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“The
person who drew [this map] is poor Piri, son of Haci
Mehmed and paternal nephew of Kemal Reis – may God
pardon them both! – in the city of Gallipoli, in the
month of Muharrem the sacred of the year 919 (9 March-7
April 1513).”
We are fortunate that Piri Reis recorded this crucial
information on his famous map of the world. It enables
us to place its creation within the historical context
more accurately than that of most comparable
cartographic work. Moreover, another note by the author
about the method he used to produce it is obligingly
explicit:
“This is a unique map such as no one has ever produced,
and I am its author. I have used 20 maps as well as
mappaemundi. The latter derive from a prototype that
goes back to the time of Alexander the Great and covers
the entire inhabited world – the Arabs call such maps ja`fariyyah.
I have used eight such ja`fariyyahs. Then I have used an
Arab map of India, as well as maps made by four
Portuguese who applied mathematical methods to represent
India and China. Finally I have also used a map drawn by
Columbus in the West. I have brought all these sources
to one scale, and this map is the result. In other words,
just as the sailors of the Mediterranean have reliable
and well tested charts at their disposal, so too this
map of the Seven Seas is reliable and worthy of
recognition.”
Thirteen years later, in 1526, Piri Reis mentioned this
map in a new version of the Kitabi Bahriye which he had
produced as a presentation copy for Sultan Süleyman:
“I had previously also made a map that shows several
times more than the standard [charts] do. [I did so] on
the basis of maps hitherto unknown in Turkey that have
lately been arriving from the seas of India and China. I
incorporated them [in my map, which was then] presented
to the late Sultan Selim Khan – may he rest in peace! –
at Cairo, and it was accepted.”
The map is famous not for all this information about the
seas of India and China, however, but for its depiction
of the New World, and, even more, for the fact that this
segment is based on one of the earliest maps made by
Columbus. The reason is well known: about two-thirds of
the map made by Piri Reis was subsequently detached and
lost or destroyed. It was this two-thirds that depicted
the Orient.
The Persian Gulf may well have been represented in this
lost portion. The eight ja`fariyyas, probably specimens
of classical Arab cartography but possibly augmented by
the new genre of mappaemundi produced in Europe in the
two decades just before 1513, should all have included
this extension of the Indian Ocean. Furthermore, from
1507 the Gulf was one of the prime targets of Lusitanian
overseas expansion; the four Portuguese whose work Piri
Reis had used may have drawn their maps on the basis of
their own experience or on the testimony of their
compatriots. The Turkish cartographer surely grasped
both the scientific importance of this new documentation
and the strategic and economic consequences of
Portuguese penetration into the Persian Gulf. Hormuz was
a hub of navigation and trade in the Gulf, and while
Piri Reis was preparing this segment of the map, he may
have heard of the first conquest of this island by
Afonso de Albuquerque. A man of keen intellectual
curiosity, Piri Reis no doubt relished examining the
evidence about Columbus’s voyages and converting it into
his own cartographic and narrative work, but we can
surmise that to him and to his compatriots, news from
the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf was more important.
There were no Muslims in America, and the Ottoman sultan
did not have to worry too much about what the Infidels
of Europe would do to the heathen over there. In
contrast, Hormuz, the center of a local Muslim kingdom
threatened by Portugal, seemed to cry for help, and the
only power capable of providing it was the Ottoman
Empire. These may have been the thoughts of Piri Reis
when he wrote the following lines in the versified
introduction to the Kitabi Bahriye:
“Know that Hormuz is an island. Many merchants visit
it,…But now, o friend, the Portuguese have come there
and built a stronghold on its cape. They control the
place and collect the customs – you see into what
condition that province has sunk! The Portuguese have
vanquished the natives, and their own merchants crowd
the warehouses there. Whatever the season, trading
cannot now happen without the Portuguese.”
