, though, was substituted by another parliamentarian from Izmir, the
former Minister of Public Building, Mustafa Necati. Seyyid Bey retained his seat in
the Parliament until April, in other words until the enactment of the Teşkilat-ı
Esasiye Kanunu – the first Turkish Constitution approved in 1921. According to
article 23, ‘no person may hold simultaneously the office of deputy and any other
office’.13 Seyyid Bey, who had continued to be a professor in Istanbul, chose to go
back quietly to his old profession. In the same year he was nominated as the first
_
dean of the Istanbul Ilahiyat Fakültesi – the Faculty of Divinity. Shortly after, on 8
March 1925, he died at his house in Kadıköy.
Despite Seyyid Bey being one of the main advocates of the abolition of the
Caliphate, his replacement and his decision to go back to Istanbul should not be a
surprise. After the 1923 elections, Kemalism started to take form as a rigid regime.
Seyyid Bey represented at the same time two possible threats to Mustafa Kemal’s
authoritarian rule: he was indeed a member of the Ottoman ‘ulema’ and ‘one of the
Union and Progress’ heavy battery’.14 Both groups actively participated in the
liberation war. The former participated with propaganda and the latter with its
infrastructures in Istanbul and the provinces in Anatolia. Moreover, in February
1923, Seyyid Bey entered into a deep disagreement with the Halk Fırkası (Republican
People’s Party) over article 25 of the draft Constitution. He particularly opposed the
proposal of the party to grant the President of the Republic authority to dissolve
Parliament.15 Eventually the authority to dissolve Parliament was retained by the
TGNA (as Seyyid Bey wished) but the conflict with the emerging new regime was
irreversible. He was also committed to reform the Civil Code – and the Penal Code –
following the model of the codification of the Mecelle (the Ottoman-Islamic Civil
Code) and considering all the four Islamic schools of law. During the Second
Constitutional period, as a professor of Islamic law, he sat on numerous
parliamentary commissions for the reform of the Ottoman legal system, including
the commission for the review of the 1876 Constitution and the commission for the
revision of the Mecelle.
However, in his mind such reforms in fact needed long and rigorous debates,16
something that Kemalism was not ready to wait for. The new regime would soon
decide, instead, to translate the Swiss Civil Code (4 October 1926) and the Italian
Penal Code (1 July 1926), and bring them into force a few years later.17
In the period between the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774) and the deposition of
Abdülhamid II in 1909, the Ottoman Sultans’ claims to the Great Caliphate were
essentially based on four principles: divine will, inheritance, actual power, and
allegiance (bey’at), which were all traditionally recognized justifications.18 After 1909,
these justifications gradually lost recognition and after the First World War were
disputed because of the new national and international status quo and the
assimilation of the Western idea of national sovereignty into Islamic political thought.
278 M. Guida
The last two Sultans of the Second Constitutional period – Mehmed V Reşad and
Mehmed VI Vahideddin – when expounding the basis for their ascent to the
Ottoman throne, referred to the third and fourth articles of the 1876 Constitution,
which stated that ‘the Exalted Ottoman Sultanate incorporates the Great Islamic
Caliphate, which is held by the eldest member of the Ottoman Dynasty in
accordance with the ancient practice [usul-i kadime] . . . His Imperial Majesty the
Padişah by virtue of the Caliphate is the protector of the religion of Islam’. The
imperial edict of Mehmed Reşad dated 6 May 1909 states that he had ascended to
the throne of his ancestors ‘with divine will and [as a right granted by the] provisions
of our Constitution and with the general consensus and wish of the Ottoman
nation’.19 In a similar vein, Vahideddin declared that his ascent to the throne of the
Caliphate and Sultanate was ‘based on the rights granted by the Kanun-ı Esasıˆ [the
Ottoman Constitution] and the act of allegiance of the men of binding and
loosing’.20 Abdülmecid Efendi, the last Caliph – already stripped of the Sultanate –
was to be elected directly by the TGNA in Ankara. Since 1909 the principle of divine
will had been rapidly fading and was substituted by the pre-eminence of the secular
law and the Parliament.
According to the modernist approach shared by the majority of Islamist authors
at the time, even a well-established custom had to be reread under the light of early
‘Islamic sources’, which apparently do not mention inheritance. The example of the
‘Rightly Guided’ Caliphs seems to rule out inheritance.
While the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca recognized a certain authority of the Padişah
(the Sultan-Caliph) beyond the Ottoman borders, it also recognized the separation
between political and religious authority. For instance, in 1909 the protocols on
Bosnia-Herzegovina and Bulgaria mentioned that ‘le nom de Sa Majesté Impériale le
Sultan, comme Khalife, continuera à être pronouncé dans la prières publiques des
Musulmans’ [the name of His Imperial Majesty the Sultan, as Caliph, will still be
pronounced in the Muslims’ public prayers].21 Therefore, the ‘Khalife’ has religious
authority outside its territory but has no political authority. This division between
religious and political authority not only remained in the international texts, but
was also internally accepted by the Ottoman Constitution, which distinguished
between halife (the Caliph) and hükümdar (the Sultan). Through, the contraposition
between Istanbul and Ankara which arose during the War of Independence, and the
subsequent Treaty of Lausanne, the Padişah lost his remaining power and sovereignty
over the land and institutions, and consequently his spiritual power.
