Portugal, the Persian Gulf and Safavid Persia

Abstracts of papers and biographies of speakers sorted alphabetically by last name of speaker

Joao de Barros (1496-1570) and the renaissance Portuguese perception of Persia
Michael Barry, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, USA, Metropolitan Museum of Arts.

No renaissance Portuguese writer pondered more deeply the historical, cultural, and even spiritual significance of his country's new contact with the ancient civilization of Persia, than Joao de Barros (1496-1570): A humanist and literary stylist who became both the royal administrator of Lisbon's 'India House', and the official chronicler of Portugal's seaborne empire. Barros stressed that by landing in Persia and dealing with her splendid kings (Shah Isma'il and later Shah Tahmasp), the Portuguese truly followed in the wake of the great ancients, and might lay claim to becoming themselves legitimate successors to Xenophon's and Alexander's Greeks. Dismissing all other non-Christian cultures encountered by the Portuguese along the African and Asian coasts. Persia's enduring cultural prestige in Barros' own eyes led him to commission, from his native agents in Hormuz, the dispatch and translation not only of diplomatic correspondence, but of an entire contemporary Persian prose 'chronicle', or Tarikh, by one Turan Shah, now lost, retracing the history of Iran from her most ancient pre-Islamic hero-kings to the recent triumph of Shah Isma'il: The very first Persian literary text (as opposed to medieval Arabic-language writings) ever translated into a European language - Portuguese.

Indeed, in his effort to justify Portugal's vital alliance in 1515 with Shah Isma'il's Persia against 'Arabs' and 'Turks' in light of the proclaimed sixteenth century Iberian crusade against all Islam, Barros pores over his version of the Tarikh (and probably other translated Persian writings as well) to distinguish and introduce to his renaissance European readers the Shi'i form of the faith, as a doctrine far more subtle and consonant with natural philosophy, and even with the teachings of Christianity, than the Sunni school once professed by the former Arab conquerors of Spain.

The accounts of earlier Venetian merchants and envoys in late medieval Iran are often shrewd and perceptive, but hardly approach Barros's description of Persia in cultural scope or historical depth. Whatever its factual errors and abundant share in the prejudices of its own day, Barros's multi-volume Decadas da Asia, first published in Lisbon in 1551, was the pioneering work that first identified, for European readers, the land of Persia as a distinct cultural entity within the larger world of Islam: A country vitally connected to its own pre-Islamic past, and possessed of a literature, spirituality, and civilization worthy of the highest admiration. Barros may rightly be termed the true father of 'Persian studies' in the West.

Michael Barry was born in New York city in 1948 but raised in France, awarded higher degrees from Princeton, Cambridge and McGill Universities and a doctorate from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, and further recognized as a prize-winning author in both the French and English languages, Dr. Barry has lived extensively in Afghanistan where his work over nearly four decades has ranged from research in social anthropology and studies of that country's medieval art and archaeology, to defence of human rights and coordinating humanitarian relief operations as field consultant for the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights, then for Médecins du Monde, and finally for various agencies of the United Nations. He returned to the United States in 2004, since when he has taught Islamic art, readings in classical Persian literature, and the histories of modern Afghanistan, Mughal India, and medieval Spain, at Princeton University's Department of Near Eastern Studies. In 2005 he was also appointed Chairman of the Department of Islamic Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where he currently oversees the reorganization of the collection for the Islamic Galleries scheduled for re-opening in 2010. Parallel to his concern for modern Afghan humanitarian issues, Dr. Barry has pursued his medievalist research in profound conviction that the related traditional civilizations of Islam and Christendom invite close comparison and throw considerable light upon one another: Hence his abiding interest in medieval Iberia as well as in medieval Iran and India, and contribution of many articles and catalogue chapters (Paris 1992, Lisbon 1998) to medieval and Renaissance Iberian studies. Dr. Barry's prize-winning Afghan-related publications (mainly in French) include Afghanistan (1974), Le royaume de l'insolence (1984, revised 1989, revised 2002) and Massoud (2002, Prix Fémina 2002); his French-language translation and study of the twelfth-century Persian language poet Nizami, Le pavillon des sept princesses (2000) was awarded Iran's prize for Book of the Year in Persian Civilization in 2002; in the field of Islamic art, the French-language version of his Colour and symbolism in Islamic architecture (1994/1995) received the Prix Eugène Carrière d'Histoire de l'Art from the Académie Francaise in 1997; his latest book, Figurative art in medieval Islam - and the riddle of Bihzad of Herat (1465-1535) (2004), explores in detail the allegorical code of 'Persian miniatures', while his latest study of the symbolism of Giorgione's Three philosophers - with its central figure identified as Averroes - appears in the catalogue of the exhibition Venice and the world of Islam (2006/2007).

