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Rustem Pasha Versus The Indian Ocean Faction: 1546–1561

Giancarlo Casale

in The Ottoman Age of Exploration

This chapter focuses on Rustem Pasha, who dominated Ottoman political life throughout the middle decades of the 16th century. Nominated to the grand vizierate upon Hadim Suleiman's dismissal in ... More

This chapter focuses on Rustem Pasha, who dominated Ottoman political life throughout the middle decades of the 16th century. Nominated to the grand vizierate upon Hadim Suleiman's dismissal in November of 1544, Rustem went on to hold the position almost continuously until his death seventeen years later. Unlike his predecessor Hadim Suleiman, who had consistently sought to maximize the free flow of trade across Ottoman lands from the Indian Ocean, Rustem professed a deep-seated suspicion of foreign merchants and generally favored an economic policy that subordinated mercantile interests to the needs of supplying the army and provisioning the Ottoman capital. Rather than seeing the flow of goods in and out of the Ottoman Empire as a source of wealth and a reaffirmation of Ottoman prestige, Rustem seems to have viewed international trade primarily as a threat, a drain through which the precious metals and other strategic resources of the empire were being continually sucked away.Less

Sokollu Mehmed Pasha and The Apogee of Empire: 1561–1579

Giancarlo Casale

in The Ottoman Age of Exploration

This chapter focuses on Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, one of the most compelling personalities of the entire 16th century and the mastermind of the Ottoman Empire's last great push into the Indian Ocean. ... More

This chapter focuses on Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, one of the most compelling personalities of the entire 16th century and the mastermind of the Ottoman Empire's last great push into the Indian Ocean. Much like his well-placed predecessors Ibrahim and Rustem, Sokollu Mehmed was a palace favorite, a member of the Imperial Divan since 1554, and a figure especially close to the sultan's son Selim, whose daughter he married in 1562. Promoted to the grand vizierate just three years later, upon the death of his aged colleague Semiz Ali, Sokollu would thereafter dominate political life in the empire as perhaps no other grand vizier ever had before. His uninterrupted tenure in office eventually spanned fifteen years and the reigns of three successive sultans, before his own death in 1579.Less

Hadim Suleiman Pasha's World War 1536–1546

Giancarlo Casale

in The Ottoman Age of Exploration

This chapter focuses on Hadim Suleiman Pasha. Ibrahim Pasha's death left the empire with a gaping power vacuum. For nearly a decade thereafter, no other Ottoman figure would dominate affairs of state ... More

This chapter focuses on Hadim Suleiman Pasha. Ibrahim Pasha's death left the empire with a gaping power vacuum. For nearly a decade thereafter, no other Ottoman figure would dominate affairs of state as Ibrahim had during his years in office. But of all the various contenders for power during the period from 1536 to 1544, the one who came closest to qualifying as the empire's new leading statesman was Ibrahim's deputy, Hadim Suleiman Pasha. Hadim Suleiman was able to advance through the ranks of the Ottoman hierarchy primarily as a result of his involvement in the empire's efforts to establish a presence in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. By 1541, after leading an expedition to India and, in the process, successfully conquering Yemen, he was promoted to the grand vizierate; the first case in Ottoman history in which the Indian Ocean became a springboard for attaining the empire's highest office.Less

A Man, A Plan, A Canal: Mir Ali Beg's Expeditions to the Swahili Coast, 1579–1589

Giancarlo Casale

in The Ottoman Age of Exploration

This chapter focuses on events from 1579 to 1589. Ottoman decision makers, particularly those with an interest in the Indian Ocean, realized that in light of the myriad challenges to their rule that ... More

This chapter focuses on events from 1579 to 1589. Ottoman decision makers, particularly those with an interest in the Indian Ocean, realized that in light of the myriad challenges to their rule that emerged around 1579, Sokollu's delicate system of soft empire had become untenable. Instead, a stark choice seemed to present itself: either convert this soft empire into a more traditional system of direct imperial rule in maritime Asia, or stand idly by as Ottoman influence in the region gradually eroded or disappeared entirely.Less

