Ottoman links to Medieval Calicut
Posted by Labels: Constantinople, Hadim Suleyman, Malabar - Portuguese, Ottoman Calicut, Turkey
Pre Khilafat Turkiye Malabar
Connections, ante 1919
Some years ago, I had touched on the connections between
Malabar and Turkey in relation to the Khilafat movement of the 1920’s and how
and why it all fizzled out, culminating with the terrible days of the 1921
uprising. But Ottoman Turkey did have a link with the muezzins of Calicut and the
clergy at Ponnani even before all that. I may have touched on the subject while
writing about the Fathul Mubeyin, but let’s now see how it all adds up.
Turki kappal ailasa….I am sure every Malayali can connect to
this usage, even today. Some who have dabbled in history will remember of a
period when the people of Malabar were battling the Portuguese and the Turkish Ottoman
Sultan finally sent out reinforcements in the form of a naval unit to battle
the Portuguese at Diu and support the Malabar efforts. Well, that was just one
part of the whole story, for it all started much before that event, so let’s go
back in time…
That the spice trade was lucrative was well known since time
immemorial and the seafaring Arab as well as Jewish traders had tight control
over it till the Portuguese mastered the art of long-distance sailing and
discovered the route to the Indes after circumventing the Cape of Good Hope, around
the start of the 16th century. The Franks took over and seemingly
impacted the Red Sea trade by embargoing it and making restrictions using their
cartaz or permit system, all aspects we covered in past articles.
16th Century spice trade, with pepper from
Malabar as the main produce much desired in Europe, dominated the sea channels.
The placid seas now saw a great many sailing ships churning the waters in an
urgency to profit. New sailing techniques, innovative ship designs, lethal naval
armaments, the concept of armadas, navigational aids, food storage and
preservation methods, were all the byproducts of that era. But it was as you
can imagine, not just the Portuguese and the Spanish plying the waters. Many
others wanted a part of it and so, the Dutch, the Swedes, the Norwegians, the
French and the Brits were watching and waiting to get their bite of the spicy produce
from Malabar.
But if you have been to Istanbul and wandered around the
golden horn area, the old historic part of Istanbul, you would not have failed to
spend a few hours in the Misir Carsi or spice bazar (Egyptian spice market) and
marveled at the spices from the orient, the sights and smells of all the spices
we know so well such as chillies, coriander, pepper, cardamom and cloves. I
remember that whenever I felt a little homesick during my 6 year stay in
Istanbul, I would drive down and wander through the Eminonu area, never missing
these areas and I would wonder about the times historic Istamboul teemed with
traders from various parts of the world (Misir carsi itself was built only in
the latter half of the 17th century).
The confrontation between the Ottomans and the Portuguese at
sea was inevitable and its effects on Malabar is a topic not studied so much or
detailed in Portuguese Indian chronicles, but has been finding some interest in
recent times, from historians like Giancarlo Casale. His papers and a wonderful
book, read together with Andre Clot’s works on Suleiman, detail these aspects
to some extent and provides a good understanding of the situation. What I can
do is help you get interested by providing a precis…
What is quite interesting is that the Ottomans actually
brought in a concept of free trade, liberating the Red Sea channels from restrictive
policies previously adopted by the Egyptian Mamuluks. But the Ottomans did want
a bigger slice of the trade, for they needed money for their wars and
expansions. They could try out various strategies with a boldness others could
not afford, and they did. As Casale explains – These became progressively more sophisticated over time, until by the
end of the 1560s a comprehensive infrastructure was in place, including a
rationalized Empire-wide tax regime for regulating private trade; a network of
"imperial factors" who bought spices for the sultan in overseas
emporiums; and an annual convoy of spice gal leys that shipped cargoes of
state-owned pepper from Yemen to the markets of Egypt and Istanbul. All of
this, combined with natural advantages of geography and the goodwill of Muslim
traders in the Indian Ocean, enabled the Ottomanss to mount a formidable
challenge to the Portuguese "pepper monopoly."
