Ottoman Response to the Discovery of America and the New Route to India

Author(s): Abbas Hamdani

Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 101, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1981), pp. 323-
330
Published by: American Oriental Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/602594
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 OTTOMAN RESPONSE TO THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA
AND THE NEW ROUTE TO INDIA1
ABBAS HAMDANI
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MILWAUKEE

The Portuguese and the Spanish carried over the medieval crusading spirit of the Reconquista
in their discoveries of the new route to India and the New World respectively. The Portuguese
aimed at taking Mecca with the hope of exchanging it for Jerusalem. They also established links
with the king of Ethiopia, identifying him as the Prester John. And finally they tightened the
economic stranglehold of the Mamluk empire. The response to this initiative came, however,
from the Ottoman State, which first incorporated the Mamluk territories in the Middle East
within its empire, then challenged the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean and the Spanish in the
Mediterranean. The Ottomans, at the peak of their power in the sixteenth century, possessed the
required naval strength and the types of ships needed for journeys of exploration. Having
prepared the map of the New World, based on a map of Columbus, with America clearly
marked as their administrative province, "Vilayet Antilia," they were set to pursue their enemies
across the Atlantic. The Sa'dian regime of Morocco, however, prevented their access to the
Atlantic. Revolts on the European, Persian, and South Arabian fronts of the empire further
weakened the Ottomans. Since in the age of the East India companies the crusading motivation
of the Spanish and the Portuguese had been much diluted, the counter-crusading desire of the
Ottomans also no longer needed to extend itself to encompass America.

IN A PREVIOUSARTICLEFOR the Journal of the
American Oriental Society, entitled "Columbus and
the Recovery of Jerusalem," I maintained that Colum-
bus' voyages to the New World represented the
continuance of the crusading spirit of the Spanish Re-
conquista. Columbus' Journals reveal that his empresa
de las Indias involved a master-plan for contacting the
Mongol and pro-Christian Grand Khan in the East,
circumventing and encircling the Islamic lands of the
Middle East, opening a new trade-route to the East to
bypass Mamlfk territories, and combining the forces
of western and eastern Christendom in an enveloping
This article is a revised version of a paper read at the 188th
Annual Meeting of the American Oriental Society at Toronto
(April 11-13, 1978), and a sequel to my article entitled
"Columbus and the Recovery of Jerusalem" (see note 2)
where grateful acknowledgement was made of help received
from several authorities in the field. Here, I would like to
repeat my acknowledgement of the valuable suggestions and
revisions made by my colleagues, Professors James Brun-
dage, John McGovern, and Russell Bartley. I would also like
to thank Ms. Jessica Myers for her patience and care in typing
this paper.
movement for the recovery of Jerusalem and its casa
santa. Columbus' plan was a later example in a long
tradition already developed by Marco Polo (1295),
Marino Sanudo's Liber secretorum (1321), the life-
work of Pope Pius II (1458-65) and such writings as
Campanus' Oratio (1471).2
Insofar as the "Age of Discovery" was charged with
a desire to reach India and the Orient, Portugal proved
more successful than Spain. Although the first serious
attempts in this direction were made by the Vivaldi
brothers of Genoa in 1291 (incidentally, the year of the
Fall of Acre), both of whom perished off the Atlantic
coast of North Africa, it was the Portuguese who made
the most remarkable progress.3 Portugal's King Diniz
2
See JAOS, Vol. 99, no. 1 (1979), pp. 39-48, where detailed
notes on these persons and their work are given.
3 A brief, yet
well-documented, account of Portugal over-
seas before the time of Henry the Navigator is contained in
Bailey W. Diffie, Prelude to Empire (Lincoln, Nebraska,
1960). From Prince Henry's time onward we have Charles R.
Boxer, The Portuguese Seaborne Empire (New York, 1969)
and his small but authentic survey, Four Centuries of
Portuguese Expansion (1415-1825) (Johannesburg, 1965);

323
324 Journal of the American
(1279-1325) initiated this drive which from the outset
was viewed as a crusade. The first step was taken in
1317 with the appointment of Manuel Peqanha (Pes-
sagno), a rich Genoese merchant, as the Admiral of
Portugal. He and Goncalho Pereira were sent to Pope
John XXII at Avignon to solicit funds for construction
of a fleet to be used against the Muslims. The Pope
created for this purpose the Order of Christ,4to which
he transferred all the Portuguese properties of the
suppressed Crusading Order of the Templars. The first
chapter of the Order of Christ was established at
Lisbon in 1321. Although the Order was presided over
by its own Masters, its finances came under the
management of the Portuguese royal family. During
his time, Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460)
administered the Order and used its resources both for
maritime trade and overland military offensives against
also B. W. Diffie and G. D. Winius, Foundations of the
Portuguese Empire: 1415-1580 (Minneapolis, 1977). My
account is based on these sources. A different type of
interpretation is contained in Vitorino Magalhaes-Godinho,
L'Economie de l'Empire Portugais aux XVe et XVI' Siecles
(Paris, S.E.V.P.E.N., 1969). John H. Parry, commenting on it
in the Journal of Interdisciplinary History, II, no. 3 (1972),
p. 284, says, "Magalhaes-Godinho brushes aside the crusading
element in the story. He points out that the Kingdoms of the
Maghrib did not present a threat to Christian Europe; that at
the time of the first African voyages the Ottoman power was
relatively quiescent and that in any event it was far out of
reach of any 'outflanking' move which the Portuguese might
attempt. He dismisses-a little too cavalierly perhaps-the
search for 'Prester John' and the desire to proselytise as
chronicler's embellishments or as exercises in public relations.
