In recent decades, animals made it into the mainstream of historical research as part of what is known as ‘the animal turn’, according which historians are encouraged to consider animals not merely as backdrops to human affairs, but rather as important actors who lived together with humans in an emotional relationship. As Erica Fudge has argued, the fact that people of the past were able to acknowledge the importance of animals in their lives suggests that it is a way of opening up a question of being with animals in the past instead of just using them. The influence of this ‘animal turn’ increases also within the field of Middle Eastern studies, as different scholars focus on varied periods and geographical spaces with the intention to find historical traces that will suggest that this turn existed already in the past. It was recently suggested by Sarra Tlili for instance, that the mentioning of animals within the Islamic scripture offers a long perceived eco-centric worldview on animals, rather than the commonly accepted anthropocentric one that focuses on humans as the center of the universe. In this proposed paper, I will demonstrate how the sixteenth-century Ottoman elite society's worldview on animals was influenced by both anthropocentric and eco-centric discourses. Contemporary historians (?ehnâmecis), as well as other courtly poets and artists, constantly used animal imagery to fashion Ottoman rulers as charismatic figures. During Süleymân I (r.1520-1566)'s reign, their narrative was very much anthropocentric, because it befitted this sultan's persona. Therefore, literary works such as Lâmi?î Çelebî (1472-1532)'s Nobility of Man (?erefü’l-Insân), and historical treatise such as Ârifî Çelebî (d. 1562)'s The Book of Süleymân (Süleymânnâme), nurtured a worldview according which animals were exploited by the sultan in order to stress the fact that Süleymân was above all creatures. However, towards the end of the sixteenth-century, during Murâd III (r. 1574-1595)'s reign, a different eco-centric discourse appeared within historical Ottoman treatises. In accordance with Murâd's sedentary persona, court historian Seyyid Lokmân (in office between 1569-1597) was obliged to create in his Book of Skills (Hünernâme) a generic image of a saint-like sultan, whose charisma was recognized not merely by his human followers, but also by non-human animals. By focusing on the second volume of the Book of Skills that deals with Süleymân, I will demonstrate how the charismatic image of this sultan was shaped by both anthropocentric and eco-centric discourses during the sixteenth-century.