But was it just goodwill and a desire to profit by Sultans which
triggered all this or was it a direct request for support from Malabar? In what
way did the Pardesi traders of Malabar fit into the Ottoman circle? Here is
where the concept of the Khalifa or the caliphate comes into the picture. During
the period of Ottoman growth, Ottoman rulers claimed caliphal authority and
formally became the defender of the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina. Then
again, one could also debate if the Ottomans just wanted to keep this all going
and get a cut or if the Ottomans actually wanted to invade India and bring it
into his Caliphate.
The Pardesi traders of Malabar who had all the support from
the Egyptian Mamuluks were now under siege, fighting for their existence in
Malabar, from the Portuguese intruders. The first half of the 16th
century saw a huge turbulence in their fortunes, having to wage continuous
skirmishes at sea and land with the accursed franks. Seeing that the Ottomans
were getting powerful, the Muslim religious leadership at Calicut had to appeal
to the Ottoman powers now in control, namely their new caliph – Sultan
Suleyman. But Suleyamn had a problem, while he saw that he could sit back and
get a fixed 10% of the revenue from the Kanuname (kanoon name) tax code, he had
to be proactive and control the Portuguese at sea if that slice had to get
bigger. But he had no real navy to boast of, so it was time to make one and be
in control, not just depend on freelancing corsairs.
Let’s recoup a bit. Before the advent of the Portuguese,
ships from Malabar, mainly Calicut left for Aden, sometimes escorted by armed ships
maintained by the Yemeni Rasulids, to protect them from the ever-present sea
pirates. The goods were trans-shipped at Aden and sent to Egypt on Rasulid
al-diwan ships, to be sold at a much higher price in Alexandria. This next
stage was Karimi merchant controlled, and things progressed to everybody’s
mutual benefit until the Mamuluks insisted on their cut. Pepper prices
continued to rise.
The Northern Gujarati ports were well fortified, especially
Diu which the Portuguese mostly left alone. But many naval encounters did occur
and we talked about those in the past. As the trunk route to Egypt came under
threat, the Mamuluk sultans assembled an offensive armada which sparred with
the Portuguese in the opening decades off the seas of Calicut and Cochin, an
interesting story which I will recount separately. Nevertheless, the Mamuluks
lost the battles on the Arabian seas, and with it their power was on the
decline. Meanwhile, at Cairo, the Ottomans who had been eyeing the pepper business
or the spice trade, had arrived, conquered and taken over control.
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| Sultan Suleiman |
Nevertheless, we can see that even before the advent of the
Ottomans, the Qazi’s of Malabar were being amply compensated by Rasulid grants
from Aden. In return, they invoked his name in the Friday prayers in Malabar
mosques. Documents from that period detail the existence of various Pardesi
groups, Turkish, Persian, Arab and so on at Calicut and we can see a mention
that as the Rasulid’s were weakening by the 1440 time period, the Timurid’s attempt
to get involved, evidenced by the visit of Abd-el razaq, Sharukh’s ambassador,
to Calicut, which as we know was a fiasco.
Out West, the Ottomans had already made their presence felt
when they repulsed a Portuguese attempt to take over Mecca and Medina. The
Muslims of Malabar too respected them and the opposition of the Portuguese
cemented their position as their new Khalifa.
It was around 1513 that Piri Reis (Ahmed Muhiddin Piri) the corsair
made his famous map for Sultan Selim 1, and from that we find that though the Ottomans
knew the seas through such corsairs, there was no direct state involvement in
exploration or conquest from the waters. When Mamuluk resident Malik Ayyaz of
Diu aligned himself with the Zamorin and the Pardesi traders of Calicut, he exhorted
the Mamuluk’s of Cairo for support, they sent a 20-ship fleet captained by
Hussein Al-kurdi, which was successful in thwarting the Franks at Chaul. But
Al-Kurdi was in following years more interested in becoming the lord of Aden himself
when asked to sail again in support of Calicut and Diu. Malik Ayaz lost faith
in Hussein and decided to get into bed with the Ottaman’s (this was rumored to
be one of the reasons why the Ottomans conquered Cairo and Aden) as overlords
of the spice trade.
Sultan Selim ordered that 50 more ships be constructed to
support the Indians, against the Portuguese ‘in order to push these perfidious troublemakers towards a destiny of
blackness, and [with his troops] whose effect is like that of a tempest, he will
cast them, soldier by soldier, to the winds of annihilation . . . then there
will be safety and security’.
