Tunis, 1600–1660
How did the household of a Corsican slave, set up to tax the countryside, come to choose the rulers of Tunis?
▶ Watch the narrated atlas · 6 minThe ground by 1660, in the colours of who held it. Hatched: ground that changed hands between 1600 and 1660.
In each era below, numbered events on the map match the list under it and the marks in the text; nothing moves.
The eras
The militia's dey
- 1⚑The janissaries' revolt — 1591 · the deys take power
In brief
In 1600 Tunis belonged to the soldiers who held it for the Ottoman sultan. In 1591 its janissaries had risen against their officers1 and put up chiefs of their own, the deys, from a Turkish word for a maternal uncle. Since 1598 one dey had ruled alone: Uthman Dey, an Anatolian soldier who had come with the conquest of 1574. The sultan's governor, the pasha, kept his title and little else. Uthman ruled the city through the militia and its council, the diwan. Ramadan Bey ran the countryside for him. Twice a year he led an armed column, the mahalla, out among the tribes of the interior to collect their taxes. Ramadan also bought slaves and trained them to govern. The ablest was Murad, a Corsican taken by corsairs as a boy. Ramadan made him his lieutenant and gave him his daughter.
The chain, era by era
Uthman Dey, an Anatolian soldier who had come with the conquest of 1574, had ruled alone since 1598, leaving the sultan's pasha a title and little else. He governed through the militia and its council, the diwan, hunted thieves in the gardens of Tunis himself, broke every plot against him, and had the corsairs' prizes sold at La Goulette, which filled the city with money.
Ramadan Bey ran the countryside for Uthman. He was the first to lead the armed column, the mahalla, out among the tribes, the Ben Chennouf of El Kef, the Ouled Said and others, to make them pay their taxes. He bought mamluks, slaves trained to serve, and gave the ablest of them offices in his own lifetime.
The ablest was Murad, a Corsican taken by corsairs as a boy. He understood the tribes and knew what each could be made to pay. Ramadan made him his lieutenant, preferring him to his own brother Rajab, and gave him his daughter in marriage.
Abu al-Ghayth al-Qashshash, a Sufi shaykh of Tunis, fed the poor, ransomed captives and endowed lodges in town and country. In 1604 he dedicated to the new sultan, Ahmed I, an Ottoman Turkish translation he had commissioned of an anti-Christian tract written by a convert. One account says Uthman married his daughter. He became the greatest patron of the Moriscos driven out of Spain.
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Rafi, a Morisco from a family of sharifs in Murcia, had reached Tunis as a child about 1597, before the great expulsion. He studied in al-Qashshash's lodge, and later wrote a book on the Prophet's lineage that tells how his master feasted the newly arrived exiles and helped them settle across the regency.
From 1609 Spain expelled its Moriscos, the descendants of Muslims forced to convert. Perhaps 60,000 to 80,000 reached Tunis in 1609 and 1610. Uthman made room for them in the city, gave the poorest to Tunis families to look after, and let the rest settle where they chose: more than twenty towns, among them Testour, Zaghouan, Soliman, Grombalia and Tebourba.
John Ward, an English sailor who turned pirate after James I made peace with Spain, came to terms with Uthman in 1606: Tunis would be his base, and the dey would have first choice of his prizes. In 1607 he took the great Venetian ship Reniera e Soderina. Refused a pardon in England, he turned Muslim in Tunis as Yusuf Reis and commanded a corsair fleet.
Ibrahim Ghanim, a Morisco from Granada who had learned gunnery on the Spanish silver fleets, was in prison in Spain when the expulsion edict came. He got away to Tunis with difficulty, was warmly received by Uthman, and took to the sea as a corsair captain.
Uthman's Tunis took in the Corsican mamluk, the Moriscos and the corsairs whose households would run it for the next half-century.
