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The best-kept secret in the Mediterranean: Barbarossa’s 1534 Tunis campaign 381

(Ms. Ayasofya 3317), which was written between 1536 and 1537 .
21
Since Bostan Çelebi was under the patronage of Süleyman’s personal
tutor, Hayreddin Efendi, he was very close to the highest court circles.
Although it is somewhat less used as a source by modern historians,
this Süleymannâme is considered a much better-informed source than
other contemporary chronicles regarding court-centred decisions .
22
Bostan Çelebi offers the most open and direct statement that
Barbarossa was given an official commission concerning Tunis. He
states clearly that Barbarossa was given an imperial order (fermân-ı
vâcibü’l-izân) to invite Mulay Hassan to declare his obedience to
Sultan Süleyman. Instead of obeying the sultan’s orders (fermân-ı âlî-
şân), Mulay Hassan made an alliance with the Christians and did not
pay homage to the “soldiers of Islam”. Immediately afterwards, he fled
the country and the notables and the local people of Tunis gave the
keys of the city to Barbarossa. Bostan Çelebi then states, using the
exact geo-historical term, diyâr-ı İfrîkıyye, that Tunis then became
part of the Ottoman realm (memâlik-i mahmiyye):

After these victories [on the Italian coasts], [Barbarossa] set off towards the
West and anchored at the port of Bizerta in the province of Tunis. From there
he arrived with a propitious wind at the port of Tunis on the sixth day of the
victorious month of Safer in the year 941. With the mandatory imperial order
of the Lord of Conjunction, may Allah make his Caliphate continuous,
[Barbarossa] invited Emir Hasan, the ruler of the lands of Tunis, to obedience
[to the sultan]. [Emir Hasan] was in harmony and alliance with the cursed
Christians and dependent on that community of perversion. Therefore he
[Emir Hasan] did not comply with the imperial order of the sultan, did not
welcome the soldiers of Islam, and escaped the city of Tunis. The people of the
city of Tunis and the rulers and notables of the castles and countries of that
land obeyed and handed over the keys in a manner worthy of the sultan. Thus,
the lands of Tunis became part of the protected [Ottoman] domains 23 .

Matrakçı Nasuh offers an account of Tunis campaign in the first part of
his Süleymannâme, which is thought to have been written between 1537
and 1538 . He gives a very straightforward description of Barbarossa’s
24

21 H.G. Yurdaydın, Bostan’ın Süleymannâmesi [The Süleymanname of Bostan],
«Belleten», 74 (1955), pp. 137-202. The first version of Bostan Çelebi’s Süleymannâme was
published in 1524. The third and the fourth versions were published respectively in 1541
and in 1547. A. Sağırlı, Süleymannâme, in Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi, Türkiye
Diyanet Vakfı, İstanbul, 2010, vol. XXXVIII, p. 125.
22 N. Aykut, Bostan Çelebi, in Türkiye Diyanet cit., vol. VI, p. 308.
23 B. Çelebi, Süleymannâme, Süleymaniye Library, Ayasofya, nr. 3317, 168b; Türk Tarih
Kurumu Library, nr. Y/0018, 155a -155b; Austrian National Library, H.O. 42a, f. 234v.
24 D. Erkan, Matrâkçı Nasûh’un Süleymân-nâmesi (1520-1537) [The Süleymannâme of
Matrakçı Nasuh], M.A. thesis, Marmara Univ., 2005, p. lx.

Mediterranea - ricerche storiche - Anno XVII - Agosto 2020
ISSN 1824-3010 (stampa) ISSN 1828-230X (online)