Giovambattista and Gerolamo Vecchietti and the Portuguese in Hormuz (end of the sixteenth century - beginnings of the seventeenth century)
Michele Bernardini, Instituto Universitario Orientale, Italy

The paper considers the stay of the Papal envoy in Persia Giovambattista Vecchietti in Hormuz during his mission in this country at the end of the sixteenth century. Though very important for its political aims, especially the attempts for an anti-ottoman alliance, the mission of Giovambattista Vecchietti in Iran and in particular in Hormuz, was also the occasion for the collection of several manuscripts today kept in European libraries. The manuscript Ms.III.G.34, in the National Library of Naples, the Psalms of David in Persian, written by Sams al-Din Khunji in Hormuz represents an interesting example of the attention which Vecchietti had for the discovery of Biblical texts in Persia. The same manuscript, together with several other evidences, recently found in the Vatican Library, offers information about the Portuguese presence in the island immediately before its capture in 1622. The friendly relations between Giovambattista Vecchietti and the governors of Hormuz, in particular Coutinho and Munez, represents an important point for the reconstruction of the last years of the Portuguese control of Hormuz, and permits a wide consideration of the political implication of several powers in the area: the Safavids, the Venetians, the Spanish and Papal State. The paper considers also the stay of Gerolamo Vecchietti in Hormuz (1603).

Michele Bernardini received his PhD in Iranian Studies from the University of Naples (Instituto Universitario Orientale) in 1991 with a thesis entitled 'Gli Haft Manzar di Abdallah Hatefi.' He is a researcher and Associate Professor in the Istituto Universitario Orientale of the University of Naples in Persian language, literature and history of Iran and Central Asia and Director with Kate Fleet of the review Eurasian Studies. His publications include Storia del mondo islamico (VII-XVI secolo) (2003), Ottoman 'Timuridism': Lami'i Celebi and his sehrengiz of Bursa (in Eva M. Jeremias, ed., Irano-Turkic cultural contacts in the 11th-17th centuries, 2003), Hatifi's Timurnama and Qasimi's Shahnameh-yi Isma'il: Considerations towards a double critical edition (in Andrew J. Newman, ed., Society and culture in the early modern Middle East: Studies on Iran in the Safavid Period, 2003), The illustrations of a manuscript of the travel account of Francois de La Boullaye Le Gouz in the library of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in Rome (in Muqarnas, 2004), Mottaharten entre Timur et Bayezid: Une position incomfortable dans les remous de l'histoire anatolienne (in Gilles Veinstein, ed., Syncrétisme et hérésies dans l'Orient seldjoukide et ottoman (XIVe-XVIIIe siècle), 2005).

Mapping the backyard of an empire: Portuguese cartographies of the Persian Gulf during the Safavid period
Zoltan Biedermann, Centro de Historia de Alem-Mar, Faculdade de Ciencias Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal

This paper will analyze a set of twenty-five Western European, mostly Portuguese maps from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries representing the Persian Gulf such as it was perceived by traders and policy makers since the takeover of Hormuz in 1507/1515. The focus will be on the morphology of the Iranian littoral and the adjacent islands from Jask to the Shatt al-Arab. Special attention will be given to the development of the toponymic data, namely to the fluctuations and migrations of place names and their meaning for the political and economic history of the region. An attempt will be made to evaluate the Portuguese as well as the Iranian contributions to the making of the modern image of the Gulf. The paper will conclude with some reflections on the role of cartography in the rise of imperial ambitions around the Persian Gulf during the early modern period.

