In 1924, supporters of the Caliphate, then the highest office of authority in Sunni Islam, argued that an elimination of the institution by Turkish nationalists would precipitate a revolutionary reaction within Turkey and upheaval among Muslims on a global scale. Actual reactions by Muslims within Turkey and beyond proved to be contrary to these predictions. Anti-secular explanations within Turkey and beyond traditionally attributed the lack of disturbance within Turkey (and even afar) to the wielding of a presumably heavy-hand by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and other nationalist leaders in the early republic. In my paper, I argue that the abolition of the Caliphate was not an act merely of secularization. Indeed, I further contend that, rather than resorting to any presumed acts of brutality, the Turkish leadership relied heavily on a discourse of anti-colonialism and of decolonization to justify their actions vis-à-vis the Caliphate and thus eliminated opposition both domestic and international. In support of my arguments, I explore two aspects of the Caliphate and its religious and political importance in the later years of the institution. First, I situate my study in terms of the wider histories of colonial/imperial powers of the period and their agendas to appropriate indigenous institutions and to manipulate them in ways that would both enhance their own bases of authority and detract from any opposition of anti-colonial/-imperial interests. At times, such strategies of working through indigenous institutions obfuscated evolving power relationships, enabling transitions from colonial to neo-colonial relations (along with new categorizations of such relations, as with “protectorates” or “mandates”) amid the international push towards decolonization. In this early-twentieth century context, we thus scrutinize the British and French influence over the Caliphate during the period of their occupation of Istanbul. Second, I examine the nationalist discourse from the emerging Turkish republic in Ankara and its focus on the Caliphate as a corrupted and degraded institution that had fallen into the hands of Western colonizers, thus negating its legitimacy and necessitating its abolition. In this analytical framework, we may thus discern the abolition of the Caliphate to have been an emerging nation-state’s attempts at decolonization from within amid Western powers’ attempts at instituting neo-colonial hegemonies over the lands of a defunct Ottoman Empire. This research speaks to not only the histories of the Caliphate but contemporary debates regarding its demise and recent suggestions regarding its restoration.