The Identity Thieves of the Indian Ocean: Forgery, Fraud and the Origins of South African Immigration Control, 1890s–1920s

Andrew MacDonald

in Registration and Recognition: Documenting the Person in World History

This chapter is about the fate of a registration system designed for the exclusion of ‘undesirable’ Indian migrants to South Africa in the first decades of the twentieth century. It traces the ... More

This chapter is about the fate of a registration system designed for the exclusion of ‘undesirable’ Indian migrants to South Africa in the first decades of the twentieth century. It traces the bureaucracy's deployment of residence permits, but shows how these were transacted along the networks established by long-established Indian Ocean merchant houses. This illicit economy provoked important reforms in record-keeping. Yet South Africa's immigration offices remained in disarray for another 15–20 years. The gaps were filled by shrewd criminal touting syndicates within the bureaucracy. More stringent record-keeping was finally in place by the mid-1920s due to help from migrant associations, although this hardly meant that insider subversion had been completely smothered. The chapter argues that South African border controls were not successfully coercive, and suggests that performative histories are important in the study of repressive registration regimes.Less

Time And The Tsunami: Indian Ocean, 2004

Stefan Helmreich, Sophia Roosth, and Michele Friedner

in Sounding the Limits of Life: Essays in the Anthropology of Biology and Beyond

This chapter reports on an oceanographic conference held in Goa, India, just after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004. It describes the various kinds of time—of the ocean, of ... More

This chapter reports on an oceanographic conference held in Goa, India, just after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004. It describes the various kinds of time—of the ocean, of scientific research, of disaster, of governance—through which scientists and others grappled with the disaster and its implications. A last-minute addition to the conference schedule, a talk, “The Recent Seismic Event off Sumatra,” was delivered by Satish Singh, a geoscientist from the Institute de Physique du Globe in Paris. In a setting in which “geological time” had been the organizing catchphrase— and an epistemological mooring for scientific objectivity— Singh's talk came closest to summoning up the uncertainties in scale that characterize oscillating ocean time, the at-sea feeling that attention to watery time can engender.Less

Food-Web Structure and Dynamics of East African Coral Reefs

Tim R. McClanahan

in Food Webs and the Dynamics of Marine Reefs

This chapter describes the oceanography, biogeography, and management of coral reef ecosystems of East Africa. The chapter focuses on the role of marine protected areas and fishing in controlling ... More

This chapter describes the oceanography, biogeography, and management of coral reef ecosystems of East Africa. The chapter focuses on the role of marine protected areas and fishing in controlling their ecology as well as a simulation model of fishing with the expected model and realized effects of fishing on the ecosystem.Less

Cartographic Curses: Europe and the Ptolemaic Poetics of Os Lusíadas (1572)

Katharina N. Piechocki

in Cartographic Humanism: The Making of Early Modern Europe

This chapter argues that Luís de Camões’s Os Lusíadas, typically framed as the first global epic, operates instead within the cartographic framework of the late fifteenth century (contemporaneous ... More

This chapter argues that Luís de Camões’s Os Lusíadas, typically framed as the first global epic, operates instead within the cartographic framework of the late fifteenth century (contemporaneous with Vasco da Gama). Camões’s poem describes the Indian Ocean as a transposition of the Mediterranean Sea: both were imagined, in different poetic and cartographic traditions (ranging from Ptolemy to Islamic cartography), as enclosed oceans. In Os Lusíadas, then, Camões paints his protagonist Vasco da Gama as a new Hercules, who masterfully opens up the Indian Ocean by passing the Cape of Good Hope (in the shape of Adamastor’s monstrous rock), just as Hercules had opened up the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean (according to ancient geographic traditions). By modeling the Indian Ocean after the Mediterranean Sea, Os Lusíadas proudly exports the idea of an autonomous and hegemonic Europe across the continents, thereby conflating globalization and Europeanization.Less

India in the Indian Ocean: colliding ambitions with China

Harsh V. Pant

in Indian foreign policy: An overview

This chapter examines India’s profile in the Indian Ocean as it has evolved over the last two decades.