On 1 November 1922, the TGNA voted to abolish the Ottoman Sultanate while
preserving the Caliphate. The abolition was a severe measure; however, the TGNA
based its enactment on the shared principle of national sovereignty. It is also crucial
to see that the authority exercised by a single individual seemed to be outdated,
particularly on the eve of the Lausanne peace conference. Moreover, since the
restoration of the Ottoman Constitution in 1908, the Padişah had not exercised his
political authority and his position was perceived by the CUP, the ruling party,
merely as the symbolic head of state without any temporal authority.22 This was
certainly a process in which the idea of Caliphate was being reconstructed under the
new circumstances faced by the Ottoman state and society. This process involved
many Ottoman intellectuals, as can be seen from the words of a prominent Islamist:
‘because it is no more than the head of the executive power, the Caliphate in Islam
cannot resemble a spiritual leader. Caliphate means the head of the legitimate
Islamic government’.23
This was just the last phase of a progressive contraction of his authority
geographically and symbolically. Since the French occupation of Egypt in 1798 and
the occupation of Muslim lands by imperialist powers, the Ottoman Empire had lost
its image of protector of Muslims and its ability to control some of the Muslim
provinces. Moreover, the publication of al-Kawakibi’s work Umm al-Qura in the
Egyptian periodical al-Manar, between April 1902 and February 1903, represented
the first Arab nationalist claim to the centrality of the Arab people and asserted that
the Caliphate should belong to the Qurayshi family.24 The Arab revolt/revolution,
then, not only helped the colonization of the Arab provinces but also brought
forward a serious challenge to the Ottoman Caliphate, not simply militarily; it
mainly shook the Caliphate’s legitimacy and claim of superiority in the Islamic
world.
Arab pleas for independence and the lack of response to the Caliph’s call for
Jihad25 against the Entente during the First World War, and the inability to carry on
an extensive war against Britain and France made it possible that, after the First
_
World War, very few in Turkey still believed in Ittihad-ı _
Islam (Pan-Islamism) and in
the possibility of reviving the Ottoman Empire. The National Pact of 28 January
1920 in effect renounced all claims of dominion over ‘the portions of Ottoman
territory under foreign occupation and peopled by an Arab majority at the time of
the signing of the armistice on October 30, 1918’.26 The Caliph now represented an
idea of Muslim unity that the event demonstrated impracticable.
The juridical interpretation of the Caliphate had changed as well. According to
Seyyid Bey, the Caliphate is neither part of the Islamic doctrine nor of the Şeriat,
because it is not legitimized by the norms contained in the nass (the Holy Koran and
the Sunna). The Caliphate is, indeed, a mere political issue left to the Muslim
community’s discretion:
If the issue of the Caliphate belonged to the fundamental religious principles

[mesâ’il-i asliye-yi diniye], it means that, at the time of the noble Prophet, Islam
was left deficient, incomplete. As a matter of fact, as we previously said, no
clarification in the holy texts [nusûs-ı şer’ıˆye] has been transmitted to us
concerning the Caliphate. The Holy Koran, though, in the noble verse ‘I
perfected your religion for you’27 clarifies that Islam had been perfected during
the lifetime of the noble Prophet. From this we understand that the issue of the
Caliphate concerns just the human thought’s [zann] sphere and it is not one of
the fundamental religious issues. . . .
To sum up, because the issue of Caliphate, rather than being a religious
matter, is a worldly issue; the noble Messenger – may God bless him – left it to
the ümmet, as well as he left – after his death – to the members of the community
to choose and define the Caliphate, without any prescription.28
According to Seyyid Bey, there are no sources on the form of authority, with the
exception of two verses from the Koran (IV:59 and XLII:38) and of few hadıths on
the obligation to follow the ruler, on the unity of the Muslim community, and on the
dominion belonging to the Quraishi tribe. The Caliphate, thus, is not a religiously
280 M. Guida
binding institution because it is not seen as a sacred issue but as a purely worldly
issue.
Moreover, Seyyid Bey seems to have adopted the distinction proposed by Ibn
Taymiyya, a thirteenth-century Muslim jurist who introduced new concepts into
Islamic political thought. Ibn Taymiyya apparently divides the concept of Caliphate
between the khil afat al-nubuwwa and mulk, which the Turkish author called khilafet-i
hükmiye or sûriye (apparent Caliphate). This distinction is supported by the saying of
the Prophet: ‘The Caliphate after me will last 30 years and then it will be a tyrannical
kingdom [mulkan ‘ad udan].’29 The hilafet-i nübüvet (which he calls also ‘perfect
Caliphate’, hilafet-i kâmile) can come into being only when a man possesses all the
requisites to be Caliph, he runs the state with justice and according to the Şeriat, and
satisfies the needs of the community, when he has been elected and has received the
homage of the community.30 The requisites to be elected Caliph are the same as
those listed by another renowned Muslim author, al-Mawardi, in his famous book
al-Ahkam al-Sultaniyya.31 Seyyid Bey simply specified that, according to the Hanafi
School, the Caliph must not be a müctehid (who possesses the aptitude to form his
own judgement on questions concerning the Holy Law), as the famous jurist al-
Gazali stated.32 On the other hand, according to some Hanafi scholars, Muslim
leaders may not meet the precondition of acting with justice. Seyyid Bey, in this case,
replied that this opinion applies to the hilafet-i sûriye and not to the sound hilafet-i
nübüvet.33 Both al-Gazali and al-Mawardi stressed the condition of justice for the
imam, because the imam (the political leader of the community) is also the supreme
judge in the Islamic state. Hanafi scholars’ approach to the question, however, was
more pragmatic and accepted the status quo of unjust rulers though with the
capability of controlling the territory and bringing security.34
The hilafet-i sûriye, then, belongs to one who does not posses all the requisites to
be Caliph or becomes the Muslims’ leader through the use of force, after he prevailed
upon the others. This is the kind of Caliphate that prevailed after the death of the
Prophet, with the exception of the ‘Rightly-Guided’ Caliphs. After them the
principle of ‘al-hukm li-man ghalab’ (rule to he who overpowers) prevailed.35
Seyyid Bey attempts to clarify his ideas by providing information about the
historical experience from the Islamic past:
Actually, nearly all the Caliphs that followed the Rightly-Guided Caliphs – with
the exception of a couple of them – have based their rule on oppression,
injustice, military power and absolutism. They considered their kingdom as if it
was a personal realm to exploit at will [kayf m a’], and they utilized the
a yasˇ
nation as if it was composed of slaves for their delight and good. Because they
have not been elected or chosen to the Caliphate by the ahl al-hall wa al-‘aqd,
and because neither justice nor moderation were their characteristics, theirs was
not a proper Caliphate, rather it was a kingdom [mulk] and a sultanate
[sultanat], the most absolutist kind of rule indeed.36
If we pay attention to history, we can notice that the true Caliphate ended with
the last Rightly-Guided Caliph, his Excellency Ali, or with the six months of his
Excellency Hasan’s imamate. Since then the principle ‘al-hukm li-man ghalab’
has been applied. Words were replaced by the sword; the brutal use of force
prevailed. So that the definition of ‘mulk ‘ad ud’ – that means despotic
authority – given by his Excellency the Prophet has prevailed.37
If a man possesses all the requisites to be Caliph, Seyyid Bey argued, could he
pretend to be imam of the Muslim Community? His answer is obviously no.