The African voyages were searches for the sources of gold."
One should take into account two crusading approaches after
the fall of Constantinople in 1453: the one adopted by the
Spanish Pope Calixtus III (1455-58), which was anti-
Ottoman, and second, the Portuguese, which was anti-
Mamluk, at least between 1453 and 1517. Rome had
instituted a Papal fleet in which Portugal did not participate.
The latter was more concerned with cutting off the Mamlik
trade with the Far East by their presence in the Indian Ocean.
The Pope's target was Constantinople, while the Portuguese
were heading toward Mecca. To the Pope unity with Eastern
Christians meant unity with the Greek and Nestorian
Churches; to Portugal it meant seeking out Prester John in
Ethiopia.
4
See the article, "Order of Christ," New Catholic Ency-
clopaedia.
Oriental Society 101.3 (1981)
the Muslims. In this capacity, Prince Henry master-
minded the conquest of Ceuta in 1415.5 From this
North African outpost, the Moroccan caravan routes
and the Atlantic coast became the channels of the
Portuguese crusade southward into West Africa. Go-
mez Eanes de Azurara, a contemporary of Prince
Henry, wrote, in 1453, what he considered to be the
Prince's motives for patronage of the explorations.
According to Azurara, Henry the Navigator was actu-
ated by the zeal for God, by the desire for alliance with
the Eastern Christians, by an eagerness to know how
far the power of the "infidel" existed, by the wish to
convert people to Christianity, and by the desire to
fight the Moors. Gold, ivory, slaves, or spices as Prince
Henry's objectives do not figure in Azurara'saccount.6
"Portuguese ports were a part of the Muslim trade
empire just as Portuguese learning was a part of
Muslim geographical and nautical science," observes
Bailey Diffie.7 In the early fifteenth century a certain
type of vessel, the caravel, was adopted for explora-
tion, in preference to the galley (or galera), nau,
barcha, and barinel. The caravel, which was also used
by Columbus, was adapted from the Arab qarib which
had been successfully used by the Arabs in the eastern
Mediterranean for centuries.8 Whereas Madeira had
5 For the Muslim side of the picture,see Charles-Andre
Julien, History of North Africa, trans. Petrie, ed. Stewart,
(London-NewYork, 1970),pp. 207-9.
6 Azurara,"TheChronicle and Conquestof Guinea,"trans.
C. R. Beazley and E. Prestage, in Readingsin Medieval
History,ed. J. F. Scott, A. Hyma,and A. H. Noyes (New
York, 1933)pp. 568-70,also in BrianTierney,The Middle
Ages, I (New York, 1970),pp. 323-25.
7 Diffie, op. cit., p. 6, on the authorityof the
Hispano-Arab
geographeral-Idr?si's(d. 1166)KitabNuzhatal-Mushtaqfi
Ikhtirdqal-Jfaq, of whicha neweditionis beingpublishedin
severalfasciclessince 1970by the OrientalInstituteof Naples.
8
According to J. Corominas, Diccionario critico etimolo-
gico de la lengua castellana, 4 vols. (Berna, 1954-57), the
Spanish word carabela is derived from the Portuguese
caravela,whichin turnis a diminutiveformof the laterLatin
carahus,itself derivedfrom the Greek Karabos(Kapapos)
meaning "sea crab"and an ancient vessel known by this name.
Another derivation is suggested by the Catalonian historian
Jaime Vicens Vives in An Economic History of Spain (Prince-
ton, 1969), p. 216. He suggests that the caravel evolved from
an earlier French vessel known as coque which was intro-
duced into the Mediterranean from the Atlantic in the early
thirteenth century.
 HAMDANI: Ottoman Response
been discovered between 1330 and 1418, and the
Canaries in 1341, more distant islands could now be
reached by the caravel, such as the Azores in 1431 and
the Cape Verde Islands between 1456 and 1459.
