_ 171 _ feared the intentions of his principal commercial partner, Gujarat,(A) less than those of the expansionist ambitions of his powerful neighbour on the Iranian continent, Shah Isma’il. Whether he had been informed of Albuquerque’s intrigues by the Ormuz authorities or by public rumour, the shah reacted vigorously; a Safavid mission, which Albuquerque insultingly repulsed, arrived towards the end of 1507 to assert the rights of the shah to Ormuz. Whether out of respect for the honour of the Safavid dynasty or indifference to the minor events of distant regions of the Persian Gulf, the Persian historians of the time mention the Portuguese seizure in a few words only. A great maritime power, Gujarat reacted quite differently from Persia to the presence of the ‘Frankish pirates’ in the Arabian Sea and along the coasts of India. And so, it is not surprising that the summary of the letter, of which we give the translation, the only known Persian document which describes the first attack of the Portuguese against Ormuz, should be handed down not by a Safavid chonicler but by an Indo-Persian chronicle of Gujarat, the Tarih-i Mahmud-Sahi.(B) (A) On economic relations between the Gujarat and the Persian Gulf see J. Aubin, Le royaume d’ Ormuz au début du XVIe Siècle, in Mare Luso-indicum, II, on pp. 170-1. (B) On this work, see J. Aubin, Indo-islamica I. La vie et l’oeuvre de
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