With the lower elected Ottoman Chamber of Deputies prorogued, the Sultan, his cabinet, and an appointed Senate were all that was left of the Ottoman government. Hoping to undermine the National Movement, Mehmed VI passed a "fatwa" (legal opinion) from Şeyhülislam to qualify the Turkish revolutionaries as infidels, calling for the death of its leaders. The "fatwa" stated that true believers should not go along with the nationalist (rebels) movement. Along with this religious decree, the government sentenced Mustafa Kemal and prominent nationalists to death in absentia. At the same time, the müfti of Ankara Rifat Börekçi in defence of the nationalist movement, issued a counteracting fatwa declaring that the capital was under the control of the Entente and the Ferit Pasha government. In this text, the nationalist movement's goal was stated as freeing the sultanate and the caliphate from its enemies.