Zoltan Biedermann is a researcher at the Center for Overseas History of the New University of Lisbon. He holds a PhD from the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris and the New University of Lisbon (2006), an MA from the University of Munich (1998) and a BA from the University of Porto (1994). He has worked on various aspects of the Portuguese impact on the Western Indian Ocean region during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He is the author of a recent monograph on the island of Soqotra: Geschichte einer christlichen Insel im Indischen Ozean vom Altertum bis zur fruhen Neuzeit (2006) and of a number of articles on the Portuguese presence in Yemen, South India and Sri Lanka (unpublished thesis). From 2003 to 2006 he coordinated the Historical Atlas of the Persian Gulf, a joint project of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes and the University of Tehran. His recent research interests include the history of cartographic and textual representations of space in the early modern period. He has held a postdoctoral position at the University of California at Los Angeles, and is currently a fellow of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. He is a co-editor of the Maritime Asia series published by Harrassowitz Verlag since 2006.

Imperial smackdown: The Portuguese in the Persian Gulf between imamate and caliphate
Giancarlo Casale, Department of History, University of Minnesota, USA

The first arrival of the Portuguese in the Persian Gulf in the early sixteenth century coincided with the beginning of a protracted, existential struggle between the Ottoman and Safavid empires. During the course of this bitter confrontation, which quickly assumed the character of a religious war between Sunni Islam (represented by the Ottomans) and Twelver Shi'ism (represented by the Safavids), both sides elaborated an expansive ideology of universal dominion over the Islamic world, which in several interesting ways paralleled (and competed with) contemporary Portuguese claims to universal dominion over the seas. This paper will examine the interplay of these three rival imperial ideologies, through a discussion of each side's diplomatic and political maneuverings for control of the Persian Gulf during the middle decades of the sixteenth century.

Giancarlo Casale, a specialist in Ottoman history, received his PhD from Harvard University in 2004. He is also a former Fulbright-Hayes fellow, Kennedy/Sinclair scholar, and NEH post-doctoral fellow. Since the fall of 2005, he has taught at the Twin Cities campus of the University of Minnesota, where he is an Assistant Professor in the History Department and an affiliate of the Center for Early Modern History. Prof. Casale's current research, based on extensive archival field work in both Turkey and Portugal, deals with the history of Ottoman imperial expansion in the Indian Ocean during the early modern period. He has shared his ongoing work at numerous international conferences, and has authored several recent articles on the subject, including His majesty's servant Lutfi: The career of a previously unknown sixteenth-century Ottoman envoy to Sumatra (in Turcica, 2005), The Ottoman administration of the spice trade in the sixteenth-century Red Sea and Persian Gulf (in Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 2006), The ethnic composition of Ottoman ship crews and the Rumi challenge to Portuguese ethnic cohesion (in Medieval encounters, 2007) and Global politics in the 1580s: One canal, twenty thousand cannibals, and an Ottoman plot to rule the world, forthcoming, November 2007. At present, Prof. Casale is adding the finishing touches to his first book manuscript, tentatively titled The Ottoman age of exploration: An Islamic seaborne empire in the sixteenth-century Indian Ocean.

Portuguese-Ottoman rivalry in the Persian Gulf in the mid-sixteenth century: The siege of Piri Reis to Hormuz in 1552 according to new sources
Dejanirah Couto, Section des Sciences Historiques et Philologiques, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes - Sorbonne, France

The object of this paper is to discuss, supported by new and relevant documentation, the last phase of the Portuguese-Ottoman conflict in the Persian Gulf, specifically the 1552 siege of Hormuz. The reasons for this attack are connected to the expedition of viceroy D. Antao de Noronha against Qatif and Basra in 1551, an episode noted by the Portuguese chronicler Diogo do Couto and documented in the political correspondence of the period that can now be studied in a more consistent way thanks to the lengthy report left by a certain Jeronimo Rodrigues. This rich document, to which historians like Cengiz Ohronlu, Salih Ozbaran and Svat Soucek did not previously have access, is a crucial historical source to understand the 1552 siege to Hormuz in all its details and impact. Thus, despite the considerable naval and military resources involved in the attack, the siege of Piri Reis is in its essence a political and military reaction of regional nature. As far as the Ottoman Empire is concerned, the specific interests of the periphery (i.e. those of lower Iraq) became more important than the ones emanated from the centre, represented by the Sublime Porte in Istanbul. Under Portuguese rule, the kingdom of Hormuz had a prominent role in this context, mainly through the expression of multiple agendas by different pressure groups that are to be researched in the present paper.

