This paper focuses on the military repertory of Tunisian Beylical fanfares and Nūbas (suites) that were used for ceremonial occasions during the late-nineteenth century. These are featured in the music manuscript entitled “Safāīn al-Mālūf al-Tūnisī” (1872), through which mālūf, Arab-Andalusian music heritage with its roots in the courtly tradition of medieval Islamic Spain (Guettat 1980, 2002), underwent a process of redefinition, from oral transmission into Western notation. I review ways in which this North African genre, has been constructed and discussed in musicological literature, and offer a new perspective by examining the tension between French colons and Tunisian natives, public and intimate discourses, since French occupation (1881). I will show how Tunisian musicians contributed significantly to a national resistance against colonial rule by employing publications to disseminate a music reading of Tunisian self-determination.