According to him, the Caliph is the Muslims’ vekil (procurator) and re’is (head):
‘the strength that he possesses emanates directly from the nation [millet]’.38 He adds:
The task to make someone Caliph, in principle, belongs properly to the nation,
a task that belongs to the whole nation. The nation can entrust the duty to the
most worthy person and to the most worthy household; if that happens, the
person that receives the task approves and accepts the duty, and he becomes
Caliph. This deal is clinched with entrustment and the acceptance is called
‘Caliphate’. The power of attorney [vekalet] is not something different. In the
law, as a matter of fact, we have power of attorney ‘when a person entrusted by
another person of its own business and the former stand in for the latter’
(Mecelle article 1449).39
And on power of attorney he also recalled that:
This means that power of attorney is of two kinds: the first is personal power of
attorney that properly belongs to fathers; the other is mandatory power of
attorney [velayet-i tefvid] that is entrusted by an adult that possesses his entire
faculty to another person. . . . The power of attorney given to the Caliph is the
mandatory power of attorney. This is because no one can claim by himself or on
hereditary grounds to be Caliph.40
Thus, to become Caliph, election by the nation is essential. Caliphs have no natural
rights over the nation, as fathers have over their own children. The nation can
choose unconditionally the person to elect (and this is the recommended way) or it
can choose to elect the heir to the throne (velıˆ-yi ‘ahd), as happened for the election
of Abdülmecid by the Assembly.
Election is crucial, however, to realize the ‘real Caliphate’ (hakikıˆ hilafet).41
Consequently, Seyyid Bey – as observed by Sylvia Haim –
equates the Bay’a of Ahl al-Hall wa’l-‘Aqd with the power of attorney given by
the whole nation; it represents the Caliphate as a form of democratic rule
obtained by plebiscite. This is very far removed from the orthodox conception
and is only read by an extension and a perversion of the traditional official view
of Bay’a and Ahl al-Hall wa’l-‘Aqd.42
The Caliph possesses an authority and has the power of representation of the
nation, and these constitute the velayet-i ‘amme (general power of attorney).43
However, only the nation can lend this power. The nation thus possesses a
sovereignty that is exclusive of the Muslim nation and is called by Seyyid Bey
‘hakimiyet-i milliye’ (national sovereignty), which is nothing other than the French
idea of ‘soveraineté’. All the kings and sultans who became rulers through the use of
282 M. Guida
force and without election do not possess velayet-i ‘amme because their authority
does not come from the national sovereignty but from the power of the sword.44
Obedience to an elected Caliph is compulsory (farz) because he is the proper
vekil of the nation.45 Obedience to a sultan that imposed himself with force will
be compulsory only in the event that he acts with justice. If he acts unjustly or
depravedly, though, he must be overthrown, but only if this can be done easily
(suhulet).46 This last position seems to have once again supported Ittihat _ ve
Terakki that acted against Abdülhamid II in 1908, an action that was neither
bloody nor destabilizing. Seyyid Bey was part of the intellectual-bureaucrat elite
_
typical of Ittihat ve Terakki and could not have assumed a radical anti-state
position.