Dejanirah Couto a specialist in the Portuguese-Ottoman relations, is Associate Professor of History of Portugal and the Lusophone World in the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Section des Sciences Historiques et Philologiques, Sorbonne, Paris, since 1995. She holds a PhD in Byzantine Studies, University of Toulouse, 1979, with a thesis entitled: Military Ideology and Pacifismus in Byzantium - eleven to thirteenth centuries. She passed her Tenior proofs (Habilitation à diriger des Recherches), University of Paris X-Nanterre, 2006. She received BA from the University of Toulouse, MA in History of the Byzantine world, University of Toulouse, 1975, and MA in Historical Geography of Asia Minor,University of Paris I- Panthéon, Sorbonne, 1979. She studied Turkish and Arabic at the École Nationale des Langues Orientales, Paris, 1983. She was the invited Professor at the Universidade Nova and Universidade Classica of Lisbon, 2003 and organized several international conferences. A member of the former Jean Aubin's research team of the CNRS,Centre d'études islamiques et orientales d'histoire comparée. She belongs to two other research teams (EPHE and University of Paris III-Sorbonne). She is a member of the editorial board of the French journal 'Lusotopie' (CNRS).

Her research interests include Portuguese imperial history, international relations in the Indian Ocean in the sixteenth century, with special focus on Ottoman-Portuguese and Safavid-Portuguese relations in the Persian Gulf, in the Red Sea and in India. Among her many publications published in England, Portugal, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, and India are Histoire de Lisbonne, (2000), Portuguese translation, 2003, 6th edition, No rasto de Hadim Suleimão Pacha: alguns aspectos do comércio no Mar Vermelho nos anos de 1538-1540, A carreira da India e a Rota dos Estreitos, (1998); Les Ottomans et l'Inde Portugaise, Vasco da Gama and India(1999); L'expédition portugaise à Bassorah en 1551, (2003); Le Golfe dans la cartographie portugaise de la première moitié du XVIe siècle,( 2006); Atlas historique du Golfe Persique XVIe-XVIIIe siècles/ Historical Atlas of the Persian Gulf- sixteenth-eighteenth centuries (with Mahmoud Taleghani, Jean-Louis Bacqué-Grammont and Zoltan Biedermann), (2006); Spying in the Ottoman Empire: Sixteenth Century Encrypted Correspondence, (2006); A book on the Portuguese in Ormuz (Sixteenth Century) is forthcoming (with Rui Loureiro) as well as a book on the Portuguese in Bassorah (Sixteenth Century).

Signal defeat: Causes of the Portuguese loss of Comorao (Gambrun) in 1614 and its political and commercial consequences
Edward K. Faridany, Independent Scholar, East Sussex, U.K

Persian forces captured the fort at Gambrun on 23 December 1614 after a prolonged, five month siege. It was the first reversal suffered by the Portuguese to their territorial interests along the Persian Gulf littoral of Persia since their maritime arrival there a century before. The loss set an ominous precedent, the fort serving the strategic role of 'a barbican on which the rage of the Persian enemy could spend itself, giving time to Hormuz to prepare against their coming.' The natural harbour at Gambrun was considered at the time to offer 'the best port in all Persia, essential to the Portuguese as through it passed supplies and foodstuffs for their great entrepot island of Hormuz six miles offshore.

Ostensibly the cause for the outbreak of hostilities was the summary execution of a number of traders (nominally the Shah's subjects) by the commander of Hormuz, Don Luis de Gama, for their not obtaining Portuguese permission to sail in Persian Gulf waters. The demand for Cartaze was but one of a number of long standing challenges to Persian authority. Most recently there was also the matter of refuge given at Gambrun to two foreign fugitives from the Shah's court: Antonio de Gouvea, a Portuguese friar and onetime foreign envoy; and Michel Angelo Corai until recently the Shah's close adviser and putative representative of the Duke of Tuscany. A demand for their surrender was a specific condition of the peace terms offered by Imam Qoli Khan, the governor of Shiraz acting on behalf of Shah Abbas.

