Hayreddin Pasha

Hayreddin Pasha
Portrait of Khair al-Din Pasha on horseback
Grand Vizier of the Beylik of Tunis
In office October 22, 1873 – July 21, 1877
Monarch	Sadok Bey
Preceded by	Mustapha Khaznadar
Succeeded by	Mohamed Khaznadar, Mustafa bin Isma'il (1878)
Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire
In office December 4, 1878 – July 29, 1879
Monarch	Abdülhamid II
Preceded by	Mehmed Esad Saffet Pacha
Succeeded by	Ahmed Ârifi Pacha
President of the Majlis al-Akbar Beylik of Tunis
In office 1861 – 1862 [resigned]
Monarch	Sadok Bey
Preceded by	first in new office
Succeeded by	Mustapha Saheb Ettabaâ
Minister of Marine, Beylik of Tunis
In office 1857 – 1862 [resigned]
Monarch	Mohammed Bey Sadok Bey
Preceded by	Mahmoud Khodja
Succeeded by	Ismaïl Kahia
Personal details
Born	c. 1820 Circassia
Died	30 January 1890 Istanbul, Ottoman Empire
Resting place	Tunisia

Hayreddin Pasha (Tunisian Arabic: خير الدين باشا التونسي‎ Khayr ed-Din Pasha et-Tunsi; Ottoman Turkish: تونسلى حيرالدين پاشا‎; Turkish: Tunuslu Hayreddin Paşa; c. 1820 – 30 January 1890) was a Tunisian-Ottoman politician who was born to a Circassian family. First serving as Beylerbeyi of Ottoman Tunisia, he later achieved the high post of Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. He was an Ottoman Tunisian political reformer during a period of growing European ascendancy.

Of Abkhaz origin, Hayreddin was born in Abkhazia into "a family of warrior notables". His father Hassan Leffch, a local chieftain, died fighting against a Russian attack on the city of Sukhum. Thereafter as a young orphan Hayreddin was sold into slavery, then still a familiar event for Circassian youth. At Istanbul, however, he was eventually traded into a prestigious household, that of the notable Tahsin Bey, a Cypriot Ottoman who was the naqib al-ashraf (head of the Prophet's descendants) and qadi al-'askar (chief judge of the army) of Anatolia, and a poet.

Tahsin Bey moved the boy to his country palace at Kanlıca near the Bosporus, where he became the childhood companion of the Bey's son for a span of years. Khayr al-Din 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. Following "the son's tragic premature death" Khayr al-Din was again sold, in Istanbul by Tahsin Bey to an envoy of Ahmed Bey of Tunis. This new uprooting would obviously provoke emotional turmoil in Khayr al-Din, then about 17 years old. Soon he was on board a ship bound for Africa.