How the Ottomans Reacted Against the European Explorations and Presence in the Indian

Ocean?

Baran Deniz Bağatur

HIST 222.01

Prof. Derin Terzioğlu

22th May 2019

Proposal

Kitab-ı Bahriye: Book of Navigation, written by Piri Reis in the 16th century, is a maritime book

that examines the contemporary popular and explored maritime regions from the scope of an

Ottoman sailor. The book’s intentioned audiences are the sailors who would use the book as a

guide in expeditions; the advisory language of Piri Reis makes that intention clear. Most of the

book is written in poetic form but there are also prose sections within the book. Kitab-ı Bahriye is

geographically concentrated on Mediterranean because of the Ottoman naval interests, but we can

also find interesting information and interpretations about the Americas, the Indian Ocean, and

China.

My research question based on the work of Piri Reis is that, how the Ottomans reacted

against the European explorations and presence in the Indian Ocean? The reason of my selection

of this topic is the approachment of Piri Reis to the Indian Ocean and European motivation on

exploring and colonizing new regions. The attitude of Piri Reis toward the issue is for the most

part narrative than technical, despite most of parts of the book is written in order to give technical

information to the sailors. Although the Portuguese expeditions through Africa is given with

technical information, their implementations on colonizing and widening their trade bases is

approached as the works of non-Muslim infidels, and the Ottoman policy on the Indian Ocean

has nearly no place in the work of Piri Reis.

My work is going to be consisted of early modern Ottoman naval and trade policies, the

Ottoman connection through the Indian Ocean, and their reactions against the European existence

in the Indian Ocean. The question is going to be evaluated in assistance of the works concentrated

on this particular region. The methodology of the research is establishing a perspective on

Ottoman naval policies, both descriptive and comparative, through utilizing scholarly works.
Outline

Introduction

 Introductory presentation and assessment on Piri Reis, Kitab-ı Bahriye

 Explanation of the question to be pursued and statement on the way of the study

1. Topic: What were the Ottoman naval and trade policies in 16th-17th centuries?

 The Ottoman maritime capabilities and priorities in Mediterranean

 The Ottoman naval tradition on recruiting sailors and the use of sailors such Piri Reis

 The Ottoman policies on the Indian Ocean and their level of interest over the region

2. Topic: What were the Ottoman policies towards the Indian Ocean and spice trade in 16th

century, and what were the motivations on these policies?

 The world map of Piri Reis, presented to Selim I, the conquest of Egypt, and the Ottoman

naval vision

 Ibrahim Pasha, Hadim Pasha, and their intentions on establishing authority around the

Red Sea and the South Arabia

3. Topic: What were the Ottoman responses against the Portuguese existence in the Indian

Gulf?

 The Ottoman-Portuguese conflict in Persian Gulf, and the examples of Sefer Reis and

Dom Manuel de Lima

 The Ottoman policies to establish authority over the region and to dissolve the Portuguese

4. Topic: How Ottomans approached to the European discoveries?

 Piri Reis and his interpretations on the European discoveries

 The Ottoman reactions against the European discoveries

Conclusion

Annotated Bibliography

1. Casale, Giancarlo. “The Ottoman Administration of the Spice Trade in the Sixteenth-

Century Red Sea and Persian Gulf.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the

Orient, Vol. 49, No. 2. Leiden: Brill, 2006.

Giancarlo Casale’s paper studies the Ottoman initiations on gaining authority over

spice trade in the Indian Ocean, and the Ottoman’s level of interest in the region.

His work criticizes the view that after the Ottomans took Egypt, the Mamluks’

control over the spice trade demolished and this situation directly led to the free-

trade in the region. Casale approaches the question through examining the

Ottoman actions in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf and refutes the interpretation on

the free trade in the region through the Ottoman experience in the region.

Casale’s work examines the early Ottoman actions around the Red Sea and

Persian Gulf along their struggle over the spice trade. The main study of the paper

can directly be used in questioning what was the early Ottoman policies over the

region after their conquest of Egypt and Levant. The Ottoman-Portuguese conflict

in Yemen, Suez, and Hormuz can be followed to state their first initiations to

counter their actions in the region. The consequences of the conflict searched

through the Ottoman policies over the region can be utilized determining the level

of their interest in the region.

2. Casale, Giancarlo. The Ottoman Age of Exploration: Spices, Maps and Conquest in the

Sixteenth-Century Indian Ocean. Cambridge: Harvard University, 2004.

