Battle of Ash-Shihr | |||||
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![]() Purple: Portuguese presence in Yemen, 16th and 17th century. Pink: Allied sultan territories | |||||
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Belligerents | |||||
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Commanders and leaders | |||||
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Strength | |||||
8 ships.[2] 6 galleons.[1] 400-700 soldiers[2] | Unknown | ||||
Casualties and losses | |||||
Unknown | 480+ killed |
The Battle of Ash-Shihr was an attack launched by the Portuguese navy in 1523 on the city of Ash-Shihr which was a part of the Kathiri Sultanate.[3]
In Thursday, February 28, 1523 (10 of the month of Rabi’ al-Awwal in the year 929 AH), the Portuguese governor of India, Dom Duarte de Meneses, dispatched his brother, Dom Luís de Meneses, to the Red Sea with a force of 6 galleons. Dom Luís was tasked with delivering an ambassador to the Christian Emperor of Ethiopia and hunting hostile Muslim trade ships sailing between the Indian Ocean and Jeddah.[1] Along the way, he called at the city of Ash-Shihr.
After claiming that the property of a Portuguese merchant who had died in al-Shiḥr had been unlawfully seized by the Kathīrī sultan, Dom Luís ordered the assault of the city.[4] It was then successfully attacked and sacked while the inhabitants fled. Shihr was further plundered by the settlement's garrison, and by vagrants.[5] The city's defenders attempted to face them on the beaches, but they were routed and the emir Mutran b. Mansur was killed in battle with a bullet.[5] The battle continued for three days between the people of the city of Al-Shihr and the Portuguese forces.
Seven of Ash-Shihr's legal scholars and learned men were killed by the Portuguese. These men would collectively come to be a known as “The Seven Martyrs of al-Shiḥr” and whose tomb would become the site of an annual pilgrimage.[6]
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