Corominas is aware of the possibility of an Arab origin of
the word caravel but discounts it by saying that the word
qaribhadenteredArabicvia the HispanicMozarabs.In fact,
the word qdrib comes from the Arabic verb qaraba meaning
"to drawnear,"and is as old as the Arabiclanguage(seethe
Arabiclexicon, Tajal-'Arus,I, p. 425). The Arabship qdrib
was used in the eastern Mediterranean long before the
emergence of Hispanic Mozarabs. It was so named because it
was a type of vessel that could go far out in the ocean and
could yet be drawn near to land, just right for exploration. It
was also used as an auxiliary to larger ships (see A. M.
Fahmy, Muslim Sea-Power in the Eastern Mediterranean
[Cairo, 1966], pp. 54-55).
A. Ballesteros Berretta, Cristobal Colon, being Vol. V of
Historia de America (Barcelona-Buenos Aires, 1945), p. 5,
dismisses the theories of caravel's Latin and Greek origin and
cites an early source, as does Mendoca, namely el foral
(c. 1255) de Villa Nova de Gaya, which was written for
Affonso III of Portugal,wherein"caravel"is describedas a
merchantcum-war ship of Arab Moroccanorigin.
Morethan the name,the ship itselfis evidenceof its Arab
origin.The caravelbeganto standout as distinctfromother
types of vessels in its use of the lateen sail. J. H. Parry, in his
book, The Establishment of European Hegemony, 1415-1715
(New York, 1959),p. 21, writes:"Thesquare-riggedship-the
nau-played no considerablepartin the earlydiscoveries.The
Portuguese preferred a borrowed alternative, the lateen cara-
vel-a highly individual craft which betrayed Asiatic influ-
ence in its everyline. Here,too, Arabsweretheirteachers....
The lateen sail is the special contribution of the Arabs to the
development of the world's shipping; it is as characteristic of
Islam as the crescent itself. It is also a very efficient general-
purpose rig."
Toward the end of the fifteenth century, Parry points out
(p. 22), the Portuguese and Spanish shipbuilders developed a
new type of caravel-the caravela redonda, which combined
the European square-rig with the Arab lateen. It is this type of
shipthatwasassociatedwithmostof thevoyagesof discovery.
Columbus' first voyage demonstrated the superiority of the
caravel over the northern nau; his own flag-ship Santa Maria
was a square-rigged nau, sluggish and cumbersome, whereas
the other two, Nina and Pinta, were caravelas redondas, fast
and seaworthy.
For a discussion of the difference between the caravel and
other ships, see Quirino da Fonseca, A Caravela Portuguesa
(Coimbra, 1934), p. 177, and Jos6 Maria Martinez-Hidalgo,
Columbus' Ships (Barre, Mass., 1966), pp. 24-25.
to the Discovery of America 325
The fall of Constantinople in 1453 revived crusading
activities in Europe. Prince Henry saw this in terms of
circumnavigating Africa and reaching the elusive
Christian rulers of the East. He saw this also in terms
of trade-monopoly, and exemption from payment of
the customary tithe to the Pope. All this was confirmed
by a Papal bull of 8 January 1455.9
The next Portuguese ruler, Dom Joao II, sent a
reconnaisance-cum-intelligence mission overland
through the Mamluk Middle East, charged with con-
tacting the Emperor of Ethiopia as well as with
discovering the sources of the spice-trade in the East.
This was led by two Arabic-speaking gentlemen, Pero
de Covilha and Affonso de Paiva. At the same time
Bartholomeu Diaz reached the Cape of Good Hope.
Diaz' report in 1488 and that of Covilha in 1492
convinced Dom Joao of the feasibility of reaching
India and the Orient by a sea-route via the Cape of
Good Hope. News of Columbus' discovery of the
Indies may have delayed Joao's plans, but later realisa-
tion that Columbus had discovered a new continent
which was not India revived the Portuguese ruler's
determination to equip a new expedition to the south.
Rounding the Cape in 1497, Vasco da Gama followed
the African coast northward to Malindi (near Zanzi-
bar). There he contacted a renowned Arab navigator
who was the author of books on navigation, Ahmad b.
Majid.'o The latter helped the Portuguese to cross the
Indian Ocean and to reach Calicut on the west coast of
Southern India, a major emporium of the Eastern
spice-trade. Indian spice was thus added to West
African gold, ivory, and slaves. The Portuguese estab-
lished colonies along the new route to India, and
wherever they went encountered Arab and Muslim
9
Boxer,Four Centuries,p. 7. See notes 3 and 6 aboveand
Charles Martel de Witte, Les Bulles Pontificales et l'expan-
sion portugaise au XVe sic/le (Louvain, 1958).
10See A. A. Alim,"Ahmadibn Majid,an ArabNavigatorof
the XVthCenturyandhis Contributionsto MarineSciences,"
in the Proceedings of the First International Congress of the
History of Oceanography (held in Dec. 1966) (Monaco, 1967).
A more detailedbiographyof Ibn Majidis containedin the
same author's book, Ibn Majid al-Mallah (in Arabic) (Cairo,
1966).