However, if there is not enough strength to depose an unjust sultan, an action
against the sultan is unlawful. On this matter Seyyid Bey reported the opinion of
the Egyptian jurist Ibn Humam, according to whom an uprising against the ruler
without the necessary strength is the same as ‘to destroy a town building a
house’.47 Seyyid Bey states that in the case that the ruler orders something
unlawful, when not for the maslahat (welfare) of the nation, or he behaves evilly,
his orders must be simply ignored, which will paralyse but will not overthrow the
ruler.48 The evidence is in this hadıth: ‘Every Muslim – willingly or unwillingly –
has to listen and obey if no sinful action is ordered. He has not to comply if a sin
is ordered.’49
After the ending of the ‘real Caliphate’ since the age of Mu‘awiya, a return to the
Caliphate of the ‘Rightly-Guided’ Caliphs is not possible because such noble
qualities could not be found among today’s people. Moreover, the Ottoman
Caliphate must be considered no more than a kingdom (mulk) or a sultanate
(saltanat).50 Seyyid Bey argues at this point that according to Islamic sources the
Caliphate is not a compulsory institution. Islam prescribes only a government –
without specifying the form of government – which guarantees order and security,
and opposes chaos (fawda) and anarchy (anarşi).51
A booklet published on 15 January 1923 by Şükrü Efendi (Çelikalay), a member
of the TGNA, criticized the abolition of the Sultanate. In the booklet, the author
stated that the Caliph should be the effective head of state and government, and
should be the single authority because the Hanafi School prescribes the ruler’s
permission (izn-i imam) to perform the Friday prayer and the two Eid prayers.52 At
the same time – Şükrü Efendi argued – only the sultan can invest the judiciary with
the necessary power. Seyyid Bey replied that the Hanafi School does not specify in
detail the characteristics of the ruler’s power but – as mentioned above – the school is
ready to accept autocratic and despotic authority.53 Public prayers are indeed a
political act, because they deal with social and public issues, and publicize the name
of the authority as well as being an act of worship. For these reasons, Hanafi
scholars prescribed the izn-i imam and prevented possible dispute inside the Muslim
community yet without a clear prescription in the sources.54 Concerning the
pilgrimage, the authority has only the duty of ensuring security, law and order, but
has no religious duty.55
Moreover, according to Seyyid Bey, there is no norm ruling that the authority
should be a single individual. There is no norm, on the other hand, which prohibits
an assembly to represent the nation and to be the supreme authority:
So to define an action as unlawful [haram] is obviously necessary to find

evidence in the Şeriat [Koran and Sunna] that explicitly and clearly would
forbid it. Otherwise, according to Islamic law, that action cannot be defined as
unlawful or prohibited.56
This reasoning is the ibaha-ı asliye. In other words, an action must be considered
lawful when there is no verses of the Koran nor, a tradition of the Prophet, nor
consensus of the Muslim scholars that explicitly prohibits that action.57 Thus,
because there is no proof that supreme authority must be a single individual, and
even a well established custom is not accepted as a valid source of law – Seyyid Bey
argues – Parliament or a cabinet can govern the Muslim community.58
It seems, however, that the author in this case stretches the traditional sources too
far to accord with his agenda. It is definitely true that the sources do not embrace a
judgement on Parliament and to the authority led by an assembly or a group of
people. It is also true that we could not expect an opinion on the subject from
authors like Al-Mawardi, al-Gazali or Ibn Taymiyya because parliamentary and
representative government is too far from their time and way of thinking. Maybe
even at the time of the Prophet such an idea might have been seen as unthinkable:
after all, in Medina, Muhammad was the arbiter and only authority of the Muslims;
the Prophet himself, for instance, ordered that when three people travel only one of
them should be nominated amır59 and the command of şura is an unspecified call to
consultation. As in the case of Seyyid Bey’s assumption that there are no provisions
on authority, he stretches sources in a way that might not be expected from an
Islamist modernist writer who pays great attention to the literal meaning of the
sources. Moreover, Seyyid Bey quotes previous Muslim authors only when they
support his ideas; otherwise, he goes back to the Islamic authoritative texts (nass), or
his own reasoning (ijtihad).
Seyyid Bey then concludes that, because it guarantees order and security for
Muslims, prevents anarchy, and represents the ul u al-amr (assembling the true
representatives of the people), and is a better form of government, the TGNA can
substitute for the Ottoman Caliphate. He also adds that the TGNA is a better form
of government as it implements the Koran’s command of consultation (meşveret).
The most politically remarkable work of Seyyid Bey is his speech at the TGNA60
during the debate on the abolition of the Caliphate, the withdrawal of citizenship
from and exile of the members of the Ottoman royal family. The debate itself is
particularly interesting both because of its political implications and as a turning
point in Muslim political thought.
The proposal61 had previously been debated by the parliamentary group of the
People’s Republican Party on 2 March 1924, and then presented to the TGNA by a
group of 54 MPs. The most active member was Şeyh Safvet Efendi (Yetkin)62 from
Urfa who made a very interesting speech immediately before Seyyid Bey, supporting
the proposal:
One of the Prophet’s miracles is his words: ‘The Caliphate – that is a just,
lawful, and stable government – after me will last 30 years’. Once the period of
284 M. Guida
30 years ended, with the Caliphate of His Excellency Imam Ali, oppression and
enmity appeared, together with the Umayyad government. Justice and law
began to be shaken. With this noble hadıth, it is clear that in Islam, Caliphate is
intended as a right and correct executive government. This kind of government
could last 30 years after the death of His Excellency the Prophet. On the other
side, individuals such as Walid II appropriated for himself the title of Caliph
despite the fact that he martyred the direct descendants of the Prophet in
Karbala’s desert and flung the Sublime Koran to the ground – God forbid. The
population then had to suffer from these calamities. It wasn’t thought that this
nonsense was a great offence to Islam. These [regimes] imperturbably
maintained that whoever administered public affairs with justice and law was
to be considered as Caliph of God on earth. These governments were neglecting
justice and law, and, thus, were very far from possessing those qualities. In the
forgotten verses and hadıth there was a reality that humanity discovered again
with experience: after the noble Prophet a government based on justice and law
may be found only in the republic. After all, in the period of the ‘Rightly-
Guided’ Caliphs, the majority of the Companions’ ideas prevailed.
Thus: today, the executive government is based on justice, on law, and
republicanism. Our administration – thanks to God – is a republican system.
