In a new episode of "Reflections" 2023/8/14, the program presents the story of Khairuddin Pasha of Tunisia, the slave who became the Grand Vizier during the time of the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II.
It is said that Khairuddin was kidnapped as a child in a sedition that occurred in Abkhazia (which is located today in the Republic of Georgia), and brought him to Istanbul and Tahseen Bey bought him Turkish, and made him a companion for his son, but when his son died, Tahseen Bey sold him to the representative of the ruler of Tunisia, Bey Ahmed Pasha, who was then 17 years old.
Khair al-Din rode to Tunis and lived in the court of the Bey. He rose through the authorities to become a minister and won many titles, traveled around Europe, and stayed in France for a few years.
He lived until he was about seventy, and when he was in his mid-forties he wrote his famous book, "The Paths of Knowledge of the Conditions of the Kingdoms" in Tunis in Arabic, translated into French and then long later into English. The whole book describes the countries of Europe and their systems of government, the conditions of peoples and constitutions.
Between two books
Khair al-Din al-Tunisi's book is distinguished from Rifa'a al-Tahtawi's book "Ridding al-Ibriz fi summarizing Paris", which is the oldest of the two books, that Rifa'a al-Tahtawi was an imam, so he looked at France with surprise and described its conditions, while Khair al-Din was a statesman, and delved into the conditions of all major countries in Europe. He wanted to get ideas with a mind on how to advance the countries of the East.
In the book's introduction, Khair al-Din al-Tunisi discusses the problems of the East, quotes Ibn Khaldun, and expresses his basic thought, which is that we must rise to an authentic renaissance, not an imported one.
Then the pages follow all about the "European" countries as Khaireddine calls them, where he talks about the French Revolution, mentions the execution of King Louis 16, and talks about France's political and social history.
Khairuddin also insists on tracing the French Revolution hijacked by Napoleon, and recounts how France restored the monarchy. The reader of this chapter on France learns an important lesson: the revolution against unjust rule may not succeed the first time, as Khairuddin says that the French Revolution came to establish human freedom, while the English Revolution, which they call the Glorious Revolution, came to organize the state.