Podcasts · The Ottoman Empire: How It Ruled Three Continents for 600 Years — Fexingo History

The Ottoman Empire's Forgotten Navy: Piri Reis and the Indian Ocean

23 Aug 2026 · 9:56 · S5 E212

In 1517, the Ottoman Empire conquered Egypt and suddenly inherited a naval frontier that stretched from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean. For decades, Istanbul struggled to project power across waters that were a world away from the Mediterranean. This episode follows the rise and fall of the Ottoman Indian Ocean fleet, from the early expeditions of Selman Reis to the ambitious campaigns of Hadim Süleyman Pasha against the Portuguese at Diu. We meet the cartographer Piri Reis, whose magnificent world map survives to this day, and his ill-fated successor Seydi Ali Reis, who lost his fleet in a storm and then wrote a book about it. We explore why the Ottomans, despite their resources, never managed to dislodge the Portuguese from the Indian Ocean, and how that failure shaped the balance of power in Asia for centuries. Along the way, we touch on the geopolitics of the spice trade, the role of the Aceh sultanate in Sumatra, and the surprising connections between Istanbul and the islands of Southeast Asia.

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