The institution of the Caliphate is rationally and logically already included in
principle in the Parliament of the great nation. Because the essence of the
Caliphate as intended by Islam is already represented in this noble Parliament, it
is illogical [garibe] that an institution with the name of Islamic Caliphate has
become so outdated and – in principle – contrary to the republic, still exists
outside the Parliament of the Great nation. This honourable institution can put
an end to this nonsense and return to the original meaning of Caliphate. The
first article of the proposal is the result of our modest opinions. Finally, I ask
your approbation.63
The proposal of the People’s Republican Party was also signed by Ilyas _ Sami and
64
Halil Hulki, two of the three authors of the pamphlet Hakimiyet-i Milliye ve
_
Hilafet-i Islamiye 65
published the previous year. These two MPs did not take part in
the debate (Halil Hulki intervened only with a few words) but their booklet in
_
response to the book66 of the jurist Ismail Şükrü sustained the same ideas advocated
by Seyyid Bey. They write that ‘our ijtihad is unconfined and independent. If we
cannot find it in the Koran and in the hadıth, we take and deduce it from our reason
and, therefore ‘‘the door of ijtihad is open’’’.67 They also stated that an Islamic
government (hükum-ı islamiye) must be based on justice, ruled by Muslims, founded
on national sovereignty – represented by the meşveret – on the respect for authority
(according to Koran IV:59), and, finally on equality among Muslims.68
_
Ilyas Sami and Halil Hulki recognize that Ittihad-ı_ _
Islam (Pan-Islamism) is a
Utopia, so that ‘the noble Islamic Şeriat left the administration to the single
nations’.69 To justify their idea that after the age of the ‘Rightly-Guided’ Caliphs a
single ruler, namely a single Caliph, can no longer exist in the huge Muslim territory,
like Seyyid Bey they prove their statement with the hadıth: ‘After me, the Caliphate
will last 30 years’.70 Interestingly, in a different political context, the same hadıth was
used to support the legitimacy of the Ottoman Caliphate: in 1731, Pı̂rı̂zade Mehmed
Sahip Efendi and, in the second half of the nineteenth century, Cevdet Paşa stated
that the condition of being a member of the Qurayhi tribe do not apply to the
Ottoman dynasty, which came after the 30-year long hilafet-i nübüvet.71
Going back to his speech in the TGNA, Seyyid Bey shared Safvet Efendi’s and the
pamphlet’s view and angrily accused Muslim Indians and Egyptians of being false
supporters of the Caliphate. Despite recognizing the importance of Muslim
brotherhood, he reminded his listeners that Muslim Indian soldiers also occupied
the seat of the Caliphate, captured him in Istanbul, and detained him and many MPs
in Malta. Even if eminent Indian Muslims were pleading for a more influential
position for the Caliph after the struggle for independence, a Caliphate will not give
unity to Muslim discord or help to unravel Muslim decadence.72 Moreover, in his
words a new Turkish Islamic nationalism – an idea which was to gain dominance
among Turkish Islamists from now on – appeared. This nationalism does not deny
Islamic brotherhood, but exalts the contribution of Turks to Islam and the greatness
of the Turkish experience. Seyyid Bey indeed underlined more than once in the
speech the role of Turkish scholars in Muslim jurisprudence and sciences, and he put
emphasis on our country (memleketimiz) rather than the Islamic World. From now
on, these national feelings will dominate among Islamist authors in Turkey who
stress the Turkish contribution to Islam or the Anatolian-Islamic identity.
The speech by Seyyid Bey followed, then, positive speeches by eminent members
of the ilmiye. His speech was well thought-out, well articulated and was aimed at
allaying the recent concerns and fears. He concentrated on the juridical aspects of the
issue, indeed ‘my main aim is to explain the matter from the religious point of
view’.73
He concluded his argument by saying that:
If the nation gives to none his power of attorney, namely if he doesn’t elect a
Caliph or an imam, there is no Caliphate. There is, however, the Republic. What
is the obstacle to that? If the nation says ‘I’ll look after my affairs, why with
force should somebody else administer it, why should this be lawful? If the
nation says: ‘No, I’ll look after my affairs! When I’ll be old, I’ll give power of
attorney to the Caliph or to the imam. But now – thank God – I’m not old! I can
still rely on my judgement. I don’t need power of attorney. With the republican
system, which is the best form of rule for the nations, and with meşveret I’ll look
after my affairs’, who can argue? No one can argue! Moreover, it’s a right of the
nation [applause]. The Holy Koran clearly shows that: ‘Muslims decide by
themselves on their affairs consulting each other’74 [applause]. Here we are!
The issue has been simplified. We turned around the question, and it became a
simple legal issue. It has become an issue that even a kid can understand. What is
the sense in exceeding, in magnifying the issue more than necessary and to give it
different meanings, in distorting it, in romanticizing it and in transforming it in a
disturbing issue? This has a meaning, this is a custom. Yes, Honourables, a
custom. Their brains are accustomed to it, their eyes are accustomed to it, their
minds are accustomed to it. There isn’t anything else!75
Muslims got accustomed to the Ottoman Caliphate, yet if the Caliph is just a form
of government – which had proved to be incapable of preserving Muslim unity – and
286 M. Guida
if the best government is the people’s direct rule, then constitutionalism and
Parliament’s sovereignty has to prevail on the Caliphate.
It might be suggested that Seyyid Bey acted naively in the March 1924 debate.
He seems to fail to comprehend the real plans of the emerging Kemalists. In fact,
he apparently provided religious justification for the radical secular policies. We
do not know exactly what his role in the CUP was, but it seems indisputable that
he acquired during his life a good political experience to read events correctly. On
the other side, the abolition of the Sultanate, the proclamation of the Republic
(29 October 1923), the dispute on article 23 of the Constitutional draft
constituted enough evidence to understand the direction that the events were
taking even if it was only during the 1930s that secularism was carried to the
extremes. However, he probably sincerely believed that the TGNA was the best
Islamic form of rule according to his reinterpretation of the sources, and that the
Caliphate should be reinterpreted in the light of the current political events:
‘Caliphate . . . What is called Caliphate is collapsed and gone. We’ve became ruins
and dust. No good, nor soul, nor property remained for us. The whole country
has fallen into misery. Are those the benefits and utility of the Caliphate,
Honourables?’76
His reading of the turbulent political events, the reinterpretation and over-
stretching of the Islamic sources brought him to promote a radical reform of Muslim
political institutions. Even if the following generation of Islamist authors in Turkey
forget Seyyid Bey, undoubtedly he represents a model of how Islamist political ideas
evolved in the first quarter of the twentieth century and he is indeed the best
representative of the Muslim reformists who participated in the Independence
struggle and the genesis of the Turkish Republic.
