خير الدين بربروسة

Khayr al-Din ibn Ya'qub ibn Yusuf, a remnant of the Muslim Turkish conquerors settled on the island of Djerba. His mother was a Muslim woman of al-Andalus. Western sources give him the title Barbarossa. He died in Istanbul around 953 AH (1546 CE); the date is derived. ¹

From his youth he went with his brother Uruj into naval jihad in the Aegean archipelago, around 1510 CE. They then moved their activity to North Africa, and the Hafsid sultan granted them the right to settle on the island of Djerba. They tried to liberate Bejaia in 1512 CE, entered Jijel in 1514 CE and killed its defenders. After Uruj was killed in 1518 CE, Khayr al-Din continued to rule Algiers. ¹

In 940 AH (1533 CE) Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent summoned him with a letter carried by Sinan Cavush. He placed the letter over his head, gathered the scholars, the shaykhs and the notables, and read them the sultan's command. He then sailed with forty-four ships, and on the way he defeated a squadron of the Habsburg fleet near the Morea, until he reached Istanbul. ¹

The sultan clothed him in honour, entrusted him with the arsenal, and gave him the title of Kapudan Pasha, minister of the navy. He then sailed out of the Dardanelles with the new Ottoman fleet toward the southern coasts of Italy and Sicily, and recovered Coron and Lepanto. ¹