Relations between the Ottoman Empire and Indian Muslims during the second Constitutional era

The catastrophic defeat against the Russian Army in the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877-78 was decisive in Ottoman foreign policy during the Hamidian Era (1876-1908). Following the war, due to mass migration of Muslims from the occupied territory to relatively deeper Muslim lands the Ottoman Empire became more Muslim not only demographically but also geographically. In return, Abdulhamid II decided to refashion the long-forgotten Ottoman caliphacy to maintain the Ottoman legitimacy among its subjects and to intimidate rival powers, especially Russia, England, and France, which control large Muslim populations. Islamist policy remained prerogative especially as an instrument in foreign policy for the, mainly nationalist, ruling cadre of Committee of Union and Progress, which took the helm after the coup d'état in 1908. Mainly based on Ottoman archival documents, this dissertation claims that the Unionists took over Abdulhamid II' Islamist policy, to which they attached importance as a leading legitimacy structure for the Empire. Second, the study argues that Islamist policy was reconstructed, in terms of the relations with Indian Muslims, during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-12 and the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, when the future of the Ottoman State and the caliphacy were at stake. Third, the study aims to expose the Islamist policy was on duty against the rising British influence and to maintain Ottoman influence in the Muslim World on the eve of the First World War.