Notes
1. The only monograph is S. Erdem, ‘Seyyid Bey: Hayatı ve Eserleri’ [Seyyid Bey: Life and Works], in O.
Karadeniz, A.B. Baloglu and A.B. Ünal, Türk Hukuk ve Siyaset Adamı Seyyit Bey Sempozyumu
[Symposium a Turkish Lawyer and Politician: Seyyit Bey] (Izmir: _ _
Izmir _
Ilahiyat Fakültesi, 1999),
pp.11–41, and more extensively S. Erdem, ‘Seyyid Bey: Hayatı ve Eserleri’ [Seyyid Bey: His life and
Works] (MA dissertation: Marmara Üniversitesi, 1993), pp.7–52. Short information is also available
in K. Öztürk, Türkiye Parlamento Tarihi [The History of Turkey’s Parliament] (Ankara: TBMM
Vakfı, 1993), Vol.III, pp.445–6.
2. O. Ergin, Türkiye Maarif Tarihi [History of Turkish Education] (Istanbul: Osmanbey, 1941), Vol.III,
pp.890–918.
3. Seyyid Bey, Usûl-i Fıkıh Dersleri [Lessons of Usûl-i Fıkıh] (Dâr-ul’hilafet [Istanbul]: Matbaa-ı
Hukukiye, 1328).
_
4. Quoted in T.Z. Tunaya, Türkiye’de Siyasal Partiler [Political Parties in Turkey] (Istanbul: Iletişim,
2000), Vol.3, p.302.
5. H.C. Yalçın, ‘Tanıdıklamrım: Seyid Bey’ [People that I Knew: Seyid Bey], Yedigün, No.183 (9
September 1936), p.16.
6. Ibid., p.16.
_
7. F. Ahmad, Ittihat ve Terakki [Union and Progress] (Istanbul: Kaynak, 1984), pp.149–52.
8. Tunaya, Vol.3, pp.299–302.
9. Tunaya, Vol.2, pp.112–53.
10. B.N. Şimşir, Malta Sürgünleri [Malta’s Exiles] (Istanbul: Milliyet, 1976), pp.209–10.
11. This booklet was published anonymously in 1922 or in 1923; however in his speech on 3 March 1924
he confirmed publishing a book under this title: Seyyid Bey, Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisinin 3 Mart
1340 Tarihinde Münakid Ikinci _ _
Ictimada, Hilafetin Mahiyet-i Şer’iyesi hakkında ‘Adliye Vekili Seyyid
Bey Tarafından Irad _ olunan Nutuk [Discourse Held by the Justice Minister Seyyid Bey on the Nature
of the Caliphate According to the Şeriat to the TGNA in the Second Session on 3 March 1340]
(Ankara: TBMM Matba’ası, n.d.), p.3. The booklet was then published in Arabic translated by ‘Abd
al-Gani Sani Bey, Turkish Consul in Beirut and official spokesman for the TGNA, under the title al-
khilafa wa sulta al-umma [The Caliphate and the People’s Authority] in al-Ahr am newspaper and then
as a booklet in Cairo in 1342/1924. There is also a translation into French (in Revue du Monde
Musulman, Vol.59, No.1 (1925), pp.5–81, from the Arabic text); in the preface to the translation, it is
stated that it is ‘un document non signé; – communique´ officieux que la Grande Assemblée National fit
re´diger à la fin de 1922 par un groupe de canonistes, sous la direction d’un parlementaire tre`s qualifie´
(déce´de´ il y a quelques mois) [it seems that it refers exactly to Seyyid Bey who, though, was elected to
Ankara Parliament only in July 1923]’ (p.3).
_
12. C. Kutay, Türkiye Istiklâl ve Hürriyet Mücadeleri Tarihi [History of Turkish Independence and
Liberty Struggle] (Istanbul: Istanbul Matbaası, 1962), Vol.20, p.11357.
13. E.M. Earle, ‘The New Constitution of Turkey’, Political Science Quarterly, Vol.XL, No.1 (1925), p.91.
14. Yalçın, p.16.
15. Kutay, Vol.20, pp.11366–9.
16. As he recognized in his 3 March 1924 speech: Hilafetin Mahiyet-i Şer’iyesi, pp.60–63.
17. See Seyyid Bey’s speech on this matter as Justice Minister TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi2, Vol.V,
pp.374–9.
18. Ş.T. Buzpınar, ‘The Question of Caliphate under the Last Ottoman Sultans’, in I. Weismann and F.
Zachs, Ottoman Reform and Muslim Regeneration (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2005), p.20.
19. In S. Kili and A.Ş. Gözübüyük, Türk Anayasa Metinleri [Turkish Constitutional Texts] (Istanbul:
Türkiye Iş_ Bankası, 1985), p.72; emphasis added.
20. Quoted in Buzpınar, ‘The Question of Caliphate’, p.22 and in J.L. Bacqué-Grammont and H.
Mammeri, ‘Sur le pèlegrinage et quelques proclamations de Mehmed VI en exil’, Turcica, Vol.XIV
(1982), p.237.
21. ‘Bulgaristan istiklalinden münbais ihtilafın tesviyesine dair Bulgaristan’la munakkad 6/19 nisan 1909
tarihli protokol’, in Düstur2, Vol.I, p.177 and ‘Protocole entre le Gouvernment Impérial Ottoman et le
Gouvernment Impérial et Royal commun d’Autriche-Houngrie’, in Düstur2, Vol.I, p. 152; emphasis
added.
_ Kara, Islâmcıların
22. I. _ Siyasıˆ Görüşleri: Hilafet ve Meşrutiyet [Islamist Political Ideas: Caliphate and
Parlamentarism] (Istanbul: Dergâh, 2001), pp.143–53.
23. Elmalılı Muhammed Hamdi Yazır, ‘Islâmiyet _ _
ve Hilafet ve Meşihat-ı Islamiye’ _ Kara (ed.),
in I.
_
Türkiye’de Islâmcılık Düşüncesi [Islamist Thought in Turkey] (Istanbul: Kitabevi, 1997), Vol.I, p.523.