The man at the door
- 2◆The Moriscos arrive — from 1609 · expelled from Spain
- 3⌂Andalusian towns — from 1609 · Testour and some twenty more
- 4♛Yusuf Dey — Sept 1610 · seated by the soldiers
In brief
Uthman's last years brought refugees. From 1609 Spain expelled its Moriscos, the descendants of Muslims forced to convert, and tens of thousands came to Tunis.2 Uthman made room for them in the city, lodged the poorest with Tunisian families, and let the rest settle where they chose. They took root in more than twenty towns, Testour among them.3 In 1610 Uthman fell ill. His lieutenant was Yusuf, to whom he had promised his daughter. Asked who should follow him, Uthman passed over a harder man and named Yusuf. He died that September, and the soldiers seated Yusuf in the Kasbah.4 In 1613 Ramadan Bey died. His brother Rajab went to Yusuf to claim the command. As the Tunis chronicler tells it, Yusuf let a respected recluse decide: the bey would be the man at whose door the recluse was found next morning. He was found at Murad's door. Murad became bey, and Rajab was given command over some of the tribes.
The chain, era by era
Yusuf, son of a Turkish soldier at Tripoli, had risen under Uthman, who preferred him to his own sons and betrothed him to his daughter. Asked on his sickbed who should follow him, Uthman passed over the stern Adjem Dey and named Yusuf. He died in September 1610, and the army chiefs took Yusuf up to the Kasbah and seated him.
Ali Thabit, a Tunisian and Yusuf's closest friend, was the first to salute him as Uthman's successor, and the gathering followed. Made minister, he talked Yusuf out of marrying Uthman's daughter, fearing rivals in the old dey's family, and steered him to a convert's daughter instead. He remained Yusuf's most trusted adviser on the affairs of the interior.
Ramadan Bey died in 1613, and his brother Rajab went to Yusuf to claim the command. As the Tunis chronicler tells it, Yusuf answered that the bey would be the man at whose door the respected recluse Ben Sandal was found next morning. Rajab was given command over some of the tribes instead.
Ben Sandal was found at Murad's door, and Murad became bey, commander of the army and the column; the recluse became his secretary. Murad took over his master's household with the office, the mamluks and the soldiers, and whenever he and Rajab took the field together, Murad did the general's work better.
The two offices of the next half-century, the dey's in the city and the bey's in the country, had passed to new men within three years.
War on the frontier
- 5⌂Yusuf Dey's mosque — 1610s · in the Ottoman style
- 6⚔The rout of 1628 — May 1628 · Algiers wins · near El Kef
- 7✒Peace with Algiers — 1628 · the 1614 frontier kept, the Tunisian fort razed
- 8♛Pasha of Tunis — 1631 · granted by the sultan
In brief
Murad took over his master's household with his office: the mamluks, the soldiers, the column. Yusuf, in the city, built markets, an aqueduct, and a mosque in the Ottoman style5 that still bears his name. In 1615 Usta Murad, a Ligurian corsair who had turned Muslim, received from Yusuf the command of the galleys. In 1628 a quarrel over the frontier brought an Algerian army towards El Kef. Murad and Rajab each led a corps against it. The Algerians were close to asking for terms when the tribes of the Ouled Said changed sides, and the Tunisian army broke.6 Rajab's own mamluks went over to Murad. The peace kept the old frontier7 on the Oued Serrat, and Tunis pulled down the fort it had built there. Rich and ambitious, Murad asked Istanbul for the rank of pasha. The sultan's grant reached him in 1631 at Sfax, on campaign.8 His son Hammuda received from him the title of bey, and Murad died within the year.
The chain, era by era
Yusuf built. The mosque that bears his name, begun in November 1614 and finished in 1615, was the first in Tunis in the Ottoman style, with an octagonal minaret and a Hanafi madrasa beside it. Around it he laid out markets for corsair goods, for slaves and for Turkish-style shoes, and he built an aqueduct to the upper town, a bridge on the Medjerda, and a market for the merchants of Djerba.
