Introduction

Summary

The Indian Ocean, including the Red Sea, Persian Gulf and other tributary water bodies, witnessed the activities of a number of Islamic navies during the age of fighting sail. Several were formed as a reaction to a European presence in these waters, but irrespective of this, all were engaged at one time or another in the assertion of territorial and maritime trading rights that sometimes brought them into conflict with each other. Significantly, while the Indian Ocean could be easily accessed by the three great Muslim empires of the era, Mughal, Ottoman and Safavid, for them it served more as a barrier, with the most active Islamic navies in the region those of the smaller sultanates and sheikdoms, namely Oman, Mysore and Qawāsim.

Of the three empires, sometimes referred to as the ‘gunpowder empires’, the Ottomans certainly made some attempt to project their authority into the Indian Ocean region, with Selim I declaring it to be his intention, through the use of seapower, to drive the Portuguese out of India, only to renege on this offer, made to the Gujarat ruler Muzaffer Shah, following his conquest of Egypt. Hadim Suleyman Pasha, viceroy of Egypt between 1525 and 1535, did much to improve the strategic position of the Ottomans in the waters surrounding the Arabian Peninsula, providing logistical support for Selman Reis who led an expedition in 1527 into the Red Sea, and supervising construction of an enlarged naval dockyard and fleet base at Suez. Through the use of Suez as a dockyard, despite its numerous limitations, which included lack of easily accessible timber and other shipbuilding materials, further vessels were built that, between 1538 and 1553, permitted four expeditions to be mounted. Given that heavy reliance was still being placed on galleys and larger oar-powered vessels, heavy losses were sustained, both in direct conflict with ships of the Portuguese navy, as well as the natural hazards of operating in vast stretches of open water for which these vessels were unsuited. In the more enclosed waters of the Red Sea, for which these craft were better adapted, Hadim Suleyman, while commanding the expedition of 1538 in an unsuccessful siege of Diu, was able to take from the Portuguese much of Yemen, including Aden.