Ali Rıza Efendi (1839–1888) was the father of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and the husband of Zübeyde Hanım. He was born in Selanik, (modern Thessaloniki in present-day Greek Macedonia) but then the most important city in the Ottoman Empire in Europe after Constantinople/Istanbul. He worked as a customs official and died in 1888 at age 49, when his son was 7 years old. At Mustafa's birth Ali Riza hung his sword over his son’s cradle, dedicating him to military service. Most important, Ali Riza saw to it that his son’s earliest education was carried out in a modern secular school. He left the poorly paying clerk's job to start a lumber business, but bandits set fire to his stock after extrorting money from him. He attempted to rejoin the civil sevice without success. Then started to drink heavily,