Hayreddin Pasha (; 1820 – 30 January 1890) was a Tunisian-Ottoman statesman and reformer, who was born to an Abkhazian family. First serving as Prime Minister of the Beylik of Tunis, he later achieved the high post of Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, serving from 4 December 1878 until 29 July 1879.
He was a political reformer during a period of growing European ascendancy. According to Dr. Abdul Azim Islahi, he was a pragmatic activist who reacted against poverty, and looked to European models for suggestions. He applied the Islamic concept of maslahah (or public interest), to economic issues. He emphasized the central role of justice and security in economic development. He was a major advocate of Tanzimat (or modernization) for Tunisia's political and economic systems. Abdul Azim Islahi, "Economic ideas of a nineteenth century Tunisian statesman: Khayr al-Din al-Tunisi." Hamdard Islamicus (2012): 61-80 online.
Youth in Abkhazia & Turkey Of Abkhaz origin, Hayreddin was born in Abkhazia into "a family of warrior notables". His father Hasan Leffch, a local Abkhaz chieftain, died fighting against a Russian attack on the city of Sukhum. Thereafter as a young orphan Hayreddin was sold into slavery via the Black Sea slave trade, then still a familiar event for Circassian youth.Bondage was "not an unusual fate given that his people had supplied slave markets for centuries." Clancy-Smith (2011) at 320. She gives the date of his birth as 1822. At Istanbul, however, he was eventually traded into a prestigious household, that of the notable Tahsin Bey, a Cypriot Ottoman who was the naqib al-ashraf (head of the Prophet's descendants) and qadi al-'askar (chief judge of the army) of Anatolia, and a poet.
Tahsin Bey moved the boy to his country palace at Kanlıca near the Bosporus, where he became the childhood companion of the Bey's son for a span of years. Khayr al-Din received a "first-rate education" which included the Islamic curriculum, also the Turkish language, and perhaps French; yet he was not raised as a mamluk. Following "the son's tragic premature death" his father Tahsin Bey sold Khayr al-Din in Istanbul to an envoy of Ahmed Bey of Tunis. This new uprooting would obviously provoke emotional turmoil in Khayr al-Din, then about 17 years old. Soon he was on board a ship bound for Africa.Clancy-Smith (2011), at chap. 9, "Khayr al-Din al-Tunisi and a Mediterranean community of thought", 315–341, at 319–320. Apparently Prof. Clancy-Smith relies on his memoirs and on Van Krieken (1976).Cf., Brown at 29–30, in Khayr al-Din (1967). Prof. Brown infers in much more general terms a similar background. Noting that "many sources say he was born in 1810" Prof. Brown nonetheless states "he was probably born between 1820 and 1825."
In Tunisia under Ahmed Bey Circa 1840 Hayreddin became situated at the Bardo Palace, in the court of Ahmed Bey (r. 1837–1855), as a mamluk bi-l-saraya (inner palace retainer). He resumed his high-level studies, mainly at the Bardo Military Academy (al-maktab al-Harbi) a nearby institution newly established by the bey. A key part of his education now was learning to converse in Arabic, also acquaintance with French. At the Husaynid court his abilities were soon recognized, and he was favored with the attention and trust of Ahmad Bey. He rose quickly in the elite cavalry, the nucleus of the bey's new army. Moreover, during the 1840s and 1850s he was sent by the Bey on several key diplomatic missions, e.g., to the Ottoman Porte at Istanbul, which was then pursuing its Tanzimat reforms, and to European capitals, including Paris. His political career thus began auspiciously under this famously modernizing ruler.
In 1846 he accompanied the bey, as part of small staff which included the influential advisor Bin Diyaf, during a two-month state visit to France, after which he was made brigadier general. This trip was of special cultural and political significance in that the orthodox bey traveled for an extended stay to a non-Islamic country in order to acquire familiarity with its modern methods of operation and governance. The trip "expanded the cultural space deemed acceptable for Muslim rulers." The French took care to show France to advantage; the small Tunisian party was well received by top government officials and leading private citizens. "Having traveled beyond the land of Islam, Ahmad Bey was blessed upon his return to Tunis by the grand mufti."Clancy-Smith (2011) at 320–322; at 69, 324–327; quotes at 326.Guellouz, et al. (2010) at 412–413. Photograph at 412.
In 1853 Hayreddin was elevated to the highest military grade, commander of the cavalry; he also then became an aide-de-camp of the bey. Yet shortly thereafter he was sent to Paris to arrange a loan for the bey's regime, but where instead he spend four years attempting to reclaim large sums embezzled by the notable Mahmud bin 'Ayyad, former head of the newly created national bank of Tunis, who with foresight had already secured French citizenship. During his years occupied with negotiations in Paris, Hayreddin also managed to browse libraries and bookshops, to improve his French, asking many questions, and to study European society, industry, and finance.Clancy-Smith (2011) at 329, 326. Hayreddin sent books to his friend Bin Diyaf, including titles by the medieval Tunisian Ibn Khaldun, printed in Arabic, published in Paris. Clancy-Smith (2011) at 324.Cf., Hourani (1970) at 84.
Because of the dire financial situation caused in part by the embezzlement of bin 'Ayyad, the bey's loan did not appear prudent to Hayreddin, according to Prof. Abun-Nasr. Nonetheless, the bey had stifled most political opposition to his financial schemes by long cultivation of the urban ulama and the rural tribal leaders. Due to Hayreddin's passive resistance, however, the loan was still being negotiated when Ahmed Bey died in 1855.Abun-Nasr (1971) at 261–262.
