Last Caliph: How the Ottoman Empire Ended

On March 3, 1924, Abdulmecid II boarded a train from Istanbul into exile, carrying the title of Caliph - spiritual leader of the world's Sunni Muslims - for the last time in history. Mustafa Kemal's new Turkish republic had abolished the caliphate, severing a chain of Islamic imperial authority that traced itself back to the companions of the Prophet. It was the final act in a dissolution that had...