A Contest of Status and Legitimacy in the Indian Ocean

David Brewster

in India and China at Sea: Competition for Naval Dominance in the Indian Ocean

This chapter examines Indian and Chinese perspectives of each other as major powers and their respective roles in the Indian Ocean. It focuses on the following elements: (a) China’s strategic ... More

This chapter examines Indian and Chinese perspectives of each other as major powers and their respective roles in the Indian Ocean. It focuses on the following elements: (a) China’s strategic imperatives in the Indian Ocean Region, (b) India’s views on its special role in the Indian Ocean and the legitimacy of the presence of other powers, (c) China’s strategic vulnerabilities in the Indian Ocean and India’s wish to leverage those vulnerabilities, (d) the asymmetry in Indian and Chinese threat perceptions, and (d) Chinese perspectives of the status of India in the international system and India’s claims to a special role in the Indian Ocean. The chapter concludes that even if China were to take a more transparent approach to its activities, significant differences in perceptions of threat and over status and legitimacy will produce a highly competitive dynamic between them in the maritime domain.Less

Down the African Coast, from Aden to the Island of the Crocodile

Yossef Rapoport and Emilie Savage-Smith

in Lost Maps of the Caliphs: Drawing the World in Eleventh-Century Cairo

The map of the Indian Ocean in the Book of Curiosities shows the Gulf of Aden as a gateway to the ports and islands of the East Africa, known today as the Swahili coast. Fatimid commercial relations ... More

The map of the Indian Ocean in the Book of Curiosities shows the Gulf of Aden as a gateway to the ports and islands of the East Africa, known today as the Swahili coast. Fatimid commercial relations with East Africa are rarely documented, and recent scholarship has doubted any Fatimid impact on the region during its formative period of Islamization. But the detailed depiction of East Africa in the Book of Curiosities points to an unexpected level of familiarity, based on information gathered from navigation along the coasts of the Horn of Africa. We have here what may be the first recorded references in Arabic to the islands of Zanzibar (al-Unguja), Mafia, and several localities and capes along the coasts of modern Somalia. The treatise allows us to visualize the Indian Ocean from a Fatimid viewpoint, with the Isma'ili anchors of Sind and the Yemen as the two crucial nodes for further political, religious and economic penetration. This Indian Ocean, unlike the Mediterranean, was not a militarised space, and Fatimid ambitions there relate to the propagation of the Isma'ili missionary network. Visually, the Indian Ocean also lacks the perfect symmetry of the Mediterranean and is shown here in disparate segments.Less

From Marco Polo to Manuel I of Portugal: The Image of the East African Coast in the Early Sixteenth Century

JEAN MICHEL MASSING

in Racism and Ethnic Relations in the Portuguese-Speaking World

Less than twenty years after Vasco da Gama joined the commercial perimeter of the Indian Ocean (1497–8), European artists had developed a view of the newly discovered lands, ranging from highly ... More

Less than twenty years after Vasco da Gama joined the commercial perimeter of the Indian Ocean (1497–8), European artists had developed a view of the newly discovered lands, ranging from highly exotic and sometimes quite fanciful renderings based on medieval sources (the ‘Tapestries of the Indies’) to careful ethnographic illustrations based on written and visual sources (Hans Burgkmair's large woodcut frieze, People of Africa and India, of 1508). These few years, in which the monstrance of Belém of 1506 (Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon) was produced with the gold of Kilwa, also saw an interesting development in Portuguese gold coinage. All these ventures record a brief moment of European fascination with the east coast of Africa and its multicultural inhabitants, which is the object of this study.Less

Introduction

Ned Bertz

in Diaspora and Nation in the Indian Ocean: Transnational Histories of Race and Urban Space in Tanzania

The introduction contextualizes the book’s central themes of diaspora, nationalism, race, and urban space, and locates their intersection within Tanzanian and Indian Ocean history and historiography. ... More

