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The Portuguese-Ottoman war [1][2] refers to a series of different military battles between the Portuguese Empire and the Ottoman Empire. Other European powers supported the Portuguese in some battles. The Ottomans, however, fought allied with other Muslim powers like India, Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo), Mughal Empire, Adal Sultanate, Somalia, Aceh Sultanate in most of those battles. This war raged for the whole of the 16th century.

Portuguese background

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The reconquest of the territory forming the Kingdom of Portugal had been completed by 1249 with the expulsion of the last Moorish settlements in the Algarve. In the beginning of the 16th century, Portuguese navigators explored south along the African coast[3], and captured the city of Ceuta across the straights in what is now Morocco.[4]

These explorations required the Portuguese to deploy a formidable seapower. According to professor John C. Marshman, "during the whole of the sixteenth century the maritime power of the Portuguese continued to be the most formidable in the eastern hemisphere, and terror of every state on the seaboard."[5] This maritime power made Portugal in the 15th century among the first World Power in history and the leading Global Economy from the end of the 15th to the 16th century, due to the African Gold and Asian spices.[6][7][4] The leading authority about the Portuguese Empire, Charles Boxer, concludes: "In the 16th century the Portuguese dominated a part of the Planet and commerce superior to any other country". "Unfortunately to the East, the Portuguese were the heir of the medieval military dexterity largely accumulated from the last phase of the middles ages...their ships had the best artillery produced in Europe."[8] Starting in 1498, captains such as Vasco da Gama, Pedro Álvares Cabral, Francisco de Almeida and Alfonso de Albuquerque helped to propel the expanding ambition of this powerful Empire.

The Portuguese completed the reconquest of the territory forming the kingdom of Portugal in 1249 with the expulsion of the last Moorish settlements in Algarve. In the beginning of the 15th century, Portuguese navigators explored south along the African coast[3], and captured the city of Ceuta across the straights in what is now Morocco.[4] By the end of the

Ottoman background

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Certainly, this newcome powerful nation in the Indian Ocean spread an aura of "terror" there.[9] The only capable force to face it was the Ottoman Empire, as its involvement in almost every battle against the Portuguese in the 16th century suggests.[10] But as early as the 16th century began, this Muslim power was already suffering the economic impact from the arrival of the first Europeans. The Indian historian P. Malekandathil says that "The Portuguese efforts to monopolize the eastern trade by making the commodities flow to Europe through the Cape route had started at the cost of the Ottomans and reduced the flow of wealth to the treasury of the Ottomans."[11] As a result, the Empire started a chain of struggles to challenge the portuguese in the Indian Ocean and their coastal areas. The Ottomans "smelt a severe political danger in their neighbourhood. Till 1515, the Europeans appeared to be an enemy of the Turks only in the western front. But in that year with the occupation of Hormuz (lying in the eastern part of the Turkish Empire) by the Lusitanians, the Ottomans found themselves being virtually encircled by the Europeans, which in fact sent political messages of caution to the Ottomans. The evolving economic pressure and the political threats emerging from the encircling European expansion made the Ottomans tum their attention increasingly to the politics of the Indian Ocean regions and interfere in them to their advantage."[12] The Turks considered the Portuguese as a huge threat to their monopoly in the area. Professor G. Casale puts it best: the Ottomans launched "a systematic ideological, military and commercial challenge to the Portuguese Empire, their main rival for control of the lucrative trade routes of maritime Asia."[13]

Mir Ali Beg

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Mir Ali Beg was an Ottoman privateer based in Mocha. He raided the Portuguese controlled city of Muscat in 1581, and commanded an expedition to the Swahili coast in 1585.

Muscat Raid

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First Expedition to the Swahili Coast

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In 1583, Hasan Pasha exaggerated the significance of the arrest of a Spanish Spy, and warned the Sultan that the Ottoman defenses in the Indian Ocean were not adequate to ward off a Portuguese invasion. In response, Sultan Murad III sent 2 galleots from Suez to Yemen in order to aid in defense. However, instead of using the ships for defense, Hasan Pasha gave them to Mir Ali Beg and sent the fleet to raid the Portuguese controlled Swahili coast, but also to establish connections with the local Muslim population and choose the location of a new Ottoman naval base for future raids and the eventual conquest of the Swahili coast. however, on their way our of Yemen, one of the galleots had to turn back. Mir Ali thus began his journey to the Swahili coast with a single galleot and 80 men.

The Portuguese, were so unpopular among the local people that upon arriving in Mogadishu and explaining why he was visiting, the people of Mogadishu immediately declared allegiance to Murad III, contributed funding and 20 armed coastal ships as an escort to the expedition. Mir Ali recieved similarly enthusiastic support from his visits of other towns along the coast.