Piri Reis wrote these lines in 1526, thirteen years
after the creation of his world map. During this period
he heard about two major events, which caused him alarm
and moved him to write what amounted to an implicit
appeal to the Ottoman sultan. The first was the
definitive occupation of Hormuz by the Portuguese in
1515, and the second was a Portuguese attack on Jedda
two years later. The latter event, although it took
place in the Red Sea, was conceived by the Portuguese as
part of their efforts to block the flow of the spice
trade towards the Mediterranean. Moreover, it had the
additional goal of striking a blow at the sacred center
of the Islamic community, Mecca. This time the defenders
withstood the assault, but the fact alone that the
Infidels had been allowed to mount it appalled Piri
Reis, as he so emphatically stated in his portolan:
“…Ships round this cape [sc. the Cape of Good Hope] and
come [this way]. At one point 30 [Portuguese] barças
even came and rode before Jedda! They also had five
galleys with them – their coming was a disgrace for us.
Had they seized [Jedda] just once, we would have tossed
its ashes skyward [in despair]. Now that they have come
to Jedda, people constantly talk [about the incident].”
The Portuguese attempt to seize Jedda occurred in April
1517, and thus almost exactly coincided with Sultan
Selim’s conquest of Egypt. It was a remarkable
coincidence. A Turkish captain of proven merit, Selman
Reis, directed the successful defense of this port of
Mecca. Meanwhile a squadron of the imperial fleet,
summoned by the sultan, arrived in Cairo, with Piri Reis
and his map aboard. It was there that our cartographer
and hydrographer availed himself of the opportunity to
present his priceless work to the sultan. We do not know
what response or perhaps reward the author received; nor
do we know when the map was torn into two parts. It may
have happened right then and there, the sultan or his
aides deeming the elongated sheet too unwieldy and the
segment showing a hitherto unknown and distant land less
relevant.
After the Egyptian campaign, Piri Reis probably returned
to Gallipoli, where he may have had his cartographic and
hydrographic workshop (unless he had been transferred by
the admiralty to the newly founded naval arsenal at
Kasimpaşa). There, he must have been preparing his other
masterpiece, the Kitabi Bahriye, which he finished by
the time Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent ascended the
throne in 1520. As he wrote in the preface,
“The reason for compiling this book is that a number of
master craftsmen have now brought forward offerings from
their various trades to the auspicious threshold and
felicitous gate of His Majesty the World-protecting
Emperor, so as to gain high status in society and attain
name and renown through the matchless favor of that well-favored
sovereign. Harboring the same hope, I have also compiled
a memorable book on the science of navigation and the
profession of the mariner, so as to present it to the
sublime abode of the Emperor. Until now, nobody has
produced a useful manual of this type dealing with the
above-mentioned science.”
The book must have earned Piri Reis recognition at the
admiralty and among his fellow mariners (the large
number of extant copies is proof of that), but it failed
to reach the highest quarters. We can deduce both the
success and the disappointment from the fact that in
1524 the admiralty chose him as the pilot of the ship
that was to convey the grand vizier Ibrahim Paşa from
Istanbul to Alexandria; and that Piri Reis took
advantage of the interest the vizier showed in the
Kitabi Bahriye to ask him to present it to the sultan.
Ibrahim Paşa agreed, but suggested that the mariner
produce a more polished volume for the occasion. This
was a fortunate suggestion, for it led to another
priceless gift to cultural history, the celebrated
second version of this unique portolan.
Piri Reis presented the new edition to the sultan two
years later, or at least that is the date – 932/1526 –
of its completion recorded in the colophon. 1526 was
another milestone in Ottoman history, for with his
Mohacs campaign Süleyman the Magnificent added the
greater part of Hungary to his empire. We can surmise
that in that year or soon afterwards he did see the map
and perhaps even received the author, but there is no
evidence what kind of appreciation or comprehension – if
any – of the work’s value, or of the author himself, he
showed. After 1526 and until 1547, Piri Reis’s life
lapsed into the anonymity of the rank and file, broken
only by the worthy but minor production of another world
map dated to 1528. Then in 1547 he was appointed to the
naval base at Suez as admiral of the Indian Ocean fleet.
