After being recalled as military attaché from Paris and Brussels and marrying Princess Emine in 1890, Cherif time in Constantinople seems to have been spent progressing his military rank alongside his role as Aide de Camp to the Sultan, and working with his father, but as this time progressed strains started to appear between Cherif and the authorities demonstrated by the seizure of one of his properties that he had renovated and planned to live in with his family by the Sultan. His liberal convictions only grew by the injustice he felt and saw causing further problems later.

During this period Cherif had a tutor İbnülemin Mahmut Kemal İnal (later a renowned Turkish historian) to help improve his Ottoman Turkish and official writing skills as most of his education had been in French.