Born in Antalya in 1878, Elmalılı Hamdi Efendi was member of the ilmiye when he was elected to the
Ottoman Parliament in 1908, and then a member of the Senate in 1919. Because he was minister of
Evkaf in the first and second Damat Ferid’s government he was persecuted – but then acquitted – by
_
the Ankara Istiklal Mahkemesi. He was, however, given by republican authorities the task of preparing
a translation into Turkish of the Koran, which today is still the most common translation in Turkey.
He died in Istanbul in 1942.
24. Umm al-Qura (Beyrut: Dar al-Ra’id al-‘Arabı, 1982); Ş.T. Buzpınar, ‘Kevâkibı̂’, in Islam _ Ansiklopedisi
(Ankara: TDV, 2002), Vol.25, pp.339–40.
25. R. Peters, Islam and Colonialism, the Doctrine of Jihad in Modern History (The Hague: Mouton, 1979),
pp.90–94.
26. Reproduced in S.J. Shaw, From Empire to Republic (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2000), Vol.II,
pp.803–4.
27. Koran V:3.
28. [Mehmet Seyyid Bey], Hilafet ve Hakimiyet-i Milliye (1339 [1923]), pp.3–4; a transliteration of the text
_ Kara, Hilafet Risâleleri [Treaties on the Caliphate] (Istanbul: Klasik, 2004), pp.443–84. See also
is in I.
Hilafetin Mahiyet-i Şer’iyesi, pp.4 and 11.
29. This hadith is quoted also by al-Taftazani (Sˇarh al-Maq asid [Commentary of al-Maq asid] (Istanbul:
Matba’a al-‘Amire, 1277), Vol.II, p.201), from whom Seyyid Bey probably took it, and collected by
Ibn Hanbal.
288 M. Guida
30. Hilafet ve Hakimiyet-i Milliye, pp.13–14.

31. Those are: (1) justice; (2) knowledge; (3) hearing, sight, and speech; (4) good health; (5) competence in
administration; (6) courage and valour to defend the nation; (7) being a member of the Qurayš tribe
(al-Mawardi, al-Ahk am al-sult aniyya wa al-wil ayat al-diniyya [Ordinances on Authority and the Rule
of Religion] (Beyrut: Dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyya, 1405/1985), p.6).
32. E.I.J. Rosenthal, Political Thought in Medieval Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958),
p.40.
33. Hilafet ve Hakimiyet-i Milliye, pp.18–20.
34. For example see Badr al-Din al-‘Ayni, al-Bin aya sˇarh al-hid aya (Beyrut Dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyya,
1420/2000), Vol.9, p.14.
35. Ibid., p.15. Seyyid Bey uses as evidence here the hadith: ‘The successions to the Prophethood [khil afah
al-nubuwwah] will last 30 years’ (Abu Dawud, Sunnah 8; Tirmidhi, Fitan 48).
36. Hilafet ve Hakimiyet-i Milliye, p.53.
37. Hilafetin Mahiyet-i Şer’iyesi, p.21.
38. Mehmet Seyyid [Bey], Usûl-ı Fıkh, Madhal [Introduction to Usûl-ı Fıkh] (Istanbul: Matba’a-ı ‘Amire,
1333), p.117.
39. Hilafet ve Hakimiyet-i Milliye, p.26. Article 1449 of the Mecelle-yi Ahkam-ı ‘Adliye says: ‘A power of
attorney is when a person is entrusted by another person of its own business, and the former stand in
for the latter. Who entrusts a duty is called müvekkil, who does receive the power of attorney is the
vekil and the object of power of attorney is müvekkel.’
40. Hilafetin Mahiyet-i Şer’iyesi, p.39.
42. S.G. Haim, ‘The Abolition of the Caliphate and its Aftermath’, in T.W. Arnold, The Caliphate
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965), p.215.
43. Seyyid Bey, Usûl-ı Fıkh, Madhal, p.117.
47. ‘Yabnı qasran wa yahdamu misran’: in Hilafet ve Hakimiyet-i Milliye, p.40.
49. Muslim 1839.
51. Ibid., p.42.
_
52. Ismail _
Şükrü, Hilâfet-i Islâmiye ve Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi [The Caliphate and the TGNA]
(Istanbul: Bedir, 1993). Ismail _ Şükrü studied in medreses and was an active member of Ittihat _ ve
Terakki. After the Greek invasion of Izmir in 1919, he joined the National struggle. He was
elected to the Assembly in April 1920 in the constituency of Afyon (Karahisar-ı Sahip). He was
then under investigation for his booklet Hilâfet-i Islâmiye _ ve Büyük Millet Meclisi without
consequences, but his book ran into censorship in 1928. On the polemics that his book created see:
D.A. Akbulut, Hilâfet ve Milli Hakimiyet [The Caliphate and National Sovereignty] (Samsun:
privately published 1994).
54. Seyyid Bey, Hilafetin Mahiyet-i Şer’iyesi, p.48. Today, Turkish scholars think that the permission to
build a mosque by authorities implies the authorization to Friday prayers and public act of worship
(H. Karaman, A. Bardakoglu and Y. Apaydın, Ilmihal _ _
(Istanbul: ISAM, 1998), Vol.I, p.298).
According to the law, though, the Diyanet Işleri _ Başkanlıgı is the only authority for all the mosques
and worship inside Turkey.
55. Ibid., p.51. Seyyid Bey and those who opposed the abolition of caliphate still quote the idea of amır al-
hajj (Cf. I._ Şükrü, Hilâfet-i Islâmiye
_ ve Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi, p.26), and in his correspondence
with the TGNA the Caliph still signed as Kh adim al-haramayn al-sˇarıfayn in 1922 while in 1919 the
Ottoman Empire had lost sovereignty over all holy sites.