The Potuguese were so unprepared for Mir Ali Beg's arrival that Ruy Lopes Salgado, the captain responsible for defending the Swahili coast, chose to hide in Malindi rather than attempt to stop the privateer. In consequence, Mir Ali captured a merchant ship from Diu without a fight, and the people of Lamu turned over Captain-Major Roque de Brito and his warship, the crew of which he promptly replaced with Muslim volunteers, and used to capture another Portuguese ship.

Mir Ali and his fleet spent the next month gaining support from the local Muslim people along the coast, and returned to Mocha with a fleet of 24 ships, plunder worth 150,000 gold cruzados (Portuguese currency), and 60 Portuguese captives.

Purpose

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Jai Singh noticed that the zij used in his time, and the position of celestial objects such as the moon did not match the positions calculated on the table. He constructed five new observatories in different cities in order to create a more accurate Zij. The astronomical tables Jai Singh created, the Zij-i Muhammad Shahi. Although the table had little significance outside of India, in India, it was continuously used for a century.

History

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When Jai Singh began constructing the Jantar Mantar in Jaipur is unknown, but several instruments had been built by 1728, and the construction of the instruments in Jaipur continued until 1738. During 1735, when construction was at its peak, at least 23 Astronomers were employed in Jaipur, and due to the changing political climate, Jaipur replaced Delhi as Jai Singh's main observatory, and remained Jai Singh's central observatory until his death. The observatory lost support under Isvari Singh because of a succession war between him and his brother. However, Mado Singh, Isvari Singh's successor, supported the observatory, although the it did not see the same level of activity as it did under Jai Singh. Although some restorations were made to the Jantar Mantar under Pratap Singh, activity at the observatory died down again. During this time, a temple was constructed, and Pratap Singh turned the cite of the observatory into a gun factory.

Rama Singh began the restoration of the Jantar Mantar, and completed restoring it in 1876, and even made some of the instruments more durable by inserting lead into the lines in the instruments, and restoring some of the plaster instruments with stone instead. However, the observatory soon became neglected again, and wasn't restored until 1901 under Madho Singh II

The telescope in India

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Although Jai Singh's observatories did not use telescopes, Jai Singh himself had several which he occasionally used for his observations, and telescopes were being built in India at the time. However, telescopes built at the time were not very accurate for measuring celestial objects. In Europe, the telescope sights were first being used, and increased the accuracy of measuring celestial objects. However, the telescope sight was still a new invention in Europe, and had not yet reached India, and European innovations in Astronomy were only slightly more accurate than the medieval Islamic instruments that Jai Singh had created.

Sources

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  1. ^ Grant, R. G. (2011-01-03). Battle at Sea: 3,000 Years of Naval Warfare. Penguin. ISBN 9780756657017.
  2. ^ Rogerson, Barnaby (2011-03-29). The Last Crusaders: East, West, and the Battle for the Center of the World. The Overlook Press. ISBN 9781468302882.
  3. ^ a b Modelski, George; Thompson, William R. (1988-06-18). Seapower in Global Politics, 1494–1993. Springer. ISBN 9781349091546.
  4. ^ a b c Crowley, Roger (2015-12-01). Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire. Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 9780812994018.
  5. ^ Marshman, John Clark (2010-11-18). History of India from the Earliest Period to the Close of the East India Company's Government. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108021043.
  6. ^ Midlarsky, Manus (2000). Handbook of War Studies II. EUA: University of Michigan. p. 315. ISBN 978-0-472-06724-4.
  7. ^ Modelski, George (1988). Seapower in Global Politics, 1494-1993. London: THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD. p. 157. ISBN 978-1-349-09156-0.
  8. ^ Boxer, Charles (1973). The Portuguese Seaborne Empire 1415-1825. England: Penguin. pp. 11, 13. ISBN 978-0140216479.
  9. ^ Marshman, John Clark (2010-11-18). History of India from the Earliest Period to the Close of the East India Company's Government. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108021043.
  10. ^ Lee, Wayne E. (2016). Waging War: Conflict, Culture, and Innovation in World History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199797455.
  11. ^ Malekandathil, Pius (2010). Maritime India - Trade, Religion and Polity in the Indian Ocean. Delhi: Primus Books. p. 110. ISBN 978-93-80607-01-6.
  12. ^ Malekandathil, Pius (2010). Maritime India - Trade, Religion and Polity in the Indian Ocean. Delhi: Primus Books. p. 113. ISBN 978-93-80607-01-6.
  13. ^ Casale, Giancarlo (2010-02-25). The Ottoman Age of Exploration. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199798797.
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