SEYYID MURADÎ’S PROSE BIOGRAPHY OF HIZIR IBN YAKUB, ALIAS HAYREDDIN BARBAROSSA - OTTOMAN FOLK NARRATIVE AS AN UNDER-EXPLOITED SOURCE FOR HISTORICAL RECONSTRUCTION
SEYYID MURADÎ’S PROSE BIOGRAPHY OF HIZIR IBN YAKUB, ALIAS HAYREDDIN BARBAROSSA - OTTOMAN FOLK NARRATIVE AS AN UNDER-EXPLOITED SOURCE FOR HISTORICAL RECONSTRUCTION

Summary/Abstract: The importance of Seyyid Muradî’s Gazavatname as a source of detailed information on the career and exploits of the celebrated Ottoman admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa has long been recognised. The present study makes use of a mid-seventeenth-century manuscript copy of the tale preserved in Vienna to focus on the early phases of Hayreddin’s career before his rise to prominence as Sultan Süleyman I’s key naval strategist after the mid-1530s. The study explores his role first as new participant and then gradually primus inter pares among the freelance Muslim corsairs who were drawn to the shores of North Africa in the early decades of the sixteenth century after the fall of Oran (Wahran) to the Spanish in 1509. The process by which these self-generated and essentially independent local forces of the frontier were transformed over time into agents of the expanding Ottoman empire forms one dimension of analysis in the study. Another key concern is showing the value of Muradî’s text as a source for recapturing the ethos and motivations of the sea gazis in a pre-imperial era.

• Details
• Contents