[MIDDLE EAST / ABOLITION OF CALIPHATE / TURKEY] Hâkimiyet-i Milliye ve Hilâfet-i Islâmiye. [i.e. National Sovereignty and Islamic Caliphate]

HOCA HALIL HULKI [AYDIN], (Siirt Mebusu), (1869-1940), HOCA EL-HAC ILYAS SAMI [MUS], (Mus Mebusu), (1881-1945); HOCA MEHMED RASIH [KAPLAN], (1883-1952), Yenigün Matbaasi, Ankara, [AH 1341] = 1925.

Original wrappers. Demy 8vo. (21 x 15 cm). In Ottoman script (Old Turkish with Arabic letters). 37 p. Chipped on extremities, occasional foxing on pages, overall a good copy.

Scarce first and only edition of this treatise written as a refutation of Afyonkarahisar deputy teacher Ismail Sükrü Efendi's treatise on the issue of the Caliphate, titled "Hilâfet-i Islâmiye ve Büyük Millet Meclisi" [i.e. Caliphate of Islam and the Grand National Assembly].

The treatise Ismail Sükrü Çelikalay Efendi (1876-1950) published a pamphlet called "Caliphate of Islam and the Grand National Assembly" and had it distributed in the Assembly after Mustafa Kemal Atatürk went on a tour of Western Anatolia to poll the public opinion on the dissolution of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, on January 15, 1923. The treatise in question caused great controversy in the parliament. It was remarkable that this treatise, which is small in volume at twenty-eight pages but will cause storms in terms of content, coincided with the day after Mustafa Kemal Pasha's Western Anatolia tour. Although the name of the author was not on the booklet, at the end of the "introduction" there was the signature of "Deputy of Karahisar-i Sahib, Hodca Sükrü, Member of Parliament". In the "preface" of the work, Ismail Sükrü Efendi, who stated that the decision of November 1 had great effects in Turkey and the Islamic world and caused hesitations in the Muslim public, wrote that some publications and statements of certain people caused this situation.

This pamphlet we present is written as a refutation of the treatise written by Ismail Sükrü Efendi, an explanatory character of the Islamic religious principles and revealed the legal status of the caliphate, and argued that Sükrü Efendi considered the decisions taken by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey up to that time illegitimate. (Atatürk Ansiklopedisi).

The caliphate soon became a hereditary institute when the dynastic system of rule was introduced to the Islamic world by the Umayyads, who were overthrown and replaced by the Abbasids. The Abbasids, after the destruction of Baghdad in 1258 CE, held nothing but the title itself. This was to change when the Ottoman Sultans took over the institute, becoming the first and last non-Arabs to do so, and continued it until 1924 CE when it was officially abolished by Turkish nationalist leader Mustafa Kemal Pasha (the father of modern Turkey).

Özege 6650.; TBTK 12270.; OCLC shows six copies in Univ of Toronto at Downsview, University of Toronto Group, LOC, University of California Los Angeles: 282560332, 319998803, 977097164.