Ibn Majidwroteseveralbooks on the principles,practice,
and advantagesof navigation,two of whichare his principal
compositions: Kitab al-fawadid ft usul Cilm al-bahr wa'l-
qawacid and Hawiyat al-ikhtisar fi usul cilm al-bihar. This
second book is in verse and shows the literary accomplish-
ment of the Arab captain.
 326 Journal of the American
states. Conditions were right to revive the political and
economic offensive against the Mamluiks."
In 1500 the Portuguese clashed with Muslim mer-
chants at Calicut, where they burned ten Mamluk
ships. The following year, the King of Portugal de-
clared that Arabs would no longer be allowed to trade
in Indian spices. In 1502 the Portuguese, with the help
of the south-Indian Hindu King of Channor and
Cochin, declared war on the Siamiri (Zamorin) of
Calicut, the protector of Muslim merchants. Next, the
Portuguese blocked the southern entrance of the Red
Sea to Muslim shipping. As a result, in 1504 only
enough spices for local consumption reached Egypt,
and these by alternate routes.12
Sultan Mahmfid Begarha (1459-1511) of the Gujrat
State in Western India,'3 the Tahirid ruler of Aden,
Zafir II (1487-1517),14 and the Sharif of Mecca,
Barakat II (1495-1524),'5 appealed to the Mamluk
L Boxer, Four Centuries,pp. 12-14; Fernao Lopez de
Castanheda, History of the Discovery and Conquest of India
(originallypublishedin 1552), English trans. by Nicholas
Lichefield, in A General History and Collection of Voyages
and Travels, II (Edinburgh,1824), pp. 343-59. Also see
Whiteway, The Rise of Portuguese Power in India, 1497-1550
(London, 1899).
12 R. B. Serjeant, The Portuguese off the South Arabian
Coast(Oxford,1963),pp. 13-21.This book containsEnglish
translations of several South Arabian chronicles pertaining to
the Portugueseactivity in the Indian Ocean, particularly
Ta'rTkhal-Shihri, coveringthe period 1495-1592.See also
G. W. F. Stripling, The Ottoman Turks and the Arabs (1511-
1524) (Urbana, 1942), pp. 29-30, on the authority of Venetian
envoys; Peter Pasquali (Letter) and Girolamo Priuli (Diarii).
See also Sir George Birdwood, Report on the Old Records of
the India Office,p. 167. The most importantcontemporary
source is Duarte Barbosa's Description of the Coasts of East
Africaand Malabar(ca. 1514);Portugueseed. (1812)trans.
into English by HenryE. J. Stanley(London:HakluytSo-
ciety, 1865);Johnson Reprint(New York, 1970),p. 21.
13 Vincent Smith, The
Oxford History of India, Part II,
revisedby J. B. Harrison(Oxford, 1958),p. 276.
14
Serjeant, op. cit., pp. 13-21. Contemporary Arabic sources
are Ibnal-Daybac(of Zabid,Yaman)(d. 1537),K. Qurratal-
Cuyun,MS. Dar al-Kutub,Cairo;Abfi Makhrama(d. 1540),
Qilddat al-nahr, in L. O. Schuman, Political History of
Yaman at the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century (Amster-
dam, 1961); and al-Nahrawali (d. 1582), al-Barq al-vaman7
fT'l-fath al-'uthmanT (Riyad), pp. 18-22.
'5 Gerald de Gaury, Rulers of Mecca (London, 1951),
pp. 113-26; also relevant sections of Snouck-Hurgronje,
Mekka, 2 vol. (Leiden, 1888-89).
