Mehmet Cemaleddin Efendi

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Mehmet Cemaleddin Efendi (1848-1917) was a senior judge of the Ottoman Empire.

His father, Sheyh Ahmed Halid Efendi, was a member of the judiciary and served as Kazasker and as 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 (Chief Judge) of Istanbul in 1884. He was appointed Chief Judge of Anatolia (Anadolu Kazaskeri) in 1888 and Chief Judge of Rumelia, the European parts of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, in 1890. On 4 September 1891, at the age of 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, and was later reappointed on three other occasions for shorter periods, holding this post for a total of nearly 18 years, and becoming the second-longest holder of this post in Ottoman history, after Ali Zembilli Efendi. His son-in-law was the noted Turkish surgeon and mayor of Istanbul Prof. Cemil Topuzlu, also known as Cemil Pasha, whose name was given to a major boulevard in Istanbul, "Cemil Topuzlu Caddesi".

An opponent of the pro-German and war-oriented policy of the Union and Progress Party, he was exiled to Egypt in 1913, and died in Ramleh, Egypt, on 5 April 1917, at the age of 79. When his body was brought to Istanbul, it laid in state at the Topkapı Palace, and he is now buried at the Edirnekapi Shehitlik Cemetery in Istanbul. His memoirs were first published in Istanbul in 1920, and then edited by Selim Kutsan and re-published in modern Turkish under the title Siyasi Hatiralarim (My Political Memoirs), by the publisher Nehir Yayinlari (Istanbul) in 1990.

[edit] Selected Bibliography

Cemaleddin Efendi "Siyasi Hatiralarim" from the Ottoman Turkish original, "Hatirat-i Siyasisi", Istanbul 1920, Selim Kutsan (ed.), Publisher, Nehir Yayinlari: 43, Hatiralarla Yakin Tarih Dizisi: 4, Istanbul, 1990.