Albuquerque in Goa wrote to Lisbon for support, seeing what
was to come, a potential Ottoman conquest of India. But that never happened,
and matters were slow to develop, as the Egyptian ports teemed with carpenters
and shipwrights working overtime to build the new fleet. Sultam Selim was busy
with installing himself as the new Caliph and protector of Muslims worldwide,
just as Dom Manuel in Portugal was trying to cement his role as the lord the
eastern seas and the Estado da India. They were to face off soon, and that
happened when Hussein el-Rumi was sent with a fleet to Yemen which unfortunately
ground to a halt when Sultan Selim unexpectedly passed away in 1520. Suleiman
the magnificent would soon take over in Istanbul. Ibrahim Pasha who had been
appointed at the Egyptian administrator had in the meanwhile received a
detailed report on the state of affairs in the Arabian seas and the pepper trade
from a well experienced Ottoman corsair and naval hero, Selman Reis.
As Albuquerque was presenting his report, the Portuguese
ventured deep into the Red Sea and attacked the Arab ports to decimate many.
The Ottomans decided to rebuild the Jiddah fleet to defend and if needed attack
the Portuguese. It was also important to secure Aden, before it fell to the
Portuguese. Suleiman Reis was tasked with rebuilding the fleet at Cairo as
Ibrahim returned to Istanbul in 1525. His replacement at Egypt was a portly
wizened eunuch, Hadim Suleyman Pasha. Already over 70 years in age, he was a
veteran of many a battle. Selman Reis continued his fight with the Yemeni
forces and after securing an acceptance of Ottoman suzerainty from the Emir of
Aden, planted himself at the island of Kamaran. From 1527, all ships bound for
and from India were to call on this port and pay a transit fee.
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| Hadim Suleyman Pasha |
The Ottomans had arrived. Another Ottoman, named Hayrettin
Rumi controlled matters at land. Selman Reis now had his sights trained on
Yemen, and he proclaimed that a conquest of Aden would mean an inevitable
destruction of Portuguese might. It was at this juncture, i.e. in 1527 that the
Zamorin sent his embassy to the Ottomans for naval support against the
Portuguese, just as Mamale Marakkar of Cannanore opened a new route via the Maldives,
supported by Ottoman corsairs. In a cruel twist of fate, an argument between
Hayrettin and Salman resulted in the murder of Selman in 1528, while he was
playing a game of chess. Selman’s nephew Mustapha Bayram made amends by
murdering Hayrettin, but he was no leader and the Ottomans withdrew from Yemen
which descended again into leaderless anarchy. The Portuguese did not miss the
opportunity, took control of Kamaran, made the Aden Emir submit now to King
Manuel and established a fort at Den, manned by 40 Franks.
Back in Egypt, Hadim Pasha, supported by Ibrahim in Istanbul
were working on two ambitious schemes, one to reopen an ancient Pharoh Necho canal
between the Nile and Tor at the Red Sea, as well as building a 60 ship fleet to
patrol the Arabian seas. Curiously, both projects were shelved by 1531 and the
Ottoman sultan decided to invade Iraq, while Hadim Suleyman Pasha was packed
off to Syria, perhaps because the Turks had learned of Portuguese overtures
with the Safavids against the Ottoman. These objectives were thwarted by the
Ottomans when Iraq was taken in 1534 and the Persian Gulf states had been
secured. Again, byzantine politics reared its head and in grand style the
rising stature of Ibrahim pasha was curtailed with his execution in 1536,
abetted perhaps by the intrigues of the bewitching red headed queen Roxelane.