The eventual peace negotiations of 1615 were facilitated by Carmelite friars from their mission in Ispahan acting as go-betweens. Their account of events prior to the conflict and their first-hand report of the siege kept at the archives of the Discalced Carmelite order in Rome, together with Corai's letters in Florence, are two sources for the paper.

The capture of Gambrun notwithstanding, Shah Abbas moved swiftly to shore up relations with Spain (whose crown and that of Portugal were united in 1580). He took pains to see that the prisoners taken at the siege were returned to the Portuguese at Hormuz, while dispatching to Lisbon and Madrid as his representatives Robert Sherley and Fr. Redempt de la Cruz, a Carmelite friar. Based primarily on the latter's report on this mission and the 'Estado da India' archives at Simancas, the paper traces the subsequent lengthy and ultimately futile political and commercial negotiations which took place over several years.

The fallout from Gambrun was far reaching. The Spanish demand (as conveyed through their ambassador Don Garcia de Silva y Figueroa, then in Persia) for restitution of the fort as a pre-condition to wider negotiations was unacceptable to Shah Abbas and stymied all progress. For Shah Abbas, it meant his long-cherished project for the maritime export of silk to Europe's markets through Hormuz, as a counter to the conventional overland route through Ottoman territory, remained stillborn. For the Spanish, the continuing vacuum created by the absence of active relations with Shah Abbas helped set the scene for a new reality in the Persian Gulf, ultimately leading to the loss of Hormuz and the effective supplanting of Portuguese by English and Dutch commercial power in southern Persia.

Edward K. Faridany received his BA in Economics and Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley (1963), his MA (1966) in Middle East Studies, and his MBA (1967) from Harvard University. In the first phase of his professional life he worked at OPEC in Vienna, at the Economist Intelligence Unit in London, and various oil companies. He then became an independent scholar pursuing his interests in Iran which has culminated in his current research interest in the commercial and diplomatic activities of Robert Sherley and those closely associated with him, from his initial journey to Iran in 1598 until his death there in 1628.

Fiscal administration in Hormuz 1515-1543
Willem Floor, Independent Scholar, Bethesda, Maryland, USA

The availability of fiscal data of the various towns and regions that were part of the kingdom of Hormuz, as opposed to data of the customs revenues of the city of Hormuz, is limited to two lists of revenues, one for the year 1515 and the other for 1543. The dates are of great significance as in 1515 the Portuguese established their protectorate over the kingdom of Hormuz, while in the year 1543 the Portuguese took over the customs administration of the kingdom, thus signifying the end of Hormuzi control over a major part of its revenue base. Also, no further fiscal data is available on the areas outside the city of Hormuz after that year. A comparison of these two lists, which reflect Hormuzi, not Portuguese, administrative practice, gives us an insight in [a] the geographical extent of the kingdom; [b] changes therein over time; and [c] the rise and fall of the revenues of the various towns and regions between 1515 and 1543. This paper will provide an annotated translation of these two lists as well as an analysis of the significance of the fiscal and geographical differences between the two lists and in what manner these differences were brought about by the existence of the Portuguese protectorate and/or by other causes.

Willem Floor graduated from the University of Utrecht in 1968 where he studied non-western sociology, development economics, Persian, Arabic and islamology. In 1971 he received his PhD from the University of Leiden. His thesis was entitled 'The Guilds in Qajar Persia.' Between 1968 and 1983 he was employed in various functions by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and from 1983 until 2002 he was employed by the World Bank as energy specialist. His field of interest is the history of Iran from the beginning until the present day. His most recent publications are The history of theater in Iran (2005), A note of the grand vizierate in seventeenth century Persia (in ZDMG, 2005), The Persian Gulf 1500-1730, The political economy of five port cities (2006), Dastur al-Moluk, a Safavid state manual (translated and annotated in with Mohammad Faghfoory, 2007), The Hispano-Portuguese empire and its contacts with Safavid Persia, the Kingdom of Hormuz and Yarubid Oman from 1489 to 1720. A bibliography of printed publications 1508 - 2007 (with Farhad Hakimzadeh, 2007) and Travels in northern Persia 1770-1774 by Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin (translation and annotation, 2007).

