10 - The Coastal Waters of Arabia

Summary

They are of the sect of Wahiibees [Wahhabis], and are called Jouassimee [Qawāsim]; but God preserve us from them, for they are monsters. Their occupation is piracy, and their delight murder; and to make it worse, they give you the most pious reasons for every villainy they commit.

Major-General Sir John Malcolm (1769–1833), EIC administrator

The Ottomans were able to prevent the Portuguese gaining a secure position in the Red Sea, but their failure to develop a deep-water navy capable of operating in the wider Indian Ocean, or a navy to operate in the Persian Gulf, left the Portuguese in a general position of strength. Only at Basra did the Ottomans possess a naval port that gave them direct access into the Persian Gulf, this through taking possession of this port in the early sixteenth century following the conquest of Baghdad. With the Portuguese at that time holding and fortifying several of the islands at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, including Kish, Kishm (Qeshm) and Hormuz, this effectively prevented the Ottomans making full use of Basra as a naval base. Piri Reis, in an expedition that set out from Suez in 1551 with a force of thirty galleys, while managing the capture of Kish, was unsuccessful in an attempt on Hormuz, unable to take the fortress that gave protection to the harbour and the Portuguese warships stationed there. In sailing on to Basra, where he anchored, Piri subsequently lost part of his fleet when it was attacked by pursuing Portuguese warships, Piri eluding capture by taking just three of his galleys, and the plunder they carried, back into the Red Sea, but losing one further vessel before reaching Suez. His reward for abandoning his fleet, and giving priority to the safety of the plunder he had taken during the campaign, was his arrest and, under order of Suleiman I, beheading. A subsequent attempt by Sidi Ali Reis to return the surviving ships of Piri's fleet, after battle-damaged repairs had been undertaken at Basra, met with further losses, when it was out-fought by a Portuguese fleet off Hormuz before entering the Indian Ocean, and virtual destruction when it headed into a hurricane and was driven onto the shores of Gujarat.