The three decades, 1517-1546, were important for the
Ottoman Empire not only for its phenomenal expansion on
land, but also for its acquisition of direct access to
the Indian Ocean. The conquest of Egypt in 1517 placed
the Turks on one of the two doorsteps of the Orient,
with Suez on the Red Sea as the principal naval base.
The conquest of Basra on the Persian Gulf in 1546 opened
the other door. The next two steps should have been the
acquisition of Aden and Hormuz – and they were. In both
cases, Piri Reis was to command the expeditions charged
with this task. A fleet sixty units strong sailed from
Suez in April 1548 and captured Aden in January/February
1549 from a local Arab chieftain. The government showed
its appreciation by rewarding Piri Reis with a zeamet
worth an annual yield of 100,000 akces. Three years
later, in April 1552, another expedition under his
command left Suez with Hormuz as the principal target.
The fleet of some thirty units arrived at this island
port and fortress in October 1552. The Portuguese had
received sufficient advance notice from their scouts
about the approaching danger to prepare for the siege on
land, but not early enough to confront the enemy at sea.
The harbor was crowded with merchant vessels, which the
Portuguese governor immediately impounded but could not
use for combat. The Turks quickly overran the island and
started bombarding the inner fortress, into which the
Portuguese garrison had withdrawn. The resistance,
tougher than Piri Reis may have expected, did not show
any signs of slackening, and his own supply of gunpowder
and other equipment dwindled at an alarming rate. Worse
still, he received reports that a Portuguese war fleet
from Goa was coming. He thus decided to raise the siege
and proceed to the safety of Ottoman Basra. Kubad Paşa
was the beylerbeyi of this recently created eyalet and
acted as a representative of central authority. There
seems to have been growing hostility between him and the
kapudan of the fleet, possibly because Piri Reis blamed
Kubad Paşa for not sending him the necessary supplies
during the siege. This hostility may have been at the
root of two unfortunate acts – the commander’s resolve
to return to Egypt forthwith, and an accusatory report
the Paşa probably sent to Istanbul. Piri Reis’s haste
was so great that he left the bulk of his fleet in Basra
and sailed back with only three ships. He arrived in
Suez some time in late 1553, and hurried overland to
Cairo. The governor, Davud Paşa, did not receive him
kindly either. Piri Reis, already burdened with his
failure to conquer Hormuz and to justify the siege’s
abortion, also failed to explain his precipitous return
without the fleet of which he was in charge. This at
least must have been the gist of the report that Davud
Paşa wrote to Istanbul. The sultan sent back his verdict:
Death. The verdict was carried out forthwith, and all
the possessions of the condemned were sealed and sent to
the imperial capital.
Such was the sad and inglorious end of the great
cartographer and hydrographer’s life. Did he deserve the
punishment? Did the sultan act justly and wisely by
passing this death sentence? No known extant records
document the crucial events that ultimately led to Piri
Reis’s execution. We possess only a few passages
included by Ottoman and Portuguese chroniclers in their
works. A composite picture drawn from them thus suggests
the following:
1. Piri Reis found Portuguese resistance tougher than he
had expected (in contrast, for example, to Aden three
years earlier); he had begun to run out of gunpowder etc.;
and he believed reports about an approaching enemy
relief fleet. This prompted him to act the way he
subsequently did.
2. Certain Ottoman historians, however, make two
additional and more damning accusations. Piri Reis would
have raided the neighboring island of Qishm and
despoiled its inhabitants, especially the wealthy
citizens of Hormuz who had taken refuge there at the
beginning of the siege. Worse still, some claim that
Piri Reis raised the siege because the Portuguese
commander had bribed him.