Solving Rubik's Cube: Goa, Hormuz, Qandahar and the Western Deccan between Shah Abbas and Jahangir (c. 1613-1622)
Jorge Flores, Department of History, Brown University, USA

The demise of Hormuz and the rise of Bandar Abbas in 1622 is a crucial moment of the history of the early modern Persian Gulf. Notwithstanding, the fall of Portuguese Hormuz is not simply a problem of maritime hegemonies over a strategic area involving three major actors: A trade-oriented Safavid emperor (Shah Abbas I), a veteran European Empire in Asia (the 'floating' Portuguese 'Estado da India') and a newcomer European trading organization seeking business partners and commercial strongholds in the Asian Seas (the English East India Company).

The Safavid pressure over Hormuz started earlier and is parcel of a wider and much more complex scenario, stretching from the continental frontiers of the Safavid empire to the Deccan Sultanates and their role in Mughal-Portuguese relations in the early decades of the seventeenth century. From c. 1613 to 1622, one is able to identify four players - Safavids, Mughals, the Western Deccan Sultanates (Bijapur and Ahmadnagar) and the 'Estado da India' - trying to come to terms with a rather puzzling geo-political equation. It's a challenging 'magic cube' with four distinct layers: The Safavid-Portuguese conflict regarding Hormuz; the Safavid-Mughal dispute over Qandahar and its conquest by Shah Abbas, also in 1622; the growing Safavid influence over the Deccan Sultanates since the 1610s and how this politico-religious phenomenon was perceived by the Portuguese as major military threat to Goa and the empire; the Mughal-Portuguese tension in the Deccan border.

The present paper will follow - mainly resorting to the Portuguese sources of the period - this complex balance between four unequal powers. It tries to disentangle roughly a decade of intense political and diplomatic games, maritime and continental alike, which will certainly give a more accurate picture of the 'Hormuz affair'.

Jorge Flores is Associate Professor of History and Portuguese & Brazilian Studies, Brown University. Educated in Lisbon, he started his academic career in the University of Macau (1989-1994) and later taught in a number of Portuguese universities. He was 'Directeur d'études invité' at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne, Paris (2002) and Visiting Professor at Brown University (2004-2006). From late 1995 to early 1999, he was member of the Executive Committee of the National Commission for the Commemorations of the Portuguese Discoveries, Lisbon. Dr. Flores has received a number of fellowships from Portuguese foundations and other institutions, organized conferences and acted as co-curator of two exhibitions. He is a member of the editorial board of the following Portuguese journals Ler Historia, Anais de Historia de Alem-Mar and Orient. He has extensively published on the history of the Portuguese empire in Asia (sixteenth to eighteenth centuries) and especially on Sri Lanka and Mughal India. His interests are on political and cultural history, cross-cultural contacts, Iberian/European perceptions and images of early modern South Asia. His publications include Goa and the Great Mughal (edited with Nuno Vassallo e Silva, 2004), and The firangis in the Mughal chancellery. Portuguese copies of Akbar's documents (1572-1604) (with Antonio Vasconcelos de Saldanha, 2003). His most recent articles are Distant wonders: The strange and the marvellous between Mughal India and Habsburg Iberia in the early seventeenth century (in Comparative studies in society and history, forthcoming), I will do as my father did: On Portuguese and other European views of Mughal succession crises (in E-Journal of Portuguese History, 2005) and The shadow sultan: Succession and imposture in the Mughal Empire, 1628-1640 (with Sanjay Subrahmanyam in Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 2004).

Don Juan de Persia and the Society of Jesus
Enrique Garcia Hernan, Instituto de Historia del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Spain

A considerable number of diplomatic emissaries sent by Shah Abbas I (1571-1629) to Spain ended up converting to Christianity under Royal patronage and often having King Felipe III himself as godfather. Husein Beg, Uruch Beg (Juan de Persia), Ali Qoli Beg (Diego de Persia) and Buyad Beg (Felipe de Persia) arrived to Valladolid in 1601. Other Persian ambassadors came to Spain in 1605 (Francisco and Tomas), 1608 (Manuel Bautista) and 1610 (Diego and Felipe, not to be confused with those who came in 1601). The best-known of this group is Juan de Persia, especially because he wrote the famous Relaciones. However, the one who better adapted to the courtier world of Habsburg Spain was Diego, whom Felipe IV made knight of St. James (Santiago).

