Şehzade Mehmed Abdülkerim
Şehzade Mehmed Abdülkerim in childhood with his half-sister,Nemika Sultan
Born	26 June 1906 Yıldız Palace,Istanbul,Ottoman Empire (present dayIstanbul, Turkey)
Died	3 August 1935(1935-08-03) (aged 29) New York City,New York County,New York, United States
Burial	Mount Olivet Cemetery,Maspeth,Queens County, New York
Spouse	Nimet Hanım ​ (m. 1930)​
Issue	Dündar Ali Osman Harun Osman
House	Ottoman
Father	Şehzade Mehmed Selim
Mother	Nilüfer Hanım
Religion	Sunni Islam

Şehzade Mehmed Abdülkerim Efendi (Ottoman Turkish:شهزادہ محمد عبدالکریم, alsoMehmed Abdülkerim Osmanoğlu; 26 June 1906 – 3 August 1935) was an Ottoman prince, the son ofŞehzade Mehmed Selim and Nilüfer Hanım. He was the grandson ofAbdul Hamid II andBedrifelek Kadın. In the last few years of his life he was endorsed by theJapanese, who counted on his prestige as an Ottoman prince, to instigate a rebellion by local Turkic Muslims inEast Turkestan against the Chinese government. After the failure of the uprising and being abandoned by his Japanese sponsors, Abdülkerim went into exile in theUnited States, and committedsuicide in New York in 1935.

Şehzade Mehmed Abdülkerim was born on 26 June 1906 in theYıldız Palace. His father wasŞehzade Mehmed Selim,^[1] son ofAbdul Hamid II andBedrifelek Kadın, and his mother was Selim's fourth consort Nilüfer Hanım,^[2] anAbkhazian.^[3] He was educated at theGalatasaray College,Istanbul.^[1]

At the exile of the imperial family in March 1924, Abdülkerim and his family first settled inDamascus,Syria, then underFrench rule, and then inJounieh,Lebanon. On that occasion, his mother divorced by his father and chose to stay in Istanbul, where she remarried.^[4][5]

Abdülkerim's only wife was Nimet Hanım. She was born inBeirut, which was then in the Ottoman Empire, in 1911.^[2] She was of Lebanese Maronite descent.^[4][5] They married in 1930 in Beirut,^[2] and she converted to Islam after her marriage.^[4][5] Failing to receive his father's approval for the marriage, the couple settled inDamascus,Syria.^[4][5] The two together had two sons,ŞehzadeDündar Ali Osman Osmanoğlu (born 1930) andŞehzadeHarun Osmanoğlu (born 1932).^[2] In later years, she settled in Istanbul with her son Harun,^[6] where she died on 4 August 1981.^[2]

In 1932 he left Damascus,Syria, to become active in the independence movements ofUyghurs inChina'sXinjiang, also calledEast Turkestan at the time.^[4][5] In 1933, he was invited toJapan by their government, presumably with an eye towards leveraging his status as the Ottoman pretender to aid the Japanese Empire in outreach toCentral Asian Muslims in conflict with theSoviet Union.^[7][8][9]

Abdülkerim first went toTokyo, but after he could not find the support he expected, he moved to East Turkestan to organize the people against Chinese rule. Upon the defeat of his weak forces, Abdülkerim first fled toIndia, and later sought asylum in the United States. Near the end of his life he was almost penniless. Spurned by a wealthy married woman with whom he had hoped to reverse his fortunes, Şehzade Abdülkerim Efendi died by his own hand^[10] in a $3 New York hotel room on 3 August 1935, with only 75 cents found in his effects.^[1][4][5]

DeclassifiedOSS documents (the predecessor of theCIA) and contemporary press reports consistently state that he shot himself,^[11] although his grandson Abdülhamid Kayıhan Osmanoğlu (born 1979) alleged in a 2014 interview withMilat that Abdülkerim was assassinated by Chinese agents. Abdülhamid Kayıhan did not however provide any evidence for this claim.^[12] Abdülkerim had left asuicide note, written inOttoman Turkish and addressed toNew York City Police CommissionerLewis Joseph Valentine, stating among others that he intended to kill himself because he was ill and had failed in his efforts to marry a local woman of means. He also left a final message to the woman in question, a Ms Alice de Stefano of 1050 Stebbins Avenue, the Bronx.^[13]

Şehzade Mehmed Abdülkerim is buried inMount Olivet Cemetery,Maspeth,Queens County,New York. Initial plans for his remains to be laid to rest inBeirut, where his immediate family resided, did not materialise.

• Sunni Islam in Japan
• Foreign relations of Japan
• 1906 births
• 1935 deaths
• Galatasaray High School alumni
• Ottoman princes

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