As Minister of the Navy
Upon his return to Tunisia from Paris, Khayr al-Din was appointed Minister of the Navy in 1857. He held responsibility for the expanding ports, Tunis and Goulette, as well as distant Sfax. This involved construction to improve harbor facilities in order to handle the increased commercial shipping, as Mediterranean trade grew markedly.Clancy-Smith (2011) at 327–329. Apparently the number of ships in the Tunisian navy had greatly declined in the face of vessels of modern European design.Brown (1974) at 299–303. Many Tunisian ships had been lost due to a storm in 1821, and later in a severe defeat at the Battle of Navarino in Greek waters suffered by the Ottoman navy in 1827, ships which were never replaced. Brown (1974) at 142–144.
Immigration into Tunisia began to surge, leading to difficulties with traditional documentation. Hayreddin proposed the issuance of passports. Here also the Ottoman capitulatory agreements, which gave extraterritorial legal rights to Europeans resident or transient in Tunis, complicated the situation. Contraband was another issue.Clancy-Smith (2011) at 178 (contraband), 327–329 (immigration).Cf., Anderson (1986) at 98–102, describing fundamental changes induced by influx of Europeans.
Public health became a concern of major importance with quarantine procedures imposed regarding a plague of cholera. The Minister of the Navy oversaw at Goulette the operation of an arsenal, a prison, and a hospital. During this period in his life, as he would be completing his fortieth year, Hayreddin began to consider Tunisia as his adopted country.Clancy-Smith (2011) at 327–329, e.g., 328 (adopted country).
Personal and family life
At about the age of forty, circa 1862, Hayreddin married his first wife, Jeneina, who was the niece of the Bey (that is, the daughter of the Bey's sister, a Husaynid princess). The wedding was announced officially and celebrated with "great pomp". The father of Janina was the insider politician Mustapha Khaznadar, originally from Greece, who served for many years as Grand Vizier. They had three children. Yet Janina and the son died in 1870; the two surviving daughters grew to adulthood and later married well. A year after Janina's death Hayreddin married two Turkish sisters who both gave birth to sons in 1872. Nonetheless, Hayreddin repudiated both in order to marry Kmar (or Qamar, Ar: "Moon"). They had two sons and a daughter. Kmar later moved with her husband to Istanbul and survived him by several years. "It seems probable that Khayr al-Din married the two sisters for the sole purpose of producing male progeny but wed Kmar, his fourth wife, out of love. In any case, his last marriage was monogamous."Clancy-Smith (2011) at 334–335.
After his first wife's death, unmediated discord soon erupted between the son-in-law and the father-in-law.Cf., Perkins (2004) at 32.Clancy-Smith (2011) at 320. Mustafa Khaznadar, although the Grand Vizier and servant of the Bey, could be an avaricious dealer in extortion, and good at it as well, becoming quite wealthy; while Hayreddin was known to be a committed opponent of tyranny and corruption.E.g., Abun-Nasr (1971) at 264–265.
In 1853 Hayreddin had a palace constructed in the suburb of La Manuba, east of Tunis. Here he initially lived with his first wife Janina. This seaside villa lies between the port of La Goulette and Carthage; near where now stands a modern rail station called "Khéreddine" (named after either Barbarossa or al-Tunisi).Perkins (2004) at 2. He apparently also had a "grand residence" in the madina of Tunis, in the quarter Place du Tribunal, and a third elsewhere.Clancy-Smith (2011) at 329–330, 335.
A contemporary European diplomat who "worked with him closely and on friendly terms" describes Hayreddin during the years when he served as the bey's chief minister:
"He was a stout, burly man, with a somewhat heavy countenance, which was occasionally lighted up with a very intelligent... expression... . His manners were considered haughty and overbearing, and... he soon added to the unpopularity to which his foreign extraction and mode of introduction into high office would under any circumstances have exposed him. ... It was difficult to tell his age as he dyed his hair and beard of a hard and deep black colour... ."Hourani (1970) at 86–87. This was by the British Ambassador, Henry Layard.
After Hayreddin lost his government position at Tunis in 1877, the Ottoman sultan eventually offered him a government position in Istanbul. He then sought to sell his rather large holdings in real estate ("three palaces in Tunis and its suburbs, olive groves, and a vast estate called Enfida consisting of 100,000 hectares"). Fearful of a politically motivated seizure by his enemies who now ran the Tunis government, he sold his Enfida property to the Société Marseillaise in July, 1880. Yet an adjacent parcel was quickly purchased by a seemingly undisclosed agent, who then claimed pre-emptive rights to purchase the Enfida land, denying it to the French company who had already paid for it. The bey's regime evidently supported the pre-emption claim; the conflict became known as the "Enfida affair". Ironically, this mischief spurred the French invasion of April, 1881.Abun-Nasr (1971) at 277–278.
In 1878, while serving in the Ottoman Empire, he was given by the sultan a mansion in Istanbul. Hayreddin died in 1890, surrounded by his family in their konuk [villa] located in Kuruçeşme near the Bosporus. His fourth Son Major-General Damat Mehmed Salih Pasha (c. 1876 – killed at Istanbul, 24 June 1913) by his wife, Kamar Hanım, married at the Dolmabahçe Palace, Istanbul, 29 July 1907 with Șehzade Ahmed Kemaleddin's only daughter Münire Sultan (Dolmabahçe Palace, Istanbul, 13 November 1880 – Nice, France, 7 October 1939, and buried there), and got Sultanzade Ahmed Kemaledin Keredin (18 June 1909 – 1987), married and left Issue.Clancy-Smith (2011) at 337–338.
Constitution and Grand Council