Following the discovery of America by the Italian sailor Christopher Columbus in 1492, European naval fleets achieved remarkable expansion across international seas and oceans. After Columbus discovered America, European voyages to the New World multiplied, gaining significant maritime experience and amassing vast wealth through valuable minerals extracted from the Americas.
Among the most notorious European fleets known for expanding into open seas, colonising coastal cities, and plundering what they found was the Portuguese fleet. This Portuguese maritime push coincided with the ascension of the ninth Ottoman Sultan, Selim I, who assumed power in 1512. At the time Selim I came to power, the Portuguese threat and their wars in the Arabian Gulf were at their peak, led by the Portuguese commander Afonso de Albuquerque.
Albuquerque was determined and insistent on conquering the lands of the Arabian Gulf — specifically the Hijaz — to destroy the Kaaba and seize the grave of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and his relics. Albuquerque planned to seize the Prophet’s grave ﷺ and use it to bargain with the Muslims for Jerusalem, handing back the Prophet’s grave ﷺ in exchange for Muslims surrendering Jerusalem without any conflict. As for the Prophet’s ﷺ relics, he intended to cast them into the sea.
At that time, the Hijaz was under the rule of the Mamluks, who fought Albuquerque’s advances with great effort and courage. The Mamluks asked the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II — father of Selim I — for help and support. Sultan Bayezid II sent them a naval fleet and some military supplies. However, Albuquerque intercepted part of that aid with his naval prowess before it reached the Mamluks. Despite only a portion of Selim I’s support reaching the Mamluks, it was enough to repel Albuquerque from the lands of the Muslims.
When Selim I took power, he was also facing the threat of the Safavid sectarian expansion under Shah Ismail. Intelligence reports informed him that Shah Ismail sought to ally with Albuquerque to control the Arabian Gulf, the Levant, and Egypt — to eliminate the Mamluks and replace them. If he failed to ally with the Portuguese, Shah Ismail planned to ally with the Mamluks to destroy the Ottoman state and seize its territories. But this did not happen, as Albuquerque died in 1515 and his forces withdrew, while Sultan Selim I left Shah Ismail with no opportunity to form any alliance with the Mamluks.
Despite Albuquerque’s death and his forces’ retreat, the Portuguese fleet — strongly backed by the Orthodox Church in Europe after it publicly declared its intention to seize the Prophet’s grave ﷺ — resumed its movements toward the Arabian Gulf, specifically targeting Mecca and Medina to exhume the Prophet’s grave ﷺ.
Selim I realised there was an imminent threat surrounding the Ottoman state from all directions. He therefore decided to bring the Mamluks under the authority of the Ottoman state to prevent their potential alliance with Shah Ismail and to stop Shah Ismail from expanding his Safavid Shia influence within Muslim lands. Sultan Selim I succeeded in subjugating the Mamluks through the Battles of Marj Dabiq in 1516 and Ridaniya in 1517.
By bringing the Levant and Egypt under his rule, Selim I crushed Shah Ismail’s hopes of allying with the Mamluks to seize the Arabian Gulf and the Levant. By advancing toward the Gulf region — and specifically Mecca and Medina — to block the Portuguese from achieving their aim, he also destroyed Shah Ismail’s dream of an alliance with the Portuguese to fully control the Gulf. In doing so, he protected the Islamic lands and the grave of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ from desecration and seizure.
Sultan Selim I was able to thwart the Portuguese plan to seize the Prophet’s grave ﷺ by sending military aid to the Mamluks in 1513, asserting control over the Levant and Egypt — and thus the Arabian Gulf — curbing Portuguese expansion, and deploying a determined protective army to defend Mecca and Medina.
