During his career as a politician, Celal Bey served as governor of the Ottoman provinces associated with the cities Erzurum, Aleppo, Aydın, Edirne, Konya, and Adana.

Celal Bey is known for having saved many lives during the Armenian genocide by defying deportation orders, which were preludes to starvation and massacres.

[3][4][5][6] Due to his defiance of the official policy against the Armenians, Celal Bey was removed from his post in Aleppo in June 1915 and transferred to Konya.

The genocide carried out during and after World War I was implemented in two phases: the wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through executions and subjection of army conscripts to forced labour, followed by the deportation of women, children, the elderly and infirm on death marches towards the Syrian Desert.

Driven forward by military escorts, the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to periodic robbery, rape, and massacre.

I never imagined that any government could take upon itself to annihilate its own citizens in this manner, in effect destroying its human capital, which must be seen as the country's greatest treasure.

I presumed that the actions being carried out were measures deriving from a desire to temporarily remove the Armenians from the theater of war and taken as the result of wartime exigencies.

[11] Upon defying the deportation orders, Celal Bey was removed from his post as governor of Aleppo in June 1915 and transferred to Konya.

[13] Celal Bey also sent many telegraphs and letters of protest to the central government stating that the "measures taken against the Armenians were, from every point of view, contrary to the higher interests of the fatherland.

[13] Under the pretext of seeking treatment for an eye condition, Celal Bey went to Constantinople and visited the headquarters of the Committee of Union and Progress to raise his objections to the deportations in Konya.