3. Finally there is the odd decision to leave the fleet
in Basra and return with only three ships to Suez, and
from there overland to Cairo.
What should we make of these reports and accusations? In
the absence of proper documentation, first and foremost
of that of a trial which would have given the accused a
chance to plead his case, summon witnesses, question his
accusers, any conclusion in this particular case cannot
but be tentative. This is then what I would suggest.
Piri Reis’s decision to raise the siege and withdraw to
Basra was based on sound judgment. The viceroy of
Portuguese India, Noronha, was coming with a large fleet
from Goa (some reports mention eighty ships), and it was
only after he had received reports that the siege had
been raised that he turned back to Goa. Had Piri Reis
persisted in besieging Hormuz, his fleet, exhausted and
low on gunpowder, could have been annihilated by the
Portuguese.
His decision to leave the bulk of the fleet in Basra and
hurry back with three galleys seems more puzzling, but
not necessarily unreasonable. Piri Reis may have been
unsure whether the enemy had fully withdrawn, and had he
run into him with his weakened fleet, the result might
have been disastrous. He had a better chance of slipping
through with three swift galleys.
But why was he in such a hurry to get back to Egypt?
Perhaps because he knew that Kubad Paşa was sending
damning reports to Istanbul, possibly to cover his own
inefficiency in providing logistical support (especially
provision of the fleet with gunpowder) during the siege,
and blocking Piri Reis’s attempts to send his own
report. Tthe only way the commander could counter these
reports was to reach Cairo, where, he may have hoped,
Davud Paşa would give him a chance to present to the
sultan his version of the siege and its aftermath.
Obviously he had miscalculated: the governor did nothing
of the sort, but set in motion a process that led to the
death sentence.
Based on these considerations, the verdict was unjust
and unfair. But what should we make of the two
additional accusations: that Piri Reis had despoiled the
Muslims of Hormuz and Qishm, and that the Infidel had
bribed him to raise the siege? Both were rumors which
any fair trial would have required to be documented. It
is not unlikely that the Turks, frustrated in their
effort to conquer Hormuz, were eager to come out with at
least something to take home, and the well-known wealth
of the local merchants must have been tempting. Piri
Reis himself may have set an example here: greed is an
all too common human failing, and the great cartographer
should not be expected to have been too different on
that score; he may indeed have brought back a handsome
share of the booty. A delegation of Hormuzis later came
to Istanbul to demand compensation, and this offers
adequate, if indirect, proof. However, the fact that the
government rejected the demand on the grounds that there
was no proof also suggests that no effort had been made
to probe the defendant’s case before passing the
verdict. As for the rumor that Piri Reis had accepted a
bribe and therefore raised the siege, this is very
unlikely. Throughout his long life the mariner,
cartographer and hydrographer had demonstrated his
devotion to Islam and his fervent loyalty to the Ottoman
sultan. Let me quote the Ottoman historian Ibrahim
Pecuyi:
MISIR KAPUDANI PIRI BEGIN BAISI QATIL VE SIYASETI
BEYANINDADIR
Mezbur dahi Hurmuz sahiline varip bazi yerleri garet
edip kulli ganayime vasil olduktan sonra, Hurmuz’u dahi
muhasara edip ve hayli müddet dovüp bi-inayeti Llahi
fethine karib olmus iken, mahsur olan mel’uni anid,
(egerce bu husus düsman halinden habir olanlar katinda
gayet muhal ve baiddir), bir miktar mal vermekle Piri
kapudani irza etti; ol dahi Hurmuz üzerinden kalkip
gitti. Ve Basra’ya varip meks u aram etti. Ve andan
sonra gemilerinden üc kita yürük kadirga [p. 352]
intihab edip maadasini Basra’da alikoyup, ve ol üc gemi
ile geldigi yoldan yine Süveys’e dogru sitab etti.
