In 1876, Sultan Murad V was deposed; the Ottoman Navy had played a role in the coup, which installed Abdul Hamid II on the throne.

The new sultan was as a result suspicious of the navy, and attempted to reduce its power by withholding funding and ordering no new capital ships over the course of the following decade.

By the late 1880s, however, the ships built by his predecessors were rapidly becoming obsolescent,[2] especially compared to foreign designs like the British Royal Sovereign-class battleships.

[5] In 1890, the Ottoman government authorized a large construction program that included two battleships based on the 12,500-metric-ton (12,300-long-ton; 13,800-short-ton) French Hoche, along with several cruisers and smaller vessels.

Abdül Kadir was designed to carry a main battery of four 283-millimeter (11.1 in) guns in two twin turrets on the centerline, one forward and one aft.

Rather than use an actual slipway, the builders simply began laying the keel pieces on empty ground near the shipyard, using only a small number of wooden beams to support the structure.

[9] By 1895, the steel frames for her hull had been erected, but work proceeded very slowly and frequently stopped, primarily due to the chronically tight Ottoman budget.

[7] In 1897, for instance, work had been halted for some time, and the contemporary journal The Navy and Army Illustrated predicted that the ship would not be finished.