Oriental Society 101.3 (1981)
Sultan QansuihGhorl (1501-17)16to come to their aid,
but the Mamluk fleet was defeated in 1509 by the
Portuguese viceroy Francisco de Almeida, off Diu in
Gujrat, which was occupied and where a Portuguese
base was established. Almeida, a veteran of Portu-
guese wars against the Muslims of North Africa, then
declared: "As long as you may be powerful at sea you
will hold India as yours; and if you do not possess this
power, little will avail you a fortress on shore." 7
Previously, in 1507, the Portuguese had taken the
island of Socotra, off the Southern Arabian coast, and
even earlier, in 1505, had attacked Jedda. Almeida's
plan of conquering Mecca itself was blocked at the end
of 1506 by the Mamluk Captain Mir Husayn al-Kurdi,
who built fortifications at Jedda, the port of Mecca."8
Almeida was replaced in 1509 by the new governor,
Affonso de Albuquerque, who aspired to establishing a
Portuguese Empire in the East. He seized the port of
Goa from the Sultan of Bijapur, an enclave that was to
become Portugal's eastern capital. In 1511, Albuquer-
que conquered Malacca in Indonesia, the major source
of spices. In the last years of his life, he succeeded in
taking the island of Hormuz at the southern entrance
of the Persian gulf. Although he failed to occupy Aden,
he nonetheless succeeded in gaining possession of the
East African ports of Socotra, Hormuz, Diu, Daman,
Goa, and Malacca, and in converting the Indian Ocean
into a Portuguese Sea, closed to Muslim shipping. "If
we take this trade of Malacca away out of their
[Mamlfik] hands," he declared, "Cairo and Mecca will
be entirely ruined, and to Venice no spices will be
conveyed, except what her merchants go to buy in
Portugal."19 In 1513 Camilio Portio, on behalf of
Albuquerque, addressed an oration to Pope Leo X in
which he said: "There is thrown open to us by the
conquest of the kingdom of Ormuz, the road whereby
the Holy House of Jerusalem (the country in which our
16
Stripling,op. cit., pp. 30-36. The contemporaryArabic
sourcesare:Ibn lyas (d. shortlyafter 1522),Badadical-zuhzr,
ed. Paul Kahleand MuhammadMustafa,5 vols. and Indices
(Istanbul,1931-45);and Ibn TTulun (d. 1546);Mufdkihatal-
Khillan fT hawadith al-zaman (a history of Egypt and Syria
from 1480 to 1520) 2 vols. (Cairo, 1962/64),althoughthe
latter is concernedmore with the local affairsof Syria.
7 V. Smith,
op. cit., p. 328.
This is reportedby Ibn Iyas, the last portionof whose
history, covering the period 1501-16, is translated into French
by Gaston Wiet under the title: Journal d'un bourgeois du
Caire,p. 106, and confirmedby DuarteBarbosa(ca. 1514),
op. cit., p. 24.
19 V. Smith, op. cit., p. 329.
 HAMDANI: Ottoman Response
Saviour was born) can again be recovered and rescued
from the hands of those infidels who tyrannically and
unrighteously possess it."20Albuquerque's ambition in
pushing through the Red Sea to Mecca and, after
conquering the Muslim holy city, of exchanging it for
Jerusalem, remained unfulfilled, however.2' Albuquer-
que dreamed of an alliance with the Christian king of
Ethiopia who had been identified as the real Prester
John2" and even propounded a grandiose scheme to
starve Egypt by diverting the Nile through Ethiopia to
the Red Sea.23
Portuguese trading influence in the East continued
after Albuquerque's death, but the Portuguese monop-
oly of the Eastern trade was broken by Dutch and
English competitors whose commercial interests were
not clouded by the crusading motive. Moreover, with
the Ottoman conquest of the Middle East in 1517, the
Portuguese faced a more determined enemy than the
Mamluks. In any case, by 1580 Portugal had merged
with Spain and was thus drawn into the European
entanglements of its Iberian neighbor.
* * *
The opening of the back-door of the East-West trade
via the Cape of Good Hope achieved the desired
20 The Commentaries of the Great Afonso D'Albuquerque,
trans. from the Portugueseedition of 1774 by W. Birch
(London:HakluytSociety);BurtFranklinreprint(NewYork,
1970),Vol. III, p. 175.
2'
Ibid., Ill, p. 37. See also Stripling,op. cit., p. 34, and
H. V. Livermore,A New History of Portugal(Cambridge,
1967), p. 142.
22 Christofer Bell in his Portugal and the Quest of the Indies
(New York:Barnesand Noble, 1974)says (p. 154):"Theland
of PresterJohn had been firmlyidentifiedwith Ethiopiaand
from time to time Coptic monks appearedin Jerusalemor
even in Rome to confirmthat the rulerof Ethiopiaand his
subjectswereindeedChristians."In the timeof Almeidaand
Albuquerque,the Book of DuarteBarbosa(ed. cited,p. 19)
speaks of Ethiopia as the Kingdomof PresterJohn. Cf.
Father Francisco Alvares, The Prester John of the Indies,
being the narrative of the Portuguese embassy to Ethiopia in
1520, trans. Lord Stanley(London:HakluytSociety, 1881);
reviseded., 2 vols. (Cambridge,1961).Also LegatioDavid
Aethiopiae Regis ... ad Clementem Papam VII, Paris,
Antonius Augerelius,c. 1531,which in the Bolognaed. of
1533 bears the name, PresterJohn, as author.
23 Stripling,op. cit., p. 34. See also H. Morse
Stephenson
Albuquerque in Rulers of India, 1892; Imperial Gazeteer of
India (Oxford, 1907/1908),Chapter2.
to the Discovery of America 327
strangulation of Mamliik Egypt which, however, suc-
cumbed, not to a crusading power, but to Ottoman
Turkey. As in the twelfth century, when Saladin's
conquest of Fatimid Egypt had prepared the way for a
counter-crusade, so now the Ottoman conquest of
Mamluk Egypt prepared the way for a confrontation
with Portugal and Spain. Between 1517 and 1519 the
Ottomans took Egypt, Syria, and Yemen and estab-
lished their sovereignty over Mecca. In 1534, they took
Baghdad and, in 1546, Basra. As a result, they came to
control the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf and were
thus able to block a Portuguese advance from the
Indian Ocean northward to Mecca or Cairo. Our
attention is thus now drawn to Ottoman interest in
North Africa and the West, which, in a way, consti-
tutes Islam's response to the discovery of America.
