Portuguese-Mamluk War

Portuguese–Mamluk naval war
Portuguese presence in the Indian Ocean in the early 16th century.
Date 1505–1517 Location Indian Ocean Result Portuguese victory
Belligerents
Portugal	Mamluk Sultanate
Commanders and leaders
Manuel I	Qansuh al-Ghuri

The Portuguese–Mamluk naval war was a naval conflict between the Egyptian state of the Mamluks and the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean, following the expansion of the Portuguese after sailing around the Cape of Good Hope in 1497. The conflict took place during the early part of the 16th century, from 1505 to the fall of the Mamluk Sultanate in 1517.

Following the Portuguese bombardment of Calicut in 1500–01 by the 2nd Portuguese India Armada under Cabral, the spice trade linking India to Egypt and then Venice was seriously diminished and prices shot up. Arab shipping was also being attacked directly: in 1503, a first Egyptian ship was robbed and sunk by the Portuguese as it was returning from India. In 1504, 17 Arab ships were destroyed by the Portuguese in the Indian harbour of Panane.

In 1504, the Mamluk Sultan Qansuh al-Ghuri first sent an envoy to the Pope, in the person of the Grand Prior of the Saint Catherine's Monastery, warning that if the Pope did not stop the exactions of the Portuguese against Muslims, he would bring ruin to the Christian Holy Place in the Levant and to the Christians living in his realm.

In 1504, the Venetians, who shared common interests with the Mamluks in the spice trade and desired to eliminate the Portuguese challenge if possible, sent envoy Francesco Teldi to Cairo. Teldi tried to find a level of cooperation between the two realms, encouraging the Mamluks to block Portuguese navigations. The Venetians claimed they could not intervene directly, and encouraged the Mamluk Sultan Qansuh al-Ghuri to take action by getting into contact with Indian princes at Cochin and Cananor to entice them not to trade with the Portuguese, and the Sultans of Calicut and Cambay to fight against them. Some sort of alliance was thus concluded between the Venetians and the Mamluks against the Portuguese. There were claims, voiced during the War of the League of Cambrai, that the Venetians had supplied the Mamluks with weapons and skilled shipwrights.

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