The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c25.71

v3.c25.71

The naval victory over the Portuguese at Chaul in 1508, which had so elated the Muslims, was without lasting results, for in the following year Almeida sailed up the west coast with his whole fleet to Diū, where he found the Egyptian fleet with its Indian auxiliaries lying between the island and the mainland. In the desperate battle which followed the Muslims were totally defeated and the Egyptian fleet almost entirely destroyed. No mention of this Portuguese victory is made by the Muslim historians, but it is alluded to by the Arabic historian of the Zamorins of Calicut. Full and circumstantial accounts are, however, to be found in the Portuguese chronicles. After this failure to drive the Portuguese from the Indian seas Mahmūd Begarha ordered Malik Ayāz to make peace, and to return the prisoners taken at Chaul. In the following year the Portuguese first obtained possession of Goa and transferred their headquarters from Cochin to that city. Mahmūd offered them a site for a factory at Diū, and almost immediately after the accession of Muzaffar II in 1511 a Portuguese mission arrived to seek permission for the construction of a fort to protect the factory. This request was not granted, and the mission left. Yādgār Beg, the ambassador from Shāh Ismā‘īl Safavī whom Mahmūd Begarha had refused to receive, was favourably received by Muzaffar, and was lodged at Ahmadābād, and afterwards at Chāmpāner.