 This is a PhD thesis presented by Giancarlo Casale to The Committee of Middle

Eastern Studies, Harvard University. The thesis, approaches to the Ottoman

reactions against the European discoveries, the Ottoman policies and actions in the

Indian Ocean, and their intentions in the region. Casale’s work is a study consisted

of six chapters examining the Ottoman policies over the Indian Ocean from Selim

the Grim to the end of the 16th century. The thesis pursues the Ottoman policies on

trade and seas through not just political developments, contemporary geographical

and maritime understandings in the Islamic World and Europe also shapes the

view of Casale’s work.

We can use Casale’s thesis pursuing the question that how the Ottomans

conflicted with Portuguese and tried to establish an authority over the region. The

periodical approach of the paper helps to develop diverse ideas on stating the

Ottomans policies; because when we see Ottoman maritime and geographical

developments and understandings can be studied through Piri Reis who is

mentioned respectably in the thesis, we can also compare the Ottoman interests in

Europe and inlands to understand the process and the consequences of the

conflicts between the Ottomans and the Portuguese.

3. Gürkan, Emrah Safa. “The Ottoman Age of Exploration by Casale.” Renaissance

Quarterly, Vol. 67, No. 3. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2014.

This is a review that is written by Emrah Safa Gürkan, on Giancarlo Casale’s The

Ottoman Age of Exploration. Emrah Safa Gürkan, in his review, criticizes Casale

on his reliance mostly the Portuguese sources, lacking the Ottoman ones. Casale’s
 usage of mühimme registers are mentioned as not relevant to be used mainly

according to Gürkan. He also asserts that, factional politics and decision making

of the Ottomans are insufficiently mentioned because of Casale’s lack source-

base.

Gürkan’s review can be helpful to approach critically to Casale’s thesis;

we are able to read Casale’s work as a European source based thesis through

Gürkan’s review. The predictive language in some parts of the work of Casale can

be questioned with the help of the review of Gürkan.

4. Casale, Giancarlo. “Ottoman Guerre de Course and the Indian Ocean Spice Trade: The

Career of Sefer Reis.” Itinerario, Vol. 32, No.1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

2008.

The paper examines the career of Sefer Reis, who was a privateer worked for the

Ottomans around the Indian Gulf. The use of privateers in the Ottoman navy and

the importance of them in the Ottoman naval tradition are searched through the

career of the Sefer Reis. The Ottoman seafaring traditions, spice trade, conflicts

with the Portuguese, and the mobility in privateer career can be found in the paper.

The article’s intentioned audience is scholars who would be studying the Ottoman-

Portuguese conflicts in the Indian Ocean, and scholars who examines the Ottoman

naval traditions via careers of privateers, such as Sefer Reis, Hızır Reis, etc.

Casale’s article can be used on pursuing the effects of the Ottoman naval

tradition on their gains and losses in the struggle between the Portuguese and

them. Career of Sefer Reis, as an example of a privateer who could climb the

ladders fast in a region such the Indian Ocean, can be utilized to state the
 instability in the region. Information provided on the spice trade and the Ottoman

naval tradition are helpful to examine the Ottoman maritime developments and

experiences around the Indian Ocean.

5. Hamdani, Abbas. "Ottoman Response to the Discovery of America and the New Route to

India." Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 101, No. 3 (1981): 323-30.

doi:10.2307/602594.

Hamdani Abbas’ paper examines the Ottoman intentions to reach the New World

or at least know it. Abbas compares the European and the Ottoman motivation on

discovering new lands and he asserts that the Ottomans were in their most

powerful period in the 16th century and their interest was to protect and proceed

their gains in the Mediterranean, Balkans, and their way through the Central

Europe. Abbas states that the Ottomans’ world map made by Piri Reis was based

on Columbus work while we see that Piri Reis asserts that Columbus is claimed as

müneccim (oracle) in his work, Kitab-ı Bahriye. Abbas’ assertion that the

Ottomans could not reach the Americas because of the Moroccans gives us a

perspective that the Ottoman failure to reach the Americas was not just the reason

of their lack of interest, but also inability to secure the control over the Gibraltar.

