Mehmet Cemaleddin Efendi


Şeyhülislâm Halidefendizâde Mehmet Cemaleddin Efendi was an Ottoman judge who served as Ottoman Empire|sheikh al-Islam] for Sultan Abdul Hamid II between 1891 and 1909.

Biography

His father, Sheikh Yusufzâde Hâlid Efendi, was a member of the honorable
judiciary and served as Kazasker and a minister. His mother was a member of the Kevabibiye family and a daughter of Mehmed Said Efendi.
Mehmet Cemaleddin was educated in Ottoman and Islamic law, and served in the Ottoman judiciary as Kadi of Constantinople in 1884. He was appointed Chief Judge of Anatolia in 1888 and Chief Judge of Rumelia, the European parts of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, in 1890. On 4 September 1891, at 43, he was appointed Şeyhülislam, the Cabinet Minister in charge of religious and legal matters. He remained in this post for 16 years and 11 months. He was later reappointed on three other occasions for shorter periods, holding this post for nearly 18 years and becoming the second-longest holder in Ottoman history after Zembilli Ali Efendi. His wife was Fatma Zehra Hanim, and his son-in-law was the leading Turkish surgeon and mayor of Constantinople, Prof. Cemil Topuzlu, also known as Cemil Pasha, for whom a major boulevard in modern Istanbul "Cemil Topuzlu Caddesi" and a municipal amphitheatre Cemil Topuzlu Harbiye Amphitheatre are named. Mehmet Cemaleddin's younger brother, Ibrahim Sami Bey, was a member of the Ottoman Council of State, whose grandson Erol Gelenbe held the Dennis Gabor Chair at Imperial College, London.
An opponent of the pro-German and war-oriented policy of the Union and Progress Party, Mehmed Cemalettin Efendi was exiled to Egypt in 1913 and died in a place called Ramleh near Menouf in Egypt on 5 April 1917 at the age of 70. When his body was brought to Constantinople, it lay in state at the Topkapı Palace, and he is now buried at the Edirnekapı Martyr's Cemetery. His memoirs were first published in Constantinople in 1920, and then edited by Selim Kutsan and re-published in modern Turkish under the title Siyasi Hatiralarim by the publisher Nehir Yayinlari in 1990.

Selected bibliography

  • Cemaleddin Efendi "Siyasi Hatiralarim" from the Ottoman Turkish original, "Hatirat-i Siyasisi", Istanbul 1920, Selim Kutsan, Publisher, Nehir Yayinlari: 43, Hatiralarla Yakin Tarih Dizisi: 4, Istanbul, 1990.
  • Yıldız, E., "XIX. yüzyılda bir Osmanlı şeyhülislâmı: Mehmet Cemalettin Efendi’nin nesebi ve ilmi mirası", Dicle Akademi Dergisi, 3, 147-175, 2023.