Siege of Jeddah

For the 1925 siege, see Battle of Jeddah (1925).

Siege of Jeddah
Part of the Portuguese–Mamluk naval war,
Ottoman–Portuguese confrontations
Date12 April 1517
Location
Jeddah, Arabia and the Red Sea
Result Mamluk–Ottoman victory
Belligerents
 Portuguese Empire  Ottoman Empire
 Mamluks
Commanders and leaders
Lopo Soares de Albergaria † Ottoman Empire Selman Reis
Amir Husain Al-Kurdi
Strength
36 to 43 sails (15 naus), 1,800 to 5,400 men[1] 19 ships, 3,000 soldiers (including 1,300 Turks)[2]
Casualties and losses
2 or 3 ships destroyed [3] 1 ship partially damaged due to accident fire[4]

The siege of Jeddah was a naval battle that took place in the harbor of Jeddah between a Portuguese expeditionary force under Lopo Soares de Albergaria and Ottoman elements under Selman Reis.[5] The Portuguese fleet arrived off the city’s coast on Easter day, 1517 (12 April), Hijri year 923, and moored in the channel.[6] After a quick naval action that day with few casualties, shore artillery prevented the Portuguese from landing, and weather ultimately caused them to withdraw.[7]

  1. ^ Conquistadores, Mercenaries, and Missionaries: The Failed Portuguese Dominion of the Red Sea’, Northeast African...Andreu Martínez d'Alòs-Moner, p. 8
  2. ^ An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, Volume 1" by Halil İnalcik p.321ff
  3. ^ R.B.Serjeant, The Portuguese Off the South Arabian Coast: Ḥaḍramī Chronicles, with Yemeni and European Accounts of Dutch Pirates Off Mocha in the Seventeenth Century, 1963, Clarendon Press, p. 51
  4. ^ R.B.Serjeant, p. 51
  5. ^ Serjeant, R. B. (1974). The Portuguese off the South Arabian Coast: Hadramī chronicles, with Yemeni and European accounts of Dutch pirates of mocha in the seventeenth century. Librairie du Liban. 50-51, citing al-Shiḥrī
  6. ^ Meloy, J. L. (2010). Imperial power and Maritime Trade: Mecca and Cairo in the later Middle Ages. Published by the Middle East Documentation Center on behalf of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago. 223.
  7. ^ Meloy, J. L. (2010). Imperial power and Maritime Trade: Mecca and Cairo in the later Middle Ages. Published by the Middle East Documentation Center on behalf of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago. 223, citing Gaspar Correa’s Lendas da India