In 1869, the Ottoman Empire passed a law on citizenship that sough to create a loyal citizenry committed to the supranational identity of Ottomanism and to establish procedures for defining and naturalizing foreigners. Despite a long history of social and political connections to the empire, Muslims from across Central Asia were suddenly excluded from enjoying rights such as landholding that had the potential to impinge on the empire’s juridical and political sovereignty. Yet, travelers identified as “Russian” or “Chinese” Muslims continued to purchase and endow land and to acquire Ottoman citizenship without meeting new procedural requirements, instead relying on established customary practices. They also petitioned the state in large numbers for patronage – often making the case that they were entitled to financial and legal assistance as Muslims under the “moral” or “spiritual” (manevi) protection of the sultan. By invoking the sultan’s claim to authority over Muslims worldwide through the institution of the caliphate, petitioners engaged with the rhetoric of religious legitimacy and staked a claim of belonging to the state – which was for all intents and purposes inseparable from the caliphate – that did not accord with new conceptions of Ottoman citizenship. These non-Ottoman Muslims had become what I term the empire’s “spiritual subjects.” This paper will explore the tensions between secular legislation on citizenship and simultaneous attempts to use the institution of the caliphate to bolster the sultan-caliph’s claims to authority and legitimacy among non-Ottoman Muslims. Drawing on new archival research, it will consider how these informal normative practices continued to operate alongside legal reforms, and how the utilization of the caliphate was often at odds with the project of creating imperial citizens. The paper is part of a larger project that seeks to flesh out the concept of spiritual subjecthood or citizenship through an exploration of the social and political dynamics between non-Ottoman Muslims and the Ottoman state. Instead of looking at the discursive projection of power and the role that propaganda played in legitimizing Ottoman authority among the umma, I seek to examine more concrete factors such as patronage, social welfare, and the obligations of the caliphate vis-à-vis the Islamic community.