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Abdülhamid II, (born September 21, 1842, Constantinople [now Istanbul, Turkey]—died February 10, 1918, Constantinople), Ottoman sultan from 1876 to 1909, under whose autocratic rule the reform movement of Tanzimat (Reorganization) reached its climax and who adopted a policy of pan-Islamism in opposition to Western intervention in Ottoman ...

The reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II began on August 31, 1876, during a period of profound crisis for the Ottoman Empire. In 1878 the sultan inaugurated a new course in domestic and foreign policies that had a lasting impact on the history of modern Turkey and the Middle East.

Abdülhamid II The reign of Abdülhamid II (1876–1909) is often regarded as having been a reaction against the Tanzimat, but, insofar as the essence of the Tanzimat reforms was centralization rather than liberalization, Abdülhamid may be seen as its fulfiller rather than its destroyer.

Abdul Hamid II (1842-1918) was the son of Sultan Abdul Majid (1823-1861) and a Circassian mother. As a child, he received an education worthy of a caliph and Sultan. His tutors included some of the leading ulema and shaykhs of Istanbul. He was well versed in the Qur’an, the Sunnah of the Prophet and in the Hanafi school of Fiqh.

Abdülhamid II was the last of the Ottoman sultans who had any real power. He was overthrown in 1909 by a group known as the Young Turks. They were Western-educated liberal secularists who vehemently disagreed with the Islamic direction that Abdülhamid took the empire in from 1876 to 1909.