Yusuf withdrew the tax and legal privileges Uthman had granted the Moriscos, and by 1612 they were complaining. Ahmed I had already told Tunis to receive them well. A firman of 1615, known from a Turkish study of the Ottoman archives, ordered the governor and the kadi of Tunis to take from the exiles nothing beyond the tithe and the dues the law allowed.
Rich and ambitious, Murad Bey asked Istanbul for the rank of pasha, the governor's title that the deys had long since emptied of power. In 1631 the government of Sultan Murad IV granted it, giving the bey an imperial rank that the dey in the Kasbah did not hold.
Usta Murad, a Ligurian from Levanto taken to Tunis as a boy, had grown rich as corsair captain, shipowner and Uthman's agent for prizes and ransoms. In 1615 Yusuf made him general of the Bizerte galleys, the state fleet, usually six galleys. In 1624 his ships sacked the Venetian base at Perasto; in 1625 they beat five Maltese galleys off Syracuse.
Usta Murad's business ran through Ligurians: his father and brothers traded for him with Genoa, Livorno and Marseille. Another renegade from the same coast, Murad Reis, born Agostino Bianco at Arenzano, became head of the port of Bizerte in 1625, the year Usta Murad stopped commanding the galleys at sea himself.
A treaty of 1614 had fixed the frontier with Algiers on the Oued Serrat. The Ben Chennouf of El Kef, under their chief al-Tayyib ibn Shannuf, kept crossing it, and Tunis built a post on the river. The pasha of Algiers ordered al-Tayyib back behind the 1614 line; Yusuf told him to ignore the order.
Husayn Pasha, the sultan's governor at Algiers since 1627, saw an Ottoman mediator fail and sent an army of some 300 tents and nine guns towards El Kef. Yusuf's army met it with Murad Bey and Rajab each leading a corps; Italian sources make Usta Murad commander-in-chief, the Tunis chronicler names only the two beys.
The Algerians were close to asking for terms when the Ouled Said went over to them; by one account al-Tayyib, who had first drawn the Algerians into a hard valley, changed sides too. On 17 May 1628 the Tunisian army broke. The peace kept the old frontier line, and Tunis had to pull down its post on the river.
In the battle Rajab's own mamluks deserted him for Murad Bey. The next year Murad led the army of El Kef against the Ben Chennouf, and he kept harrying the Ouled Said, whom he meant to destroy. The pasha's rank reached him in 1631 at Sfax, on campaign; he gave the title of bey to his son Hammuda and died within the year.
Al-Qashshash died in the plague of 1621 or 1622, which Tunisians named after him. Many of his disciples were Moriscos, and the exiles he had helped settle had taken root: they planted vines, laid out gardens and opened roads fit for carts, and some of them paid for corsair cruises against the Spain that had expelled them.
Mustafa de Cárdenas, known in Spain as Diego, became a great landowner, merchant and slaveholder, and for decades the sheikh of the Andalusians, their recognised head before the dey. At Grombalia he built a palace on an estate worked by hundreds of slaves. When the army broke in 1628 he was among the sheikhs who left Tunis.
A slave's lieutenancy had become a command, and an imperial rank, that Murad could hand to his son.
The galley captain's turn
- 9◆The Beni Chennouf broken — 1630s · the clans that called in Algiers
- 10♛Usta Murad, dey — Dec 1637 · accepted by the militia
- 11⌂Ghar el-Melh — late 1630s · fort, town and Andalusian settlers
In brief
Hammuda was young when he took his father's place, and at first he shared the command with other beys. He went after the clans of El Kef that had brought the Algerians in, set them against one another, and broke them.9 In the city, Yusuf Dey died at the end of 1637. Mami, the chief of his mamluks, wanted the office for himself, but he was a convert, and he feared the militia would refuse him. Usta Murad, the commander of the galleys, was a convert too, and Mami put him forward instead. The soldiers accepted Usta Murad the morning after Yusuf died.10 The new dey saw what Mami intended and sent him away to Zaghouan, where Mami was killed. Usta Murad ruled with a hard hand. At Ghar el-Melh, the anchorage Europeans called Porto Farina, he raised a fort,11 built a town beside it and settled Andalusian refugees there. He died in 1640.