Meanwhile, the old hand Hadim Suleyman was still waiting for
his fleet and he was in regular touch with one Khoja Safar in Diu since Mustafa
Bayram had defected to join the Mughal king Humayun. But before that, Bayram
did establish a formal link with Calicut and made a tie up with the Marakkars
in their ongoing attacks against Portuguese shipping. With Bayram’s defection,
the Diu chief conceded to Portuguese authority, albeit temporarily as his
confidant Khoja Safar got in touch with the Ottomans for further support. Hadim
Suleiman then in Romelia, was reassigned quickly to Egypt and asked to prepare
for a naval mission to Diu and Malabar. Was it a mercy mission to free Malabar
shipping or was it a grand Ottaman plan to invade India by taking Diu and then
unseating the Mughals? 78 ships and 20,000 men, including 7,000 janissaries
manning a huge amount of armaments (There were nine huge cannons of
extraordinary caliber that shot bullets 200 kg balls) make it likely that the
mission was not to unseat the Portuguese, but to install Hadim Suleiman in Diu.
Hadim Suleiman had also perhaps cemented ties with Mamale
and Pate Marakkar. Mamale controlled the Maldives route while Pattu marakkar
had built a flotilla of some 50 fustas and was engaged in attacking the
Portuguese continuously. Now it was time for the hammer to fall. As Casale
explains - the most probable scenario
seems to be that Hadim Suleiman, encouraged by envoys sent from Pate Marakkar
and the Zamorin of Calicut sometime in 1537, dispatched Hamad Khan to Aceh at
the same time as his own departure for India, with orders to harass Portuguese
ships and, if possible, assist in an attack on the Portuguese fortress of
Malacca….. By 1538, the pasha had managed to construct an enormous transoceanic
coalition, linking Istanbul with allies across the entire breadth of the Indian
Ocean from Shihr and Gujarat to Calicut and Sumatra.
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| The Ottoman fleet |
The Ottoman expedition of 1538 followed, with the 70 armed vessels
who laid a siege on Diu. But it was not to achieve any large amount of success
as even before they left the Suez, Pate Marakkar was getting mauled by the
Portuguese at the Ceylon straits and the Achenese attack on Malacca was
repulsed by the Portuguese. Pate (Pattu)
marakkar and his fleet had been taken on by the Portuguese at Vedalai off the
Ceylon straits, even before they could sail North to support Hadim Pasha.
Martim Afonso de Sousa defeated them in Vedalai in early 1538, killing one of
their three leaders, Ali Ibrahim, and subjecting the other two (Pate Marakkar
and Kunjali Marakkar) to the humiliation of having to return to Calicut by land.
We will cover that story also later, separately.
But as it all transpired, after intense bombing by the Turkish
forces for all of 40 days, that too just as the Portuguese were about to cave
in, Hadim Suleiman, decided to call off the siege and retreat to Yemen. Was it
because he feared decimation by a rumored incoming Portuguese fleet from Goa,
already on prowl since there was no Marakkar fleet to stop them? Perhaps so,
nevertheless, the old admiral saw a possibility of ignominious defeat. But it
was not just that, it was also so that he lost support from his Indian allies
whom he did not inspire that he could ever take on the Portuguese, as an
immensely rotund and aged (over 80 years in age) impervious man who had to be
lifted by a team of four to just get off his seat for one, and secondly his
people had immediately upon landing in Diu tried to loot and plunder the very
city they had come to aid. Hadim Suleiman was not a man worthy of following,
for he had at the start of the voyage first exhorted a large sum of money from the
Governor of Jeddah, then invited the emir of Aden for dinner and hanged him on
the ship’s mast. When his ships reached Diu, four of them had capsized to
reveal a large number of saddles proving that the Ottamans indeed had plans to
occupy lands, settle down and not just liberate Diu. As Casale puts it - Having lost most of his Indian allies
through a combination of his own clumsy diplomacy and circumstances beyond his
control, Hadim Suleiman could no longer be sure of his ability to keep
possession of Diu even if he managed to conquer it.
It was therefore no wonder that the Emir Bahadur chose to quickly
side with the Portuguese seeing that the Ottomans could be far more avaricious
and cruel compared to the former. The Ottoman ships went back to Istanbul and
Egypt, and entrenched themselves firmly in Yemen, with all Indian intentions
forgotten. Hadim Suleiman was rewarded and installed as grand Vizier in
Istanbul, at the age of 90 while Aden was retaken in 1551 by Piri Reis.
