His father, Sheikh Yusufzâde Hâlid Efendi, was a member of the honorable judiciary and served as
Kazasker and a minister. His mother was a member of the Kevabibiye family and a daughter of Mehmed Said Efendi. Mehmet Cemaleddin was educated in Ottoman and
Islamic law, and served in the Ottoman judiciary as
Kadi (Chief Judge) of
Constantinople in 1884. He was appointed Chief Judge of
Anatolia (Anadolu Kazaskeri) in 1888 and Chief Judge of
Rumelia, the European parts of the Ottoman Empire in the
Balkans, in 1890. On 4 September 1891, at 43, he was appointed
Şeyhülislam, the
Cabinet Minister in charge of religious and legal matters. He remained in this post for 16 years and 11 months. He was later reappointed on three other occasions for shorter periods, holding this post for nearly 18 years and becoming the second-longest holder in Ottoman history after
Zembilli Ali Efendi. His wife was Fatma Zehra Hanim, and his son-in-law was the leading Turkish surgeon and mayor of Constantinople, Prof.
Cemil Topuzlu, also known as
Cemil Pasha, for whom a major boulevard in modern Istanbul "Cemil Topuzlu Caddesi" and a municipal amphitheatre
Cemil Topuzlu Harbiye Amphitheatre are named. Mehmet Cemaleddin's younger brother, Ibrahim Sami Bey, was a member of the
Ottoman Council of State, whose grandson
Erol Gelenbe held the
Dennis Gabor Chair (2003-2019) at
Imperial College, London. An opponent of the pro-German and war-oriented policy of the
Union and Progress Party, Mehmed Cemalettin Efendi was exiled to
Egypt in 1913 and died in a place called Ramleh near
Menouf in Egypt on 5 April 1917 at the age of 70. When his body was brought to Constantinople, it lay in state at the
Topkapı Palace, and he is now buried at the
Edirnekapı Martyr's Cemetery (Turkish: Edirnekapı Şehitliği). His memoirs were first published in Constantinople in 1920, and then edited by Selim Kutsan and re-published in modern Turkish under the title
Siyasi Hatiralarim (My Political Memoirs) by the publisher Nehir Yayinlari (Istanbul) in 1990. == Selected bibliography ==