The chain, era by era
Hammuda was in the flower of youth when he succeeded Murad Bey in 1631. At first he shared the command with Rajab and Sulayman Bey, with his father's secretary Ben Sandal as his counsellor. The Ouled Said rose; in 1636 Hammuda stormed their refuge, El Hamma, after seven years of revolt, then set the Ben Chennouf clans against one another and broke them.
Murad Bey had married Hammuda to Aziza Othmana, born about 1606, a granddaughter of Uthman Dey raised in his palace, and so tied the new house to the old dey's family. Aziza held great estates in her own right; late in life she freed her slaves and gave almost everything to charitable endowments, among them a hospital in Tunis that still bears her name.
Hammuda also married Hiziyya, daughter of Ali Thabit, the Tunisian minister and companion of Yusuf Dey, who died in 1631 or 1632. She became the mother of Hammuda's heir, Murad II, so the bey's line would descend from the dey's own inner circle as well as from Uthman's family.
Yusuf grew old in the Kasbah while Hammuda's power grew in the country; later writers say the young bey slowly drew the diwan and the militia to himself. By diplomacy Yusuf secured the island of Djerba from Tripoli for Tunis. He died in the middle of December 1637, mourned in every mouth, and was buried beside his mosque.
By marriage the bey's house now held the blood of the first dey and the daughter of the second dey's minister.
Mami, the chief of Yusuf Dey's mamluks, wanted the office for himself, but he was a convert and feared the militia would refuse him. So he put forward another convert, Usta Murad, meaning to dispose of him once the soldiers had accepted a renegade. A large party formed, and the soldiers recognised Usta Murad the morning after Yusuf died.
Usta Murad guessed Mami's plan and sent him away to Zaghouan, where he was killed. He ruled with a hard hand: he closed the taverns, forbade selling grain to the Christians, kept bread and meat cheap, and made the qaids present themselves at his door every evening. Some later accounts add that Hammuda backed his election; the Tunis chronicler does not.
Yusuf's son raised a domed tomb for his father beside the mosque in 1639, square, faced with white marble and roofed with green tiles. The master builder signed it: Muhammad ibn Ghalib al-Andalusi, one of the exiles from Spain. Later writers credit him with the whole mosque, but his signature stands on the tomb.
At Ghar el-Melh, an anchorage Christian ships had long used, Usta Murad had a fort built under the master Musa. He ordered a town raised beside it and advanced money to anyone who would settle there, and many Andalusians came. It became Porto Farina, the best port in the country, and gradually drew the corsairs away from Bizerte.
After years as a corsair, Ibrahim Ghanim was given command of La Goulette, the fortress guarding the harbour of Tunis. Finding its gunners ignorant, he wrote them a manual of artillery in Spanish, about 1630 to 1632, copying much of it from a Spanish gunnery book printed at Milan in 1592.
Ahmad ibn Qasim al-Hajari, a Morisco who had spent decades as interpreter and envoy for the sultans of Morocco, came to Tunis about 1637. At his friend Ibrahim's request, after Usta Murad came to power, he translated the manual into Arabic, finishing on 25 July 1638: the earliest fully illustrated Arabic manual of gunnery.
Usta Murad's three years gave Tunis its best corsair port, and its gunners a manual in Arabic.
The militia's choice
- 12†A rival bey executed — 1640s · Hammuda alone in command
- 13◆A forty-day wedding — c. 1647–48 · the bey's son, the dey's daughter
In brief
When Usta Murad died, the militia chose for itself. Its vote went to Ahmed Khodja, the clerk of the diwan, who had won the soldiers by looking after their orphans. Intriguers turned the new dey against Hammuda's last colleague in the command, and the dey had him put to death.12 Hammuda was left alone at the head of the army. He then paid the dey handsomely: for as much money as fourteen mules could carry, he bought the right to raise six hundred horsemen under his own command. Ahmed Khodja died in 1647. The army chiefs proclaimed Hajj Muhammad Laz in the dead man's hall. Early in the new reign Hammuda's son, the younger Murad, married a daughter of Yusuf Dey. The feast lasted forty days.13 The bey's house was now joined to the family of the dey who had made Hammuda's father bey.