The Ottoman Sultans however continued the tradition of
rewarding some 20 mosques in the Calicut region, and they in return perhaps
invoked the Ottoman ruler now, in Friday prayers. This supposition is proved by
a very interesting complaint of graft in a document (an edict that Soqullu
Mehmed issued to his governor- general of Egypt in 1576) which tended to a
complaint -
In times past, one
hundred gold pieces [a year] were sent to the mosques of the twenty- seven
cities located in the Indian port of Calicut for the Friday sermon. However, it
has been reported that for the last few years only fifty gold pieces have been sent,
and sometimes not even that amount […]. Be diligent in this affair and see to
it that, in fulfilment of the requirements of my orders, one hundred florins
are sent every year without fail and in perpetuity from the port of Jiddah for
the above- mentioned sermons. As far as any payments that have still not been
paid from previous years are concerned, these also should be paid in full from
the revenues of Jiddah.
Diplomatic channels were also open in the meantime with Duarte
Catanho who was sent to Goa by Sultan Suleyman, who met the Portuguese governor
Nuno da Cunha and informed him that the Ottoman Sultan wanted to make peace
with the Portuguese; for his palace needed 5,000 quintal (250,000 kg) of
pepper. The Turks, in return, would promise not to fight against the Portuguese
for between five and fifteen years, and to provide them with 5,000 moio (about
3,800 tons) of wheat.
Dom João’s III’s wanted the Ottomans to leave the Indian
Ocean and leave unrestricted access for their own ships in the Red Sea and
clearance to trade freely in Aden and Jiddah under the same conditions as
Muslim merchants. In exchange Dom João would to compromise his monopoly over
the pepper trade by granting the sultan permission to purchase up to three
thousand quintals (roughly 130 metric tons) of Indian pepper every year.
The Ottoman Sultan as we can see, did not agree and countered
in 1540 – That the Portuguese merchants could trade in Ottoman ports and agreed
in principle, to limit Ottoman pepper imports to four thousand quintals a year,
but at the same time insisting that this pepper was to be supplied by Muslim
ships from the independent port city of Calicut. Wheat from Turkey could be
supplied through French and Venetian intermediaries and the Portuguese were not
to transport it with their own ships.
All this as you can see, is a very interesting and extensive
subject, one which I can better appreciate due to my stay in Turkey, so I will
get back in more detail to specific sections of the Ottoman influence on the Red
Sea pepper trade, later.
But in conclusion I will repeat Clot’s quote from orientalist
Armin Vambery. In more detail - Sultan
Suleiman went much further; he aimed at the subjugation of the whole of the
then existing Moslem East, hence his diplomacy in the Arabian and Persian seas,
and his deep-laid plans for taking Ormuz from the Portuguese in order to obtain
a firm footing in Gujarat. If this plan had succeeded, he would have broken the
growing power of the successors of Baber and established himself as sole ruler
of Hindustan. If Suleiman, instead of deluging Hungary and Austria with his
janissaries, had put the conquest of India on his programme, his efforts would
have been crowned with greater and more lasting success than that which
attended them in the Danubian provinces. He had at his disposal a mighty, ever
victorious fleet, while the descendants of Baber were entirely without one. His
prestige was great and without parallel in Arabia, Egypt, nay even in the whole
of the Islam world, and the victory which a handful of Central Asian
adventurers could obtain over the Vishnu worshippers, would have been child's
play to his disciplined, well-armed, valiant bands of Janissaries. The Ottoman
rulers as masters of India would have played a far more important part in
history than any of their predecessors on the road to conquest, and who can say
what might not have been the fate of Asia under such conditions?
References
The Ottoman Age of Exploration – Giancarlo Casale
Suleiman the magnificent – Andre Clot
The Travels and Adventures of the Turkish Admiral Sidi Ali
Reïs: In India - Seydî Ali Reis, A Vambery
2 comments:
Thanks Maddy, very informative piece. This is an aspect of Malabar/India trade that is not talked about much. In your research did you come across of any instance where the Ottomans contemplated a direct attack on Portugal?
Rajith
hi Ranjith
thanks. I do not believe the Ottomans had any such ideas, though they had many naval successes in the Mediterranean. Contrary to popular belief, the Portuguese controlled only a fraction of the spice business and the Istanbul markets did get their share of pepper, as I had mentioned.
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