Seydi Ali Reis: the Ottoman admiral who came home via Gwadar, Sindh and Central Asia

In 1554 an admiral of the Ottoman navy set out from Basra for Egypt with fifteen warships. He did not know that he would lose his fleet and that, to reach home, he would have to pass through Gujarat, Sindh, Punjab, Kabul, Samarkand, Khwarazm and Iran. He was Seydi Ali Reis, and he wrote the story of the journey himself under the title “Mirat ul-Mamalik”, meaning “The Mirror of Countries”.

A writer from a family of seamen

The Hungarian orientalist Arminius Vambéry published an English translation of the book in 1899. According to the Turkish publisher’s preface included in it, Seydi Ali’s forefathers had been superintendents of the state shipyard at Galata in Istanbul. He had himself taken part in several naval campaigns in the Mediterranean, had written treatises on the astrolabe and navigation, and wrote poetry under the pen name “Katibi Rumi”.

Seydi Ali writes that in Aleppo he was appointed admiral of the Egyptian fleet and ordered to bring the fifteen galleys lying at Basra back to Egypt. He left Aleppo on 7 December 1553 and reached Basra in early February 1554, where he had to wait for the monsoon winds.

Water and a guide at Gwadar

After leaving Basra, he twice met Portuguese fleets near Hormuz and Muscat, and several vessels were lost. The wind then carried the fleet out to open sea. According to Seydi Ali, he reached the coast at Jask, spent two days looking for a harbour and then came near Kech Makran. The drinking water had run out and several of the crew died from the dry, hot wind.

He writes that the captain of a local boat gave him water and led him into the port of Gwadar. According to him, the people there were Baloch and their chief was Malik Jalaluddin bin Malik Dinar. The governor of Gwadar helped him and, at his request, the chief sent an experienced pilot, with whom he set out again towards Yemen.

The “elephant storm”

Several days later, off Dhofar, a violent storm rose from the west. Seydi Ali calls it “Fil Tufani”, the elephant storm. According to him it lasted ten days and he never once saw a blue sky. He writes: “Compared with these storms, the bad weather of the western seas is child’s play.” All the cargo had to be thrown into the sea, and four men were put on each rope of the rudder.

At one point the water suddenly turned white and the pilot cried out that whirlpools were near. At last the ship ran aground on the coast of Gujarat, about two miles from the port of Daman. For five days and nights they lay in rain and high waves; neither the sun by day nor the stars by night could be seen, so neither the clock nor the compass was of any use. He reached Surat a full three months after leaving Basra.

From Gujarat to Sindh

The fleet was no longer seaworthy. Seydi Ali handed the vessels over to the local governor and, with about fifty companions, set out for Ahmedabad at the end of November 1554. According to the Turkish publisher, he wrote a book called “Muhit” in Ahmedabad; the Turkish Ministry of Culture also gives its year as 1554. The book contains figures on navigation in the Indian Ocean. A map was later drawn from them, in which distances are measured not in degrees but in “isba”, meaning fingers.

From Ahmedabad two guards called “Bhats” were assigned to him; their task was to take travellers safely from one region to another. The caravan passed through Radhanpur and reached Parkar, which Vambéry writes as Nagar Parkar. After ten more days in the desert, they arrived at Wanga, a border town of Sindh. The ruler of Sindh at the time was Shah Hussain Mirza, who, because of illness, travelled by boat on the Indus. The country was in civil war, so Seydi Ali stayed for several weeks around Thatta. He then travelled in boats against the current of the river, and mentioned large fish in the river and lions on its banks. He reached Bakhar, where the governor, Sultan Mahmud, gave him an escort of 250 camel riders. In the desert a spring was found dry and several companions were overcome by thirst. From there he went to Uch and reached Multan on 15 Ramazan.

Humayun’s court

He reached Lahore in early Shawwal and Delhi at the end of Zil Qad. Seydi Ali writes that Emperor Humayun sent his nobles with four hundred elephants to receive him. Humayun kept him until the end of the rainy season and asked him in the meantime to calculate the solar and lunar eclipses and help the court’s astronomers. After hearing his Turkish ghazals, Humayun called him the equal of Mir Ali Sher Navai, the poet of Central Asia.

He had already received permission to return when, one evening, Humayun fell down the palace stairs and was badly hurt. According to Seydi Ali, he died on the third day. Jalaluddin Akbar succeeded him on the throne, and Seydi Ali, with his permission, set out with the nobles who were going to Kabul.

Khyber, Hindu Kush and Samarkand

After crossing several rivers he reached Peshawar and passed through the Khyber Pass. He writes that in the mountains he saw two rhinoceroses, each as large as a small elephant. Kabul seemed to him “a beautiful city”, surrounded by snow-covered mountains and gardens with flowing water. The governor of Kabul said the passes of the Hindu Kush were closed by snow, but with the help of local guides he crossed the pass in a single day.

Passing through Andarab, Badakhshan and Kulab, he reached Samarkand in early Shaban, which he calls “a perfect paradise”. From there he went to Bukhara, Khiva and Khwarazm. Wearing sheepskin clothes, the caravan travelled for more than a month in the Dasht-i-Qipchaq, but news came that Astrakhan had fallen to the Russians and the road was closed. With no choice, he returned to Khwarazm and turned towards Khorasan.

From Iran to Istanbul

On the first of Muharram 964 AH he reached Mashhad. Before that, at Tus, he had seen the grave of the Persian poet Ferdowsi. Passing through Nishapur, Damghan, Semnan and Ray, he came to Qazvin, then the capital of Iran. Shah Tahmasp, after examining his papers, entertained him and allowed him to travel by way of Baghdad, instead of the difficult route through Van, in winter.

After Baghdad he reached Sivas and returned to Istanbul in the month of Rajab 964 AH. The Sultan was then in Edirne and Seydi Ali presented himself there the very next day. He writes: “Four years have passed; years of many sorrows and hardships, of many deprivations and troubles.” According to him, the book was completed in Galata in Shaban of the same year; the Turkish Ministry of Culture gives its year as 1557. The year of his death is disputed: the Ministry of Culture gives 1562, while the Turkish publisher’s preface gives 980 AH (1572).

Next instalment: Francis Drake: the second circumnavigation of the world.