The chain, era by era
Usta Murad died in June 1640, in circumstances that remain unclear. The militia chose, unanimously, Ahmed Khodja, a lettered man from Sinop who had been clerk of the diwan since 1628 and had won the soldiers by caring for their orphans. When Maltese galleys forced La Goulette and burned ships in the harbour, he built a second fort there.
His eldest son, Muhammad Çelebi, was by one account made governor of Porto Farina. In 1645 he secretly married a Christian slave; his father married him instead to the daughter of the pasha of Tunis. In 1646, aged about nineteen, he fled by sea to Sicily and was baptised in Palermo cathedral with the viceroy as godfather, calling himself Don Philippe, prince of Tunis.
Sulayman Bey, also called Hamida Ashur, was the last colleague left beside Hammuda in the command, Rajab being dead. A settlement of accounts had already found him in debt to Hammuda. Intriguers then set him against Ahmed Khodja, and the dey had him put to death under torture.
Hammuda now commanded the army alone and set about bringing the tribes under the yoke. From Ahmed Khodja he bought, for as much money as fourteen mules could carry, the right to raise six hundred spahis, horsemen under his own command. In 1643 he bought the old Hafsid pleasure palace at the Bardo from the diwan.
With his colleague dead and six hundred horsemen of his own, Hammuda stood alone at the head of the army.
Ahmed Khodja died of illness in 1647. The army chiefs at once proclaimed Hajj Muhammad Laz, a janissary from Lazistan on the Black Sea, in Ahmed's entrance hall, and he was recognised sitting at the Kasbah gate. Early in his reign the Jewish money-changer Daoud came up short with the militia's pay; the dey made up the large sum from his own funds and headed off a mutiny.
Early in Hajj Muhammad Laz's reign, Hammuda married his son and heir, the younger Murad, to a daughter of Yusuf Dey. The feast lasted forty days, with tables open to all comers, singers past counting and lamps enough for a king; Tunisians said nothing like it had been seen even under the Hafsids.
The bey's house was joined by marriage to the dey who had made its founder bey.
Pasha, son of a pasha
- 14♛Hajj Mustafa Laz, dey — 1653 · named by the bey
- 15⚔Porto Farina — 4 Apr 1655 (O.S.) · nine ships burned
- 16♛Pasha, son of a pasha — c. 1659 · granted by the sultan
In brief
Hajj Muhammad Laz died in 1653. This time the diwan asked Hammuda whom it should seat, and Hajj Mustafa Laz became dey on his word. The soldiers saluted him at the Kasbah gate.14 Hammuda came into the city himself, and the new dey's rivals fell silent. He gave Mustafa a wife raised in his own household and one of the best houses in Tunis. In April 1655 an English fleet under Robert Blake came for English captives held in the regency. When the dey refused them, Blake sailed into Porto Farina, silenced its batteries and burned the nine ships15 lying in the harbour. The dey still refused. About 1659, after a lavish present to Istanbul, the sultan made Hammuda a pasha,16 and the public prayers named him pasha, son of a pasha. In 1660 Mustafa Laz still sat in the Kasbah with the militia behind him. But it was the bey's house, founded by a Corsican slave, that had chosen him.
The chain, era by era
Hajj Muhammad Laz died in 1653 after a long illness. Consulted by the diwan, Hammuda named Hajj Mustafa Laz, who was saluted at the Kasbah gate. Hammuda came into the city, and the new dey's rivals fell silent. He gave Mustafa a white slave he had raised as his own daughter, richly dowered, and one of the best houses in Tunis.
