One of the most fascinating aspects of the Ottoman engagement with global exploration lies in their cartographic tradition, especially the work of Piri Reis, a naval admiral and mapmaker.

Piri Reis’s 1513 world map — created just 21 years after Columbus’s first voyage — contains a remarkably accurate depiction of the coastlines of Europe, North Africa, Brazil, and the Caribbean. His Kitab-ı Bahriye (Book of Navigation), published in 1521, served as a sophisticated maritime atlas with detailed descriptions of the Mediterranean coastline, harbors, and currents.

His maps did not merely replicate European models but incorporated Islamic geography, Arabic naming conventions, and information gathered from various sources, including captured European charts. This synthesis of knowledge underscores the Ottoman cosmopolitanism and their recognition of an interconnected world, even as they interpreted it through a distinctly Islamic lens.

 Naval Exploration and the Red Sea-Indian Ocean Strategy

While Ottomans did not colonize overseas territories like the Spanish or Portuguese, they aggressively pursued maritime power in the eastern seas. Under Sultan Selim I and Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottomans established a naval presence in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, challenging Portuguese incursions and defending Islamic holy sites and trade routes.

The conquest of Egypt in 1517 gave the Ottomans direct access to the Red Sea, and with it, the rich trade networks of the Indian Ocean. Their fleets, commanded by figures such as Hadım Süleyman Pasha and Seydi Ali Reis, launched expeditions to Yemen, Gujarat, Hormuz, and even down the Swahili Coast.

These efforts were not simply military; they were ideological. The Ottomans saw themselves as protectors of Muslim merchants and pilgrims against Christian European aggression. Their naval campaigns, therefore, were extensions of both political ambition and religious duty — a kind of discovery of empire not in uncharted lands, but in the assertion of sovereignty over distant Muslim territories shutdown123