A Turkish naval hero of the period, PTri Ra'Ts,
records in his diary, entitled BahrTy)e,24that he pre-
sented a world map to the Ottoman Sultan Sallm
(1512-20), conqueror of Egypt in 1517. In 1929, Bay
Halil Etem Eldem discovered it when the Topkapu
Palace was being transformed into a museum and
invited Professor Paul Kahle to study it. This map,
drawn in color on parchment of gazelle hide, was dated
1513.24a A legend on the map says that it was com-
posed from twenty mappaemundi. It comprised China
24
Prin Ra'is, Kitab-i-BahrTye,facsimile ed., Turkish Histor-
ical Societypublicationno. 2 (Istanbul,1935),as usedby Paul
Kahle, "A Lost Map of Columbus,"The GeographicalRe-
view, Vol. 23 (Oct. 1933),pp. 621-38.Thisarticlealongwith
Paul Kahle's other articles on the PTriRa'is map is reprinted
in Opera Minora von Paul Kahle, ed. Mathew Black and
others (Leiden, 1956).
24a The map has been a subject of considerable study.
Besides the article of Paul Kahle mentioned in note 24, Yusuf
Akcura wrote his Piri Reis Hartisi, (Istanbul: Devlet Basimevi,
1935)simultaneouslyin Turkishand in German,Frenchand
Englishtranslations(Englishversion,pp. 12-16).It contains
the valuabledeciphermentof the legendson the map. Next
are an articleby Afet Inan (= ElizabethP. McCallum),"Un
AmiralGeographeTurcde XVI siecle Piri Reis,auteurde la
plus ancienne carte de l'Amerique," Belleten, Ankara, I, no. 2
(April, 1937) as well as her book, The Oldest Map of America,
Drawnby Piri Reis, trans.LemanYolaq(Ankara,1954).In
1954,ArlingtonMallerycorrespondedwith the editorof the
GeographicalReview,pointingout that Piri Reis' 1513map
was not reducedto a singlescale.ProfessorCharlesHopgood
of KeaneTeacher'sCollege,Ithaca,New York,wrotea letter
dated 3 August, 1960,to PresidentDwightEisenhowerthat
the Piri Reis mapis the oldestexistingmapof Americaandis
 328 Journal of the American
and the Eastern regions for which Arabic maps would
have been the sources. This portion of the map was cut
and is lost. The portion preserved in sections of varying
scales depicts, however, the Western regions of the
Atlantic, for which the source is acknowledged as the
map of "Colon-bo." There is no doubt about the
identity of this "Colon-bo," for another long legend
describes Columbus' life history from his childhood in
Genoa to his trading of glass-beads for gold and pearls
in the West Indies. The legend also describes how Pir
obtained the Admiral's map. His uncle, Kamal Ra'Ts
(d. 1511), also an Ottoman naval captain, had a
Spanish slave who had told him: "Three times have I
travelled with Colon-bo to this territory." Kahle cites
another entry in Pin's diary which describes the cap-
ture by Kamal Ra'Ts of seven Spanish ships off
Valencia, an event known to have occurred in 1501.25
This event followed Columbus' third voyage, which
ended in August 1499, and was prior to the fourth,
which began in April 1502. The Spaniard who related
Columbus' story must have been the one captured
basedon Columbus'lost mapof 1499.He pleadedfora search
in the SpanishArchivesfor the lost map of Columbus.He
also informed the President that Piri Reis' map contains the
contour of the Queen Maud Land of Antarctica, this being
confirmed by American Naval Research. This is all the more
important because the Queen Maud Land is now covered by
ice, a mile deep. This proves that Piri Reis must have used
some ancient maps preserved in the Ottoman archives (Photo-
stat copies of Mallery and Hopgood letters are in the
American GeographicalSociety Collection housed at the
library of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.) At the
Xth International Congress of the History of Science, Ithaca,
New York, 1962, Hopgood read a paper, "The Piri Reis Map
of 1513" (typescript in the AGS Collection), in which he
established the accuracy of the Piri Reis map with regard to
latitudeand longitudeand pointedout that it containsdata
regarding places not "officially" discovered until 1513.
Charles H. Cotter summarized the above research in a short
article entitled "Piri Reis: Admiral Extraordinary" in The
Journal of Navigation, XXV, no. 2 (April 1972), pp. 247-49.