Under Mustafa Laz, Hammuda ran affairs himself. He had men he distrusted arrested and their goods seized, among them Ben Kacem el-Menestiri, who had schemed for the deyship, and the sheikh of the Andalusians. In 1655 he built the Hammuda Pasha mosque in the Turkish style, with an octagonal minaret above his family's tomb.
Mustafa de Cárdenas, the sheikh of the Andalusians, was arrested on Hammuda's orders and his property confiscated. He escaped to the regency of Algiers and died there; Spanish studies take him by way of Istanbul and Egypt to Annaba, where a French doctor later credited him with planting the olive groves.
In April 1655 an English fleet under Robert Blake came for English captives held in the regency and a seized ship. When the dey refused, Blake sailed into Porto Farina, the port Usta Murad had built, silenced its batteries and burned the nine ships lying in the harbour. The dey still refused.
The bey now chose the dey and broke the men who had prospered under earlier deys.
Hammuda sent Istanbul a present, carried by Ben Kelman, more magnificent than any that had come from the west. The government of Sultan Mehmed IV granted him the rank of pasha he had sought. The appointment arrived about 1658 by the Tunis chronicler's dating, in 1659 by other accounts.
The public prayers now named Hammuda pasha, son of a pasha, the rank his father had won in 1631. His son Murad II, Hiziyya's child, was to inherit the beyship; in 1663 Hammuda began handing his three sons commands of their own, and he ruled until his death in 1666.
Hajj Mustafa Laz, a mild man who sent nearly every case to the ordinary courts, still held the deyship in 1660, with the militia and its diwan behind him. That year he restored the old Spanish fort on Chikly island in the Lake of Tunis. He ruled until his death in 1665.
In 1660 the dey still sat in the Kasbah, but the bey's house, founded by a Corsican slave, held the army, the countryside and an imperial rank.
Who’s who
The deys and the militia
The beys and their household
Regency of Algiers
The Ottoman Empire and its sultan
England
Others
Timeline
- 1⚑The janissaries' revolt — 1591 · the deys take power 1600–1609
- 2◆The Moriscos arrive — from 1609 · expelled from Spain 1609–1613
- 3⌂Andalusian towns — from 1609 · Testour and some twenty more 1609–1613
- 4♛Yusuf Dey — Sept 1610 · seated by the soldiers 1609–1613
- 5⌂Yusuf Dey's mosque — 1610s · in the Ottoman style 1613–1631
- 6⚔The rout of 1628 — May 1628 · Algiers wins · near El Kef 1613–1631
- 7✒Peace with Algiers — 1628 · the 1614 frontier kept, the Tunisian fort razed 1613–1631
- 8♛Pasha of Tunis — 1631 · granted by the sultan 1613–1631
- 9◆The Beni Chennouf broken — 1630s · the clans that called in Algiers 1631–1640
- 10♛Usta Murad, dey — Dec 1637 · accepted by the militia 1631–1640
- 11⌂Ghar el-Melh — late 1630s · fort, town and Andalusian settlers 1631–1640
- 12†A rival bey executed — 1640s · Hammuda alone in command 1640–1653
- 13◆A forty-day wedding — c. 1647–48 · the bey's son, the dey's daughter 1640–1653
- 14♛Hajj Mustafa Laz, dey — 1653 · named by the bey 1653–1660
- 15⚔Porto Farina — 4 Apr 1655 (O.S.) · nine ships burned 1653–1660
- 16♛Pasha, son of a pasha — c. 1659 · granted by the sultan 1653–1660
Sources
- Ibn Abi Dinar, al-Mu'nis (written c. 1681), French translation by E. Pellissier and Rémusat, Histoire de l'Afrique (1845), books VII–VIII: the deys and the beys from the 1590s to the 1660s — source
- A. Rousseau, Annales tunisiennes (1864), pp. 41–52, after the chronicler al-Wazir al-Sarraj: dates of the deys, the 1628 war and treaty, Hammuda's horsemen and pasha rank — source
- M.-E. A. Ben Achour, 'Aux origines de l'État beylical : la dynastie mouradite', Leaders (2020) — source
- K. Ben Salah, 'Murad Bey e Murad Dey, la storia di due rinnegati italiani', Dialoghi Mediterranei 54 (2022) — source
- Uthman Dey — Wikipedia (sole power from 1598, the bey's office, the Moriscos) — source
- Yusuf Dey — Wikipedia (choice of Murad, the Ottoman-style mosque) — source
- Mourad Bey — Wikipédia (Corsican origin, Ramadan's son-in-law, bey 1613, pasha 1631) — source
- Usta Murad — Wikipedia (galley command 1615, accession 1637, Porto Farina) — source
- Mami Ferrarese — Wikipedia (Italian) — source
- Hammuda Pasha Bey — Wikipedia (reign, horsemen, pasha rank) — source
- Guerre algéro-tunisienne de 1628 — Wikipédia (the Ben Chennouf, Es-Settara, the treaty) — source
- Action of 14 April 1655 — Wikipedia (Blake at Porto Farina) — source
Every claim in the text was checked against the sources above. Borders: historical-basemaps (A. Ourednik, GPL-3.0), the c.1600 snapshot, simplified — schematic, the right states in roughly the right places. Ground that changed hands: modern provinces (Natural Earth) or later snapshots standing in for historical ones. Land, lakes and rivers: Natural Earth. Portraits: credited below with author, licence and source.
Portraits
- Robert Blake — anonymous · Public domain — Commons
- Ahmed I — 17th century artist · CC0 — Commons
