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386 Evrim Türkçelik

Pasha might have found Barbarossa’s actions against fellow Muslims
in Tunis unacceptable .
40
The fourth approach to the conquest of Tunis appears in the
dynastically sponsored historical works of Ârif Çelebi and Seyyid
Lokmân, official şehnâmecis of the Ottoman dynasty. The post of
şehnâmeci, official court historian, was created in the 1550s in a
period when the Ottoman dynasty was particularly concerned with its
self-image. Ârif Çelebi is considered as the first permanent court
historian for whom the post of şehnâmeci was designed . He was
41
officially commissioned by Süleyman to compose a history of the
Ottoman dynasty in Persian verse, which he completed in 1558 . The
42
outcome was Şehnâme-i Âl-i Osman, a book modelled on Firdevsî’s
Şehnâme, which placed the Ottoman dynasty in the framework of
sacred history and presented Sultan Süleyman as a divinely elected,
prophetic king . Its fifth and last volume, Süleymannâme, is a
43
chronological account of Süleyman’s reign until the year 1555 and
includes several pages on Barbarossa and the conquest of Tunis.
Ârif Çelebi’s account narrates the events using an approach totally
different from the earlier Süleymannâmes of Bostan Efendi and
Matrakçı Nasuh written twenty years before. Unlike them, he does not
mention any official order or endorsement by the sultan for the
conquest of Tunis. It clearly indicates that the Ottoman fleet’s
principal aim was to expel the infidel from Koron in the Morean
Peninsula. After having achieved his primary objective, Barbarossa
attacked and conquered Tunis. According to Ârif Çelebi, the reason
behind this conquest was Barbarossa’s enmity towards the ruler of
Tunis and his personal grudge against him . This information is an
44
unexpected detail in a work written in panegyric style. Barbarossa’s
antagonistic relations with the members of the Hafsid dynasty were

40 H. Yılmaz, Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought,
Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2018, pp. 163-166; H.A.R. Gibb, Lutfi Paşa on the
Ottoman Caliphate, «Oriens», 15 (1962), pp. 287-295.
41 C. Woodhead, An experiment in official historiography: the post of şehnameci in the
Ottoman Empire, c.1555-1605, «Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes», 75
(1983), pp. 157-182. For different views on the nature of the appointments for this post see
E. Fetvacı, The Office of Ottoman Court Historian, in R. Ousterhout (ed.), Studies on Istanbul
and Beyond: The Freely Papers, Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 2007, vol. I, pp. 6-21;
F.S. Eryılmaz, The Shehnamecis of Sultan Süleyman: Arif and Eflatun and their Dynastic
Project, Ph.D. thesis, Chicago University, 2010, pp. 8-9.
42 A.F. Çelik, Fethullah Arifi Çelebi’nin Şahname-i Al-i Osman’ından Süleymanname [The
Süleymanname of Fethullah Arifi Çelebi], Ph.D. thesis, Ankara University, 2009, p. 28.
43 F.S. Eryılmaz, The Sulaiman-nama (Süleyman-name) as an Historical Source, in G. van
den Berg, C. Melville (eds.), Shahname Studies III: The Reception of the Shahnama, Brill,
Leiden, 2018, pp. 173-198.
44 A.F. Çelik, Fethullah Arifi Çelebi’nin cit., p. 105.

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