Finally,AndrewHess wrotehis "PiriReis and the Ottoman
Response to the Voyages of Discovery," TerraIncognita, XVI
(1974), pp. 19-37, in which the contents of Piri's Bahriye are
related to the Ottoman response to the Portuguese challenge.
Hess' attention, however, is on the Red Sea and the Indian
Ocean and fails to relate the Ottoman response to the
discovery New World across the Atlantic.
25 H. A. von Burski, Kemal Re'Ts: Ein
Beitrag zur Ge-
schichte der tuirkischen Flotte (dissertation), Bonn, 1928, as
cited in P. Kahle, ibid., p. 626.
Oriental Society 101.3 (1981)
from the Spanish ships in 1501 and in whose posses-
sion was found the map in question. Even the place-
names on the map are as Columbus gave them, albeit
altered in accord with the Turkish usage of the period,
for example, Wadluk for Guadeloupe, Santa Mardia
and Galanda for Maria Galanti, Samo Kresto for
Santa Cruz, Undizi Vergine for Virgin Islands (note
the Italian undici instead of the Spanish once, which
the Genoese Columbus may have used), Kaleot (Galeot)
for Cabo de la Galera. On Pirn's map, Hispaniola
stretches north-south as it must have figured on
Columbus' map,26 because the Admiral considered it
Cipango or Japan. Cuba is represented as a part of the
mainland, with Porta Ghande (Puerto Grande) marked
just as Columbus believed it to be. The island is
represented as a wedge of land jutting into the Ocean
and inclining southward, again as Columbus thought it
to be. There are several small islands marked with
parrot-drawings, as if to indicate, according to Kahle,
unconfirmed discoveries. From this evidence, Kahle
has concluded that Pfin used a map carried by
Columbus on his first voyage-a map which the
Admiral was continually changing as the voyage pro-
ceeded-and which at some point was passed to
Martin Alonso Pinz6n, captain of the Pinta.27
There is evidence that the Ottomans used the
Moriscos from Spain as their intelligence agents in
Europe.28 It is likely, therefore, that these Moriscos
could have served the same purpose in keeping track of
26 Professor J. H. Parry informed me that "the earliest
sketch map of Hispaniola, believed to have been drawn by
Columbus in 1492-93 and now in the Duke of Alba's collec-
tion has the island running correctly east and west." It is
possible that this is not the earliest map and may have been a
revised version after a better acquaintance with Hispaniola. It
is also possible that the Turkish cartographer of PiTrRa'ls'
map made variations on the original Columbus map. It is
again possible that the map in the Duke of Alba's collection is
not by Columbus. Paul Kahle (ibid. p. 633, note 9) says: "A
sketch of the north coast of Espanola attributed to Columbus,
possibly dating from 1493 and showing the town of Navidad,
was reproduced by La Duquesa de Berwick y de Alba in her
Nuevos aut6grafos de Christobal Coldn y relaciones de
ultramar, Madrid, 1902. ... Streicher ... believes its Co-
lumbian origin is not altogether certain."
27 P.
Kahle, ibid., p. 636. This map seems to have been
completed in 1499 at the end of Columbus' third voyage and is
now not traceable, leaving Pinr Ra'is' map as the oldest
existing map of America.
28 Andrew Hess, "The Moriscos: An Ottoman Fifth Column
in Sixteenth-Century Spain," American Historical Review,
 HAMDANI: Ottoman Response
the Spanish and Portuguese explorations in the Atlan-
tic.
All this goes to show that at a very early date the
Ottomans were aware of and interested in the discov-
ery of the New World, marked on PTrn'smap as
'Vilayet Antilia.' The term Vilayetapplied usually to an
administrative unit of the Ottoman Empire. As the
Ottomans were engaged in a counter-crusade in the
Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea against those
very powers who had discovered these new lands, they
appeared ready to pursue their enemies on into and
perhaps across the Atlantic. I would maintain that the
Ottoman interest in North Africa and their desperate
drive toward the western shores of the Maghrib are
themselves evidence of the Porte's intentions. If the
Ottomans did not reach America, it is because they
failed to gain the Atlantic coast.
Even before 1517 North Africa had become the
scene of Hispano-Ottoman conflict. The Spaniards
followed up the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula by
establishing presidios on the Algerian and Tunisian
coast. They had taken Melilla in 1497, Mars al-Kabir
in 1505, Pefion of Algiers in 1508, Bougie and Tripoli
in 1510. Small places like Tenes, Dellys, Cherchel, and
Mostaganem became tributaries of Spain. The inquisi-
tion of Cardinal Ximenes played an important role,
while pirates like Pedro Navaro provided an extra-
legal arm to intercept Ottoman shipping.
The Portuguese, in turn, concentrated on Morocco.
The conquest of Ceuta in 1415 had begun the process.