The paper would be useful for the scholars who subjects the Ottoman

interpretations and motivation on the discoveries of the 15th and 16th centuries; the

paper can help the people who study this topic in understanding the interpretations

of Piri Reis on newly discovered lands and the Indian Ocean, in his Kitab-ı

Bahriye. We can utilize from the article in that way through examining the

influence of the Ottoman lack of interest on given their priority to new regions
 such the Indian Ocean. Abbas’ article, which provides us the Ottoman loss of

interest on the Americas was derived from the Moroccan and Spanish authority in

Gibraltar, can help us to argue that the Ottoman failure to reach the Americas was

the result of their incapability to gain authority over the Gibraltar as they

experienced the same case in the Indian Ocean.

6. Hess, Andrew C. “The Evolution of the Ottoman Seaborne Empire in the Age of the

Oceanic Discoveries, 1453-1525.” The American Historical Review, Vol. 95, No. 7.

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970.

Andrew C. Hess, in his paper, issues the Ottoman naval development, which he

interprets as a matter of a conflict of superiority between Europe and the

Ottomans. Starting from Turks’ existence in the Anatolia, Hess develops a

maritime history of Turks and the Ottomans and sheds a light on the effects of

their maritime policies and developments to their power against the Mediterranean

powers, such as Byzantines, Italians, and Spanish, and also the Portuguese who

had established an influence around the Indian Ocean. Hess states that Euro-

centric view on the issue is not sufficient to study the European-Ottoman naval

conflict, and he examines this conflict with that particular criticism.

Hess’ paper can be utilized to see in which way Ottomans developed their

maritime power and what was their naval policy. The naval tradition and the

system of recruiting corsairs as skillful sailors that enabled the Ottomans a

efficient and productive human capital, the effects of their recruiting and naval

policies to their gains and losses, and the total naval system of the Ottomans which

was vital to determine their route of expansion can be studied through this paper.
 The policies of the Ottomans in the Indian Ocean, and their consequences require

a background information that should be given in the first paragraph of the paper,

and Hess’ paper is helpful for this reason.

7. Özbaran, Salih. “The Ottoman Turks and the Portuguese in the Persian Gulf, 1534-1581.”

Journal of Asian History, Vol. 6, No. 1. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1972.

Salih Özbaran’s paper studies the Ottoman-Portuguese struggle over the Persian

Gulf, especially Hormuz within the Gulf. The letters of the Portuguese governor of

Hormuz, Dom Manuel de Lima, is used in assistance to examine the conflicts

between the Ottomans and the Portuguese in the region. Besides the conflict

between them, local powers who affected the conduct of the struggle, and external

factors, such as the conflict between the Ottomans and the Safavids are issued in

the paper in order to study the subject widely. The author’s intentioned audience

should be scholars who studies the Ottoman or the Portuguese initiations in the

Persian Gulf in 16th century.

We can examine the material capabilities, technological and geographical

capacities, and the influential limits of the Ottomans and the Portuguese through

the paper. The Safavids’ effect on the Ottoman success in the Persian Gulf can be

interpreted in the paper, as an example of external factors. The conflicts around

the Hormuz can be taken as a case which can be studied to determine the

capabilities of the mentioned factions on struggling over the Persian Gulf. The

source is also useful because of the given primary evidence based on Dom Manuel

de Lima’s letters and the Ottoman decrees.

8. Soucek, Svat. “Piri Reis and the Ottoman Discovery of the Great Discoveries.” Studia

Islamica, No. 79. Leiden: Brill, 1994.

Soucek’s article is a comparative work that approaches to the understandings of

the Europeans and the Ottomans on the discoveries through comparing the

technological and intellectual developments of them. According to Soucek, the

newly discovered regions were terra incognita for the Ottomans and the Islamic

world. He utilizes Bernard Lewis’ interpretation on the History of Naima,

asserting that the Ottoman intellectual development needed a restoration, and

could not achieve that. He claims that the Ottoman society had no need to reach

the Americas, they even had not care the Americas or the Indian Ocean. Besides

that, the reason of the discoveries achieved by the Europeans, are claimed as the

consequences of the Ottoman proceed in the Balkans and the intellectual turn in

the European academia after humanism. The paper is targets scholars and students,

who works on that subject, as audience.

Soucek’s article can be used in searching the reasons of the Ottoman

failure to reach the Americas or establishing a strong authority over the Indian

Ocean. The comparative characteristic of the paper makes us be able to interpret

the question that how the Ottoman and the European interests differed, and their

interests shaped their policies over the Mediterranean or the Indian Ocean. We can

also utilize form Soucek’s paper on discussing the effects of the Ottoman lack of

interest on the Indian Ocean, the Americas, and the European discoveries, on their

achievements in the Indian Ocean.