57. According to the brocard ‘all the action [not reported in the Şeriat] are in principle lawful [eşyada asl
olan ibahtır]’ and to al-Tirmidhi and Ibn Majah’s hadith: ‘Lawful [hal al] is what God had made lawful
in His Book; unlawful [har am] is what God has prohibited; what he had fallen silent are remitted [‘af a
‘anh]’, in Seyyid Bey, Usûl-ı Fıkh, Madhal, p.80.

59. ‘When three [persons] are traveling, nominate one of them amır’ (Abu Dawud, 2241) and ‘When there
are three [persons], one of them has to become im am’ (Muslim, 1077).
60. Seyyid Bey, Hilafetin Mahiyet-i Şer’iyesi. A Latin transcription is in: TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi2, Vol.VII,
pp.40–62; in modern Turkish: Kara, Türkiye’de Islamcılık _ Düşüncesi, pp.259–300.
61. Art. 1 – The Caliph is dismissed. Since it is already embraced [mündemic] in the concept and
understanding of the republic, the Caliphate is abolished.
Art. 2 – All the men and women belonging to the dismissed Caliph and obsolete Ottoman Sultan’s
household, like their spouses are deprived for ever of their right to live in the Turkish Republic’s territory.
All the wives of the member of the household are included.
Art. 3 – The persons mentioned in article 2 must leave the territory of the Turkish Republic within 10 days
from the publication of this law.
Art. 4 – The persons mentioned in article 2 are deprived of Turkish citizenship . . .
Art. 8 – All the estates of those who fill the position of padişah of the Ottoman Empire within the territory
of the Turkish Republic are given to the nation.
Art. 9 – All the furniture, sets, paints, all the woks of art and all the movables inside the palaces, castles
and residences of the dismissed padişah are given to the nation.
Art. 10 – All the properties of the Sultan once belonging to the nation, the properties of the dismissed
padişah, the properties belonging to the Royal Treasury including buildings, castles, edifices, and lands
are given to the nation. . . .
Art. 13 – The Government is responsible for the application of this law. (For the complete text see Kili
and Gözübüyük, pp.106–7).
62. On this Member of Parliament we have very sketchy bibliographical information, although he
presented a fascinating figure. He was elected three times to the Ottoman Parliament and in the second
term of the TGNA (1924–27). He received his education in the medreses and in the prestigious al-
Azhar in Cairo, where he was a member of the Egyptian branch of CUP in opposition to Abdülhamit
II. He was chosen as postnişin of the Halveti Dergâhı and president of the Meclis-i Meşayih. He owned
the weekly review Tasavvuf published in Istanbul between March 1911 and March 1912. The review
was the organ of the Cemiyyet-i Sufiye led by Şeyhülislam Musa Kâzım.
63. In Öztürk, Türkiye Parlamento Tarihi, TGNA II. Dönem 1923–27, Vol.I, p.309.
_
64. Hoca Ilyas Sami studied in Egyptian medreses, and after 1908 he was elected for two terms in the
constituency of Muş. Despite being deported to Malta, he was elected again in Muş to the first TBMM.
He was elected again in the second and third term in Bitlis and fifth term in Çorum. Once Hoca Halil
Hulki completed his education in medreses, he dedicated himself to politics and was a leading member
_
of Ittihat ve Terakki in the province of Siirt. In Siirt, he founded and led the local Müdafaa-yı Hukuk
association. He was elected in the last election of the Ottoman Parliament and, on 13 May 1920,
entered the TGNA. He was elected again in the 2nd and 6th term. The third author of the pamphlet,
Hoca Rasih (Kaplan, 1883–1952), an MP from Antalya, studied in Egypt at the Azh ar and the Faculty
of Arts and Sociology. He was elected eight times to the TGNA.
_
65. Halil Hulki, Ilyas Sami e Hoca Rasih, Hakimiyet-i Milliye ve Hilafet-i Islamiye, _ Karahisar-ı Sahib
Mebusu Hoca Ismail _ Şükrü Efendi’nin bu Meseleye Dair Neşretti gi Risaleye Reddiyedir [National
Sovereignty and the Islamic Caliphate: A Response to Karahisar-ı Sahib MP Ismail _ Şükrü Efendi’s
Booklet on this Matter] (Ankara: Yeni Gün, 1341 [1923]).
_
66. Şükrü, Hilâfet-i Islâmiyye ve Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi.
_
67. Hakimiyet-i Milliye ve Hilafet-i Islamiyye, pp.4–5.
68. Ibid., pp.11–12.
69. Ibid., p.23.
70. Ibid. p.23.
71. Ş.T. Buzpınar, ‘Osmanlı Hilâfeti Hakkında Bazı Yeni Tespitler ve Mülâhazalar (1725–1909)’ [Some
New Notes and Observations on the Ottoman Caliphate (1725–1909)], Türk Kültürü Incelemeleri _
Dergisi, No.10 (Spring 2004), pp.27–8.
72. Hilafetin Mahiyet-i Şer’iyesi, pp.30–33.
73. Ibid., p.4.
74. It is Seyyid Bey’s free translation of verse XLII:38.
75. Seyyid Bey, Hilafetin Mahiyet-i Şer’iyesi, p.45.
76. Ibid., p.59.

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medrese professor] and as muallim [a university professor] and furthermore I’m a

delivered an uninterrupted seven-hour speech.12 Eventually, his revolutionary

If the issue of the Caliphate belonged to the fundamental religious principles

authority – given by his Excellency the Prophet has prevailed.37

And on power of attorney he also recalled that:

So to deﬁne an action as unlawful [haram] is obviously necessary to ﬁnd

Parliament’s sovereignty has to prevail on the Caliphate.

30. Hilafet ve Hakimiyet-i Milliye, pp.13–14.

58. Hilafet ve Hakimiyet-i Milliye, p.42.

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