Fronteiras and feitorias were established at al-Qasr as-
SaghTr in 1458, Anfia in 1469, Mussat in 1488,
Tangiers and Arzila in 1471, Agadir in 1505, Safi in
1508, Azemour in 1513, Mazagan in 1514, and Mar-
rakesh in 1515.
The impotence of the local North African dynasties
-the MarTnids, Zayyyanids and Hafsids-had
prompted the Ottomans to sweep them aside, occupy-
ing the area with a view to facing the threat posed by
Spain and Portugal. The chief architects of Ottoman
power in this area were the Barbarossa brothers,
corsairs appointed Admirals of Ottoman fleets.29
Khayr al-Din Barbarossa built a new Ottoman fleet in
1519, took Pefion of Algiers from the Spanish in 1525,
and between these dates occupied most of the Algerian
LXXIV, no. 1 (Oct. 1968), pp. 1-25. The article describes the
role of the Moriscosas Ottomanagentstryingto incite the
Dutch Lutheransagainst the Spanish Hapsburgs.
29
See S. Soucek, "The Rise of the Barbarossas in North
Africa," in Archivum Ottomanicum, III (Louvain, Belgium,
1971), pp. 238-50.
to the Discoverv of America 329
coast, establishing his headquarters at Jijelli and Al-
giers. By 1574 most of North Africa was in Ottoman
hands.30
Only one territory, Morocco, jealously guarded its
independence against Christians and Ottomans alike,
under the new SharTfdynasty of the SaCdians.It played
a role in the Muslim world similar to that of Venice in
the Christian world. By 1554 the Sa'dians had estab-
lished themselves at Marrakesh, liberating Safi and
Azemour in 1549. The Sharif Muhammad al-Mahdi II
(1517-57) entered into trading relations with Britain
and resolutely opposed any Turkish advance into his
territories. The Turkish drive toward the Atlantic was
thus blocked, and with it all hopes of crossing the
Atlantic to the New World. Ottoman frustration is
evidenced by the murder of the SharTf,whose head was
carried to Istanbul by his Turkish assassins. This act
changed little, however, and Morocco remained closed
to the Ottomans.31
There were other factors besides the failure to gain
the Atlantic coast of Morocco that developed later and
must have contributed to a permanent Ottoman loss of
interest in the New World, such as the continuous
problems on the Central European, Persian, and South
Arabian fronts of their Empire. The Mediterranean
itself required considerable naval resources, whether a
victory was achieved in Cyprus (1570) or defeat suf-
fered at Lepanto (1571).32The Ottoman State still had
30 The above account of the Ottomanconflictwith
Spain
is mainlybasedon Julien,
and Portugalin the Mediterranean
History of North Africa, pp. 205-19 and 273-302. For details
of Spanishincursionsin North Africasee R. Brunchvig,La
Berberie Orientale sous les .Hafsidesdes Origines a la fin du
XVV siecle, 2 vols. (Paris, 1940,47). Cf. Andrew Hess. "The
Evolution of the Ottoman Seaborne Empire in the Age of the
Oceanic Discoveries, 1453-1525," American Historical Re-
view, LXXV (Dec. 1970), pp. 1892-1919. Despite the very
suggestive words "oceanic discoveries" in the title, the article
does not concern itself with the Ottoman interest in the New
World, but it describes the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean
frontiers of the Ottoman Seaborne Empire.
31 Julien, op. cit., pp. 205-19. For details see H. de Castries,
Sources inedites de I'Histoire du Maroc, 2 vols. (Paris,
1921/53); Henri Terrasse, Histoire du Maroc des origines a
I'etablissement du Protectorat Franqais (Casablanca, 1949-
50); and Auguste Cour, L'Etablissement des dynasties des
Cherifs au Maroc et leur rivalite avec les Turcs de la regence
d'Alger au XVII' siecle (Paris, 1904).
32 A good survey of the situation can be found in H. Inalcik,
"The Heyday and Decline of the Ottoman Empire," in The
Cambridge History of Islam, I (Cambridge, 1970), pp. 324-53.
330 Journal of the American Oriental Society 101.3 (1981)
enough vitality to recover naval strength33sufficient
for the defense of its long coastal frontiers but not
enough for any future confrontation with the Spanish
and the Portuguese across the Straits of Gibraltar.
Spain and Portugal on their part got involved in the
defense of their far-flung Empire and trade against new
3 1. H. Uzuncarsili, "Bahrnyya"(Section III on Ottoman
Navy), Encyclopaedia of Islam (New Edition).
challengers such as England, Holland, and France.
Prester John and the Grand Khan had served their
utopian purpose. Gold, slaves, and spices as well as
colonization in the newly discovered lands, were now
more important than crusades against the Muslims. In
the age of the East India companies, the recovery of
Jerusalem faded as the prime motivating factor in their
political activity. Yet the memory of those days still
lingers in such American place-names as Matamoros
(St. James, "the Moor-Killer").