[1] He was also a relatively famous artist and a Turkish aesthete, interested in art and the ways to promote it, mainly literature, painting and music, in Turkey.

After the abolition of the Ottoman caliphate, he was succeeded for a few months by Hussein bin Ali, who was mostly recognized in the Arab world, but that attempt ended as well.

[2] He was interested in literature and founded the Pierre Loti Society in 1920 to promote the works of the author and translate them into Turkish.

The choice of Abdulmejid as caliph was not evident for all Muslims, and there was a significant amount of Islamic and political criticism from within and outside the Ottoman Empire.

[14][15][16] There was indeed a conflict among certain Muslims, for example in Palestine, who opposed the figures of Hussein bin Ali and Abdulmejid to succeed Mehmed VI.

[19] Abdulmejid was targeted by Kemalist propaganda which used the fact that he occupied the Yıldız Palace in Istanbul, and he was subsequently portrayed as having unjustly claimed it for himself.

[22][23] The caliph was nominally the supreme religious and political leader of all Muslims across the world, with the main goal to prevent extremism or protect the religion from corruption.

[24] In the last session of the budget negotiations on 3 March 1924, Urfa Deputy Sheikh Saffet Efendi and his 53 friends demanded the abolition of the caliphate, arguing it was not necessary any more.

[25] He was succeeded by Hussein bin Ali in the Arab world, with the support of his cousin, Mehmed VI[26][27][28][29][30] but that attempt ended fast as well.

[31] Although Abdulmejid and his family were upset about this decision, they did not want the people to revolt, so they secretly went to Çatalca by car from the Dolmabahçe Palace at 5:00 the next morning.

[35] In Switzerland, he said multiple times that he was upset about the abolition of the caliphate, and that this would bring chaos to the Islamic world, with the rise of extremism.

After the departure of his very fond grandchildren and son, who left France to marry the Kavala princes of Egypt, he spent painful days alone.

On 23 August 1944, Abdulmejid II died at his house in the 15th Avenue du Maréchal Mounoury, Paris, due to a heart attack.

His paintings of the Harem, showing a modern musical gathering, and of his wife, Şehsuvar Hanım, reading Goethe's novel Faust, express the influence of western Europe in his elite circle.

[48] She was the mother of Dürrüşehvar Sultan (who married Azam Jah, son of Mir Osman Ali Khan), born in 1914.