"The contest for preeminence in the East Indian spice trade pitted Portugal against Egyptian Muslim trading interests. In 1509, Portugal sank an Egyptian fleet off Diu, an island in the Arabian Sea that was a possession of the Indian Muslim state of Gujarat. But it wasn't until 1531 that the Portuguese mounted a major campaign against Diu itself, a land mass from which the possessor could control commerce on the Arabian Sea by dominating key ports. The island was defended by a combination of Egyptian and Gujarat troops, who resisted siege and attack for two years, before finally surrendering in 1533.
In 1538, the Gujaratis attempted to retake Diu, but failed, losing the ports of Goa and Daman in the process. During 1546-47, the Gujaratis mounted a new siege against Diu, which would have succeeded had not a Portuguese relief expedition made a timely arrival from Goa.
A Portuguese fleet of 21 vessels had been dispatched to the Indian Ocean in 1505 to add some muscle to their nation's presence in that area. They were under the command of Portugal's First Viceroy, Dom Francisco de Almeida, who had been appointed to represent the interests of Portugal in India. In opposition, the Ottoman sultan had provided some galleys to Egypt, in order to counter Portuguese interdiction of the Malabar timber trade from India. The Mamlűks – with some technical assistance from the Venetians – disassembled these galleys in Alexandria and reassembled them in the Red Sea below Suez. These galleys then had to navigate the Indian Ocean, a dicey situation considering that the galleys were constructed to sail on the Mediterranean Sea. Mostly hugging the coast, the Turkish- Mamlűk fleet arrived off the coast of Gujarat, one of the Muslim kingdoms on the coast of India. The Sultan of Gujarat had previously contacted the Ottomans, recommending that a sufficient naval force could help tip the balance of power and allow large portions of India to be added to the Ottoman Empire. The only major force standing in the way of that plan was the Portuguese…"
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