An Ottoman admiral set out on his final voyage without knowing it would carry him not to Istanbul, but to the gallows.
When we think of Ottoman seafaring, we think of Preveza, of Barbarossa, of the blue expanse of the Mediterranean. Yet the empire's most distant and least-told naval struggle was fought far to the south, in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean. With Egypt's incorporation into Ottoman lands in 1517, the empire's reach extended into the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The Portuguese, who had rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1498, had already become a threatening force in these waters. A confrontation between the two empires was inevitable.
The First Encounters
Contact came early. In 1517, Selman Reis met the Portuguese off Jeddah, and his success set the pattern for the battles of the years to come. Then in 1538, a fleet under Hadım Süleyman Pasha launched an expedition against Diu, on India's western coast. Though the hoped-for victory never came, the campaign laid the foundation of the Yemen province and consolidated Ottoman dominance in the Red Sea. Aden became the observation post on the ocean.
The Tragedy of Piri Reis
The most tragic figure in this story bears a name everyone knows: Piri Reis. Appointed admiral of the Indian fleet in 1552, he sailed into the ocean, besieged and captured Muscat, then laid siege to the fortress of Hormuz for twenty days — but could not take it.
The return marked the beginning of his downfall. Learning that a large Portuguese fleet was approaching, Piri Reis abandoned his fleet and fled through the narrow strait with three treasure-laden ships; of those three, only two reached Egypt. The act caused an uproar in Istanbul.
Despite having won significant victories against the Portuguese, Suleiman the Magnificent had him executed — disregarding the fact that he was over eighty-five years old.
Seydi Ali Reis and the Drift Into the Ocean
The man who took up the flag, Seydi Ali Reis, was a different kind of commander. Where his predecessors met Portuguese attacks by waiting in safe harbours, Seydi Ali Reis believed this was a mistake; he preferred to leave safe waters and fight in the open sea. His task was clear: to bring the galleys Piri Reis had left behind in Basra back to Suez.
He set out from Basra in 1554. As he reached the waters off Muscat, a Portuguese fleet of forty vessels appeared before him. In the sea battle that followed, six of his galleys were captured; when the remaining nine were abandoned in the ports of Gujarat, no Ottoman fleet was left to show its colours in the Indian Ocean.
But the story does not end there. The ocean's storms shifted the fleet's course and drove it toward Gujarat; much of the crew, after the long voyage, chose to enter the service of local rulers. Seydi Ali Reis was forced into a years-long return journey overland.
What Remained
From this gruelling expedition, one of the most valuable works in maritime history survived. The Kitab-ı Bahriye carried forward a body of navigational knowledge shaped by the works and experience of Piri Reis to the generations that followed.
Today, when you drop anchor in a quiet Aegean cove, there is a strange depth in thinking that the water beneath your feet once carried the most distant dream of empires. The Ottomans never left the Mediterranean — but once, they dared to reach far beyond it.