Person

Özdemir Pasha

d. 1560 · 16th century

Özdemir Pasha was an Ottoman commander of Circassian Mamluk origin. As governor of Yemen he took Sanaa in 1547, and he then led the Ottoman advance on the African shore of the Red Sea, creating the province of Habesh in 1555 and seizing Massawa in 1557. He died in the highlands of Eritrea in 1560; his son Özdemiroğlu Osman Pasha became grand vizier.

Özdemir Pasha
Image: David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Mentioned in 2 state histories

Yemen EyaletHabesh Eyalet

See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Özdemir Pasha. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/ozdemir-pasha
MLA
“Özdemir Pasha.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/ozdemir-pasha. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Özdemir Pasha.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/ozdemir-pasha.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Özdemir Pasha’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/ozdemir-pasha (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