Murad Agha

Murad Agha[a] (Arabic: مراد آغا, c. 1480 – c. 1556) was an Sicilian-born Ottoman eunuch and military officer who was the first Beylerbey of Tripoli.

[2] In 1538, Hayreddin Barbarossa sent Murad to Tajura in North Africa to organise local resistance against the Knights Hospitaller who at the time ruled the nearby city of Tripoli.

Murad likely informed Ottoman sultan Suleiman I of these plans, and the latter appears to have been motivated to take Tripoli so as to prevent this from occurring.

The residents of Tajura under Murad's command fought alongside the Ottomans in the subsequent siege of Tripoli, which began on 8 August 1551.

Upon Murad's appointment, Dragut left North Africa in protest and sailed to the Tyrrhenian Sea and later to Constantinople with the rest of the Ottoman ships, whose crews had declared that they would only accept him as their commander.

[3] Murad successfully consolidated Ottoman control over the region of Tripolitania, made improvements to Tripoli's fortifications,[3] and oversaw the city's economic resurgence.