Context: Abdulhamid II was the Ottoman sultan from 1876 to 1909. He started off sounding like a reformer, but soon suspended the constitution and parliament and ruled with a tight grip and a ton of spies. His whole energy was desperately trying to keep the empire from falling apart, which is why he gets meme'd as the guy holding it all together. He also pushed pan-Islamism to unite Muslims under his rule, but in the end the Young Turks deposed him. Classic 'they had us in the first half' material.