The introduction contextualizes the book’s central themes of diaspora, nationalism, race, and urban space, and locates their intersection within Tanzanian and Indian Ocean history and historiography. Descriptions of ordinary people’s lives, collected through oral interviews, illuminate wider historical trends which were at play across the region, eventually impacting local urban spaces in Dar es Salaam. The chapter summarizes the book’s major arguments, defines its key terms like race and urban space, and briefly recapitulates the history of the Indian diaspora in Dar es Salaam and East Africa. These contributions are then situated within a survey of the historiography of nation and diaspora in the Indian Ocean.Less

“A Mighty Multitude of Israelites”

Zvi Ben‐Dor Benite

in The Ten Lost Tribes: A World History

This chapter shows how the story of the ten tribes gained purchase in European imagination. It centers on the story of David Reuveni, a man from Yemen who showed up in Rome at the time of the first ... More

This chapter shows how the story of the ten tribes gained purchase in European imagination. It centers on the story of David Reuveni, a man from Yemen who showed up in Rome at the time of the first European expansion to the Indian Ocean, and promised an “alliance” between Christendom and the Ten Tribes. The offer was in fact a fusion of the Prester John and Ten Tribes stories. The chapter narrates the story of this man and discusses the anxieties and ideas among European Jews and Christians that made the ten tribes so important in modern Europe.Less

Diaspora and Nation in the Indian Ocean

Ned Bertz

in Diaspora and Nation in the Indian Ocean: Transnational Histories of Race and Urban Space in Tanzania

Chapter one theorizes the book’s two central frames of nation and diaspora within the Indian Ocean arena, illuminating their inseparability. This is critical to acknowledge given that, prior to the ... More

Chapter one theorizes the book’s two central frames of nation and diaspora within the Indian Ocean arena, illuminating their inseparability. This is critical to acknowledge given that, prior to the rise of colonies and nations around the Indian Ocean littoral, difference was perceived without reference to national identity, making the establishment of nations and diasporas in the twentieth century historically constitutive and intertwined. The chapter will draw on three sets of underutilized sources to relate new aspects of the transnational exchanges that shaped the shifting and emerging claims of belonging and citizenship in the history of the Indian Ocean region: passport registers held in the Gujarat State Archives, the stories of people who were left behind in Gujarat by migrating kinfolk or who had returned there from East Africa, and correspondence between activists in East Africa and the All India Congress Committee in New Delhi.Less

Ocean and Narration

Gaurav Desai

in Commerce with the Universe: Africa, India, and the Afrasian Imagination

This chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. This book attempts to provide an expansive understanding of African territories and identities, drawing its inspiration from the work of ... More

This chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. This book attempts to provide an expansive understanding of African territories and identities, drawing its inspiration from the work of scholars who have increasingly focused on Indian Ocean histories and Africa's connections with them. In particular, one of the projects of this book is to ask: What happens to our understanding of Africa—its history, its sense of identity, its engagement with modernity, and the possibilities of its future—if we read its long history as an encounter not only with the West, but also with the East? While asking the question of what Africanists might gain from an eastward glance, the book is also interested in what scholars of the Indian Ocean gain by placing Africa more centrally in their accounts.Less

The Julfan Trade Network I: The World of the Indian Ocean

Sebouh David Aslanian

in From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean: The Global Trade Networks of Armenian Merchants from New Julfa

This chapter examines the expansion of the Julfan trade network in the Indian Ocean and the Julfan presence in Mughal India, Southeast Asia, and the little-studied Julfan community in ... More

This chapter examines the expansion of the Julfan trade network in the Indian Ocean and the Julfan presence in Mughal India, Southeast Asia, and the little-studied Julfan community in Spanish-controlled Manila in the Philippines, which served as a gateway to sporadic Julfan relations with Acapulco and Mexico City in the New World. Julfan trade settlements originated in the seventeenth century, and thus can be directly traced to the founding of New Julfa in 1605. Others, however, were “relics” of the merchants of Old Julfa. Julfan merchants had settled in Bengal (the richest province of Mughal India) during the first half of the seventeenth century. This chapter also looks at the community of Julfan merchants in Tibet and China, as well as Armenian settlements in Burma.Less