- Murad IV — Mid-17th century, Ottoman artist · Public domain — Commons
- Mehmed IV — Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domain — Commons
- Aziza Othmana — Sami Mlouhi · CC BY-SA 4.0 — Commons
- Uthman Dey — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of early seventeenth-century Ottoman miniature painting (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Ramadan Bey — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of early seventeenth-century Ottoman miniature painting (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Murad Bey — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of early seventeenth-century Ottoman miniature painting (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Yusuf Dey — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of early seventeenth-century Ottoman miniature painting (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Rajab — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of early seventeenth-century Ottoman miniature painting (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Usta Murad — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of early seventeenth-century Ottoman miniature painting (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Hammuda — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of early seventeenth-century Ottoman miniature painting (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Mami — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of early seventeenth-century Ottoman miniature painting (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Ahmed Khodja — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of early seventeenth-century Ottoman miniature painting (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Hajj Muhammad Laz — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of early seventeenth-century Ottoman miniature painting (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Murad II — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of early seventeenth-century Ottoman miniature painting (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Hajj Mustafa Laz — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of early seventeenth-century Ottoman miniature painting (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Abu al-Ghayth al-Qashshash — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of early seventeenth-century Ottoman miniature painting (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Muhammad ibn Abd al-Rafi — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of early seventeenth-century Ottoman miniature painting (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- John Ward — Jason Cox (Atomic Squib), John (Birdy) Ward, named modern illustration for Faces of Faversham, August 2023; imagined later depiction · licence not stated — source
- Ibrahim Ghanim — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of early seventeenth-century Ottoman miniature painting (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Ali Thabit — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of early seventeenth-century Ottoman miniature painting (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Murad Reis — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of early seventeenth-century Ottoman miniature painting (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Mustafa de Cárdenas — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of early seventeenth-century Ottoman miniature painting (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- al-Tayyib ibn Shannuf — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of early seventeenth-century Ottoman miniature painting (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Husayn Pasha — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of early seventeenth-century Ottoman miniature painting (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Hiziyya — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of early seventeenth-century Ottoman miniature painting (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Muhammad ibn Ghalib — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of early seventeenth-century Ottoman miniature painting (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Master Musa — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of early seventeenth-century Ottoman miniature painting (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Ahmad ibn Qasim al-Hajari — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of early seventeenth-century Ottoman miniature painting (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Sulayman Bey — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of early seventeenth-century Ottoman miniature painting (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Muhammad Çelebi — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of early seventeenth-century Ottoman miniature painting (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration