In 1878, Abdul Hamid consolidated his rule by suspending both the constitution and the parliament,[4] purging the Young Ottomans [tr], and curtailing the power of the Sublime Porte.

Large sections of the pro-constitutionalist Ottoman intelligentsia sharply criticized and opposed him for his repressive policies, which coalesced into the Young Turks movement.

Abdul Hamid II attempted to reassert his absolutism a year later, resulting in his deposition by pro-constitutionalist forces in the 31 March incident, though the role he played in these events is disputed.

It was initial consensus that his incompetent personal rule accelerated disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, holding back modernization during the otherwise dynamic Belle Époque.

Since the AKP's rise to power, scholars have attributed a resurgence in his personality cult an attempt to check Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's established image as the founder of modern Turkey.

He was the son of Sultan Abdulmejid I[1] and Tirimüjgan Kadın (Circassia, 20 August 1819 – Constantinople, Feriye Palace, 2 November 1853),[12][13] originally named Virjinia.

[19] In December 1876, due to the 1875 insurrection in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the ongoing war with Serbia and Montenegro, and the feeling aroused throughout Europe by the cruelty used in stamping out the 1876 Bulgarian rebellion, Abdul Hamid promulgated a constitution and a parliament.

In a decree issued in December 1881, a large portion of the empire's revenues were handed over to the Public Debt Administration for the benefit of (mostly foreign) bondholders (see Kararname of 1296).

This act was followed by the Greco-Turkish War, in which the Ottoman Empire defeated Greece, but as a result of the Treaty of Constantinople, Crete was taken over en depot by the United Kingdom, France, and Russia.

[1] The ʿAmmiyya, a revolt in 1889–90 among Druze and other Syrians against excesses of the local sheikhs, similarly led to capitulation to the rebels' demands, as well as concessions to Belgian and French companies to provide a railroad between Beirut and Damascus.

As the goal of the educational reforms in the Hamidian era were to counter foreign influence, these secondary schools used European teaching techniques while instilling in students a strong sense of Ottoman identity and Islamic morality.

A secret police (Umur-u Hafiye) and a network of informants was present throughout the empire, and many leading figures of the Second Constitutional Era and Ottoman successor states were arrested or exiled.

Ironically, the schools that Abdul Hamid founded and tried to control became "breeding grounds of discontent" as students and teachers alike chafed at the censors' clumsy restrictions.

[29] The Hamidiye and Kurdish brigands were given free rein to attack Armenians – confiscating stores of grain, foodstuffs, and driving off livestock – confident of escaping punishment as they were subject only to court-martial.

News of the massacres was widely reported in Europe and the United States and drew strong responses from foreign governments and humanitarian organizations.

This continued aggression, along with the handling of the Armenian desire for reform, led western European powers to take a more hands-on approach with the Turks.

Abdul Hamid did not believe that the Tanzimat movement could succeed in helping the disparate peoples of the empire achieve a common identity, such as Ottomanism.

[36] During his rule, Abdul Hamid refused Theodor Herzl's offers to pay down a substantial portion of the Ottoman debt (150 million pounds sterling in gold) in exchange for a charter allowing the Zionists to settle in Palestine.

In Mesopotamia and Yemen, disturbance was endemic; nearer home, a semblance of loyalty was maintained in the army and among the Muslim population only by a system of deflation and espionage[citation needed].

In 1898, U.S. Secretary of State John Hay asked United States Minister to the Ottoman Empire Oscar Straus to request that Abdul Hamid, in his capacity as caliph, write a letter to the Sulu Muslims, a Moro subgroup, of the Sulu Sultanate in the Philippines, ordering them not to join the Moro Rebellion and submit to American suzerainty and American military rule.

President McKinley sent a personal letter of thanks to Mr. Straus for the excellent work he had done, and said, its accomplishment had saved the United States at least twenty thousand troops in the field.

Over time, the hostile diplomatic attitudes of France (the occupation of Tunisia in 1881) and Great Britain (the 1882 establishment of de facto control in Egypt) caused Abdul Hamid to gravitate towards Germany.

Abdul Hamid agreed to Wilhelm's demands and sent Hasan Enver Pasha (no relation to the Young Turk leader) to China in 1901, but the rebellion was over by that time.

[36] On 17 December, Abdul Hamid reopened the General Assembly with a speech from the throne in which he said that the first parliament had been "temporarily dissolved until the education of the people had been brought to a sufficiently high level by the extension of instruction throughout the empire.

With the Young Turks driven out of the capital, Abdul Hamid appointed Ahmet Tevfik Pasha in his place, and once again suspended the constitution and shuttered the parliament.

The Action Army stopped first in Aya Stefanos, and negotiated with the rival government established by deputies who escaped from the capital, which was led by Mehmed Talat.

He spent his last days studying, practicing carpentry, and writing his memoirs in custody at Beylerbeyi Palace in the Bosphorus, in the company of his wives and children.

He also composed several opera pieces for the Mızıka-yı Hümâyun (Ottoman Imperial Band/Orchestra, established by his grandfather Mahmud II who had appointed Donizetti Pasha as its Instructor General in 1828), and hosted the famous performers of Europe at the Opera House of Yıldız Palace, which was restored in the 1990s and featured in the 1999 film Harem Suare (it begins with a scene of Abdul Hamid watching a performance).

In 1888, he even established a Sufi lodge for the Madani order of Shadhili Sufism in Istanbul, which he commissioned as part of the Ertuğrul Tekke mosque.

He was convinced that his predecessors' reigns, especially those of his uncle Abdülaziz and his father Abdülmecid I, had been ruined by the excessive meddling of the women of the imperial family in affairs of state.