Cun bu kaziye marufi sehriyari oldu, kuffar mal vermek
muhal iken, itimad buyurmagla, siyasete fermani humayun
sadir oldu. Divani Misir’da tigi siyaset ile basi
kesildi.
Translation: “Concerning the reason for the killing and
execution of the Captain of the Egyptian Fleet Piri Beg.
The above-mentioned came to the shores of Hormuz and,
having raided several places and acquired plentiful
booty, laid siege to Hormuz, pounding it with artillery
for a prolonged period. When its fall was, with God’s
grace, imminent, the accursed obstinate besieged one –
although people who were well informed about the enemy
consider this well-nigh impossible and improbable –
bribed Piri Reis, who thus left Hormuz and proceeded to
Basra where [the fleet] could stay and find respite.
Then he selected three swift galleys, and, leaving the
rest of the fleet in Basra, he hurried with these three
ships back to Suez. When this case came to the knowledge
of the sovereign – although the bribe charge was
implausible – the [sultan] deigned to believe it and
issued an order of execution. [Piri Reis] was then
beheaded at the governor’s office in Cairo.”
So far, I have tried to discuss the sentence passed on
the accused the way lawyers might do before a judge and
a jury. There is, however, another way of judging Piri
Reis and the verdict that brought about his death. Piri
Reis never claimed to be a great naval commander, but
endeavored to be valued as a cartographer and
hydrographer. The appointments of 1548 and 1552 were to
perform tasks that others might have done better (just
one example from among many being Turgut Reis), while
his real talents and endeavors were left to wither.
The life story of Piri Reis thus reveals an
incomprehension on the part of the empire’s elite of his
real stature and potential. Had Selim I made an effort
to grasp the value of the map presented to him, the
cartographic masterpiece would not have been mutilated
but carefully deposited at the imperial palace, and
better still, the sovereign would have given orders that
copies be made of it. That was how the governments of
Portugal, Spain, France, and England acted in those
heady days of overseas discovery and competition. They
also competed for the talents of such mapmakers and
navigators, instead of neglecting them or executing
them.
Had Süleyman the Magificent examined carefully the
Kitabi Bahriye presented to him by Piri Reis, he might
have understood that the author standing before him was
a man of extraordinary value and worthy of adequate
recompense and support; in particular, the sultan ought
to have encouraged him to form a school of cartographers
and navigators and cosmographers. Indeed, was Piri Reis
given the honor of presenting the Kitabi Bahriye to the
sultan in person? If so, how were he and his book
received? Did he have a chance to mention his 1513 map
to the sultan? We can imagine Süleyman saying, “Let’s
have a look at it! Çavus, find and bring the map!”
“Başüstüne!” The map is brought, but to Piri Reis’s
dismay it is not the whole masterpiece he has vaunted
but only the mutilated specimen with two-thirds missing.
Even so, he hopes his sovereign will appreciate the
remaining part.
So does Süleyman the Magnificent express interest and
ask questions? Does he say: “A pity the major part is
missing, especially since you tell me that it shows Sind
and Hind and Çin! Could you make another such map?” Piri
Reis, delighted: “Başüstüne Sultanim! I have continued
to collect more material from captured infidel ships and
I’ve been interrogating their sailors. The map I’ll make
now will be even better!” The sultan: “Very good. You
probably need money and expanded facilities for your
office and workshop. In fact, let’s establish a center
and put you in charge of training a staff for
intelligence-gathering and mapping of that part of the
world, so that we can confront the Portuguese there and
wrest the spice trade from them! And then there are
those Muslims of Gujerat and Ache who keep sending me
appeals for protection against the Infidels; we should
do something about that. … Now the surviving part of
your map is so pretty and curious, what is this new land
and who are those strange people there? Who are the
Franks who now sail there and bring back gold and
silver? Do you think we could try it too? On second
thought, no. That route to the Indies is all right for
those Franks who sit on the edge of the Western Ocean,
but not for us who are too far away. But we have an
advantage over them by owning the threshold of the
Eastern Route. So get down to work, tell us what you
need. I’ll make sure to provide it and to recompense you
for all your efforts, for this handsome and interesting
book in the first place. You say I can read in the long
introduction about the whole world and find answers to
the questions I have just asked – many thanks! And I’ll
want to see again how you and your work are doing. Don’t
hesitate to ask for an audience every time you have
something serious to report or to request! And of course
we’ll call on you whenever we need you. Good luck!”
