He was an Ottoman Tunisian political reformer during a period of growing European ascendancy. Hayreddin Pasha was born in Abkhazia into "a family of warrior notables". His father was killed in Sukhum, in battle during one of Russia's campaigns in Abkhazia. Orphaned, Khayreddin was sold into slavery as a small child.
As fortune would have it, he ended up in Istanbul in the household of the Cypriot Ottoman notable Tahsin Bey. Hayreddin 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. This new uprooting would obviously provoke emotional turmoil in Hayreddin, then about 17 years old.
Soon he was on board a ship bound for Africa. 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 s and s he was sent by the Bey on several key diplomatic missions, e. His political career thus began auspiciously under this famously modernizing ruler. In he accompanied the bey, as part of small staff which included the influential advisor Bin Diyaf, during a two-month state visit to France.
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. In 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.
