Mirza Ali Beg was an Ottoman corsair (or buccaneer) in the late 16th century. Throughout the 1580s, Mirza Ali Beg reportedly led several expeditions in the attempt of the Ottoman Empire to contest the Portuguese control of the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, and Indian Ocean down the Eastern Coast of Africa. He began this chain of expeditions in 1581, when he raided the Portuguese controlled city of Muscat, Oman, which appears to have been a resounding success. From there he would begin making his way down the Eastern African Coast, reaching the Kenyan city of Malindi by 1585.[1] Ali Beg would return from his first expedition to the Swahili Coast in 1586 resoundingly successful, having "managed to secure the allegiance of every major Swahili port town except Malindi, to capture three fully laden Portuguese vessels, and to return safely to Mocha with some 150,000 cruzados of booty and nearly sixty Portuguese prisoners."[2] However, the success of Mir Ali Beg's expeditions were widely kept a secret from the general Ottoman government, because three government members: Hasan Pasha, Kilich Ali Pasha, and Hazinedar Sinan Pasha, had hatched a conspiracy to gain more funding for naval expeditions by lying to the central government about an exaggerated Portuguese threat.[2] Because news of Ali Beg's success would suggest that they were already in control of the sea, and thus would need no new funding, they kept it to themselves. However, this would come back to haunt them as in 1588 the Swahili people would arrive in Yemen requesting aid from the Portuguese fleet, and Hasan Pasha would have no credibility on which to ask for government funding or assistance, forcing him to send Mir Ali Beg back with just his same small fleet of five ships and 300 men. This would ultimately cost Ali Beg and the Ottomans, with his fleet being defeated in 1589 in Mombasa not only by the Portuguese but also a surprise third faction of supposed Zimba cannibals that ambushed them during battle. Mir Ali Beg would surrender to the Portuguese fleet and be taken captive along with much of his crew. He would then be sent to Goa and later Lisbon where he would convert to Christianity and live for the remainder of his life.[3]