“Başüstüne Sultanim!”
Not only did no such meeting of minds happen, but Piri
Reis was dismissed from Süleyman the Magnificent’s mind
for over two decades, until he once again came to the
attention of the sovereign, who “chose to believe the
implausible accusation” and had him killed. By then, to
quote another renowned Ottoman author, Katip Çelebi,
“Mezbur Piri Reis Bahriye nam kitabi yazip Akdeniz
ehvalini anda beyan eylemiştir. Islamiyanin bu fende
andan gayri kitabi olmamağla, ekseriya deryada gezenler
ana müraceet ederler” (“This Piri Reis wrote a book
called Bahriye, in which he described the Mediterranean
Sea; Muslims have no other book on this subject, and
most navigators consult it continuallyt”).
The Persian Gulf has been stated as the theme, in
conjunction with Piri Reis, of my talk. In conclusion, I
would also like to stress the special role of Cairo. The
lost part of the map which Piri Reis made in 1513 almost
certainly included the Persian Gulf, and he presented
this cartographic masterpiece to Sultan Selim in 1517 in
Cairo. Little reward or support ensued. Thirty-seven
years later, in 1554, Piri Reis returned to Cairo from
the Persian Gulf, only to face a death sentence issued
by or in the name of Selim’s son Süleyman, which was
summarily carried out. By neglecting and ultimately
executing Piri Reis, the sultans and the rest of the
Ottoman elite also passed a death sentence on the great
potential that he represented – the Ottoman Empire as a
participant in the new world of discovery and true
competition spearheaded by Europe.
It is gratifying that one of the greatest statesmen of
all time, Kemal Atatürk, gave Piri Reis – albeit
posthumously – his due by lavishing praise on him and
ordering a study and reproduction of his work, both
cartographic and hydrographic. Atatürk did so while
searching for highlights of Turkish history that the
Turks could be proud of; and this legitimate pride is as
alive today as it was in Mustafa Kemal’s time.
To cite just one example: Mustafa Celalzade, Süleyman
the Magnificent’s senior chancellor (and thus also
referred to as Koca Nişanci) in his famous historical
work known as Tabakat al-memalik devotes ten terse lines
to the siege of Hormuz and its consequences, mentioning
“Hind kapudani olan Piri Beg” with a mixture of censure
and ignorance, repeating the charge of bribery and
concluding with the cartographer’s execution (Topkapi
Sarayi Muzesi kütüphanesi, Bağdat 298, fol. 392a-b). He
then proceeds to present a long and flowery account,
embellished with poetry, of Seydi Ali Çelebi’s sailing
with the fleet from Basra to Suez. In fact, the fleet
never reached the Red Sea but was driven by the
Portuguese and storms out into the Indian Ocean, the
remnant ultimately reaching the Indian coast. Seydi Ali
then traveled overland back to the Ottoman empire.
Celalzade’s account, fifty-three lines long, is
virtually devoid of these realities but instead presents
a verbose, imaginary epic of the Ottoman ships’ soundly
defeating the Portuguese (ibid., fol. 392b-393b). Seydi
Ali Reis was a man of merit, some of it akin to that of
Piri Reis; but he was also a man of the establishment
and a poet, unlike the self-made and self-taught mariner
who was our cartographer, and as such he received a
markedly different treatment from Kanuni Süleyman to
Koca Nişanci and all the way to the cultural salons of
Istanbul.
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