Arabes et Turcs au Maghreb dans les années 1513-1520 d’après les Ġazavât-ı Ĥayrü-d-dîn Paşa

Abstract

This paper deals with the “Arabs” and the “Turks” as they appear in the Ghazavât-ı Khayreddin Pasha, or rather in its first part (ff. 1-123), which ends with Khayreddin leaving Algiers temporarily and going to Djidjelli. We are in the be-ginning of the Turkish establishment in the Maghrib, in the second decade of the sixteenth century. Written some twenty years afterwards, ordered by the Sultan and meant for a large Ottoman public, but at the same time based on the personal mem-ories of Khayreddin and his comrades, the chronicle is a very interesting document "for the light it sheds both on the locals and the conquerors: the “Arabs” and the “Turks” for these are precisely the terms used by the text — constitute two clearly distinct groups, very conscious of their being distinct, with a very strong and con- sciously ethnicist mind. This is anyway the impression given by the Ghazavât. A particularly striking point is a kind of condescension (if not even contempt) of the “Turks” towards the “Arabs,” who are characterized by their moral weakness, if not by their immorality: an imperialist and colonial vision which at the same time echoes the Barbarossa brothers’ inability to be accepted in the Maghrib.