ISTANBUL , Turkey ( CNN ) -- More than 80 years after his family was ordered from the country , the grandson of one of the last Ottoman sultans was buried Saturday as hundreds of admirers looked on . Relatives carry the coffin of Osman on Saturday after his funeral ceremony in Istanbul . Ertugrul Osman , grandson of Sultan Abdulhamid II and heir to the Ottoman throne , died this week in Istanbul of kidney failure at the age of 97 , after having lived most of his life in exile in a humble third-floor walk-up apartment on Manhattan 's Upper East Side . Osman 's funeral in the garden of the mammoth Sultanahmet Mosque was attended by Turkish state ministers , artists and media glitterati . They lined up to pay their respects to Osman 's widow , Zeynep Osman , herself a descendant of the royal family of Afghanistan . One woman pressed her forehead to Mrs. Osman 's hand in a traditional Turkish show of respect , saying `` I 'm just an ordinary person , but I would like to kiss your hand . '' `` His death marks the passing of an era , '' wrote Jason Goodwin , author of `` Lords of the Horizons , '' which tells the history of the Ottoman Empire , in an e-mail to CNN . `` Osman himself was born into a family that still ruled an empire stretching from the Balkans to the Indian Ocean . He was named after the founder of his dynasty , who lived seven centuries ago . '' During annual campaigns at the peak of its power , the Ottoman Sultan 's army of Janissaries struck fear into the hearts of European monarchs . For 400 years , the Ottomans declared themselves the `` caliphs '' -- spiritual leaders -- of the Muslim world . But the empire declined during the 19th century , eventually suffering a humiliating defeat and partition at the hands of Allied armies during World War I . In 1922 , Mustafa Kemal Ataturk , the founder of the modern Turkish Republic , sent the last Ottoman sultan packing aboard a British warship . Two years later , Ataturk banned the caliphate , declaring Turkey a secular state . Ertugrul Osman , who had played as a boy in the imperial palaces of Istanbul , was sent with the rest of his family into exile . He lived for decades in Europe , then moved after World War II to the United States . Friends say he ran a successful mining business in Chile . They described Osman as a polyglot Renaissance man with a passion for politics and opera and a taste for evening cocktails . Over the years , Osman told reporters he had no interest in assuming the Ottoman throne . In the early 1990s , after more than half a century outside the country , Osman returned to Turkey at the invitation of a Turkish prime minister . Friends say that , prior to getting a Turkish passport in 2004 , he traveled using documents identifying him as an Ottoman citizen . The hundreds of mourners at Saturday 's funeral stunned other surviving members of the Ottoman royal family . One man rushed Bulent Osman , a tall , elderly French-born nephew of the deceased , kissing his hand and crying in Turkish ? `` My prince , we are guilty for how we treated you ! '' `` I am not a prince , '' Osman later explained to a reporter in French-accented English . `` I am quite surprised . It is the first time I have seen such an outpouring . '' The royal family seems to be especially revered by devout muslim Turks , who see the sultan 's descendants as a link to the abolished Islamic caliphate . `` They are our grandfathers , '' said a young man named Fatih , who wore the long beard , turban and robes of a fundamentalist Islamic sect . `` They glorified our religion and brought it to the highest level . '' The funeral was attended by an eclectic mix of mourners -- stylishly dressed members of the royal family who grew up in Europe alongside fervent Islamists , some of whom pushed through the crowd ordering women to move to the back to pray . Hundreds of police officers blocked traffic as Osman was buried in a garden filled with the gravestones of Ottoman pashas and viziers , beside the ornate tombs of his grandfather Sultan Abdulhamid II and another ancestor , Sultan Mahmut II . Osman 's death serves as a reminder of Turkey 's recent , yet often forgotten Ottoman history , said historian Jason Goodwin . `` His funeral may be a catalyst for modern , republican Turkey to overcome its historical amnesia , and come to terms with its own past , '' Goodwin said .
Grandson of one of the last Ottoman sultans was buried Saturday . Ertugrul Osman died this week in Istanbul of kidney failure at the age of 97 . Osman 's funeral attended by Turkish state ministers , artists , media glitterati .