The presence of these new arrivals at the Court proved to be the source of numerous tensions, and they found it difficult to adapt themselves and find for themselves a useful role in the service of the Court. This paper aims to study the relationship established between Juan de Persia and the Society of Jesus, especially with Father Francisco de Salazar, rector of Valladolid College, Master in Arts and Chief-Spiritual Director. It will also address Juan de Persia's connections to the Augustinians priests Alonso Remon (editor of his Relaciones) and Nicolas Melo. The paper will mainly focus on biographical and political matters, namely the actions of Juan de Persia and Diego de Persia who were held responsible for the death of a Persian ambassador and consequently condemned to a decade of military services in Flanders in 1607. Other focal points relate to the conduct of the English Jesuit Joseph Creswell, as well as the actions of the brothers Anthony and Robert Sherley. Documents from the Archivo Historico de Loyola, the Archivo General de Simancas and the Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (Rome) have served as the main primary sources for this paper.

Enrique Garcia Hernan received a PhD in Church History from Gregorian University of Rome (1998) and one in Early Modern History from the University Complutense of Madrid (1999). He is currently a research scientist at the Instituto de Historia del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas in Madrid. His research interests include: The Spanish monarchy in the early modern age, military history, church history and political history. Among his many publications are La accion diplomatica de Francisco de Borja al servicio del Pontificado, 1571-1572 (2000), Irlanda y el rey prudente (2000), Políticos de la monarquia Hispanica, 1469-1700. Ensayo y diccionario (2002), Milicia general en la edad moderna. El batallon de don Rafael de la Barreda y Figueroa (2003), Irlanda y el rey prudente. Segunda parte (2003), la cuestion irlandesa en la politica internacional de Felipe II (2002).

The Persian ventures of Fr. Antonio de Gouveia
Rui Manuel Loureiro, Centro de Historia de Alem-Mar, Faculdade de Ciencias Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal

Antonio de Gouveia, an Augustinian friar based in Goa, repeatedly visited Persia in the early years of the seventeenth century. In the course of his diplomatic and missionary ventures, which, beginning in 1603, lasted intermittently for more than a decade, he travelled widely across the Safavid realm, meeting with people from all walks of life, including the mighty Shah Abbas. Being a prolific writer, he is the author of several accounts dealing with Luso-Persian affairs, most notably of the Relacam em que se tratam as guerras e grandes victories que alcancou o grade Rey da Persia Xa Abbas (Lisbon, 1615). Gouveia was a cultivated observer, always attentive to detail, and apparently learned the Persian language, meaning that his writings are an invaluable source about many aspects of daily life in Safavid Persia, be it the art of travel, the ambassadorial protocol, the everyday customs of different segments of the population, the mechanics of trade, or the political and military vicissitudes of the empire. At the same time, it is worthwhile analysing the Augustinian's attitude vis-a-vis the Persians, which more often than not is a positive one. Since long the Portuguese had looked at the Safavids as prospective allies in their confrontations with the Ottomans, strategic considerations overruling doctrinal ones. But Antonio de Gouveia was also a biased observer, since he was a Catholic missionary, permanently on the outlook for possible ways of converting the Persians. As such, he paid special attention to religious believes and practices wherever he went, thus turning his travel writings into a fascinating testimony about cultural differences.

Rui Manuel Loureiro was born in Porto in 1955 and lives in the Algarve, south Portugal, where he is a project director at the Lagos Municipality and in charge of cultural activities connected with the history of Portuguese discoveries. He holds a PhD in History from the Universidade de Lisboa (1995), and is a researcher at the Centro de Historia de Alem-Mar, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Macao since 1995. His present research interests include travel literature and Portuguese interactions with Asia in the early modern period (especially in connection with the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea). He has published widely about Portugal - Asia interactions, and most particularly about the history of Macau. His most recent books include: Em busca das origens de Macau (1996, Chinese translation Aomen Xungen, 1996), A biblioteca de Diogo do Couto (1998), Guia de historia de Macau, 1500-1900 (1999, Chinese translation Aomen Lishi Zhinan Macao, 1999), Fidalgos, missionarios e mandarins - Portugal e a China no seculo XVI (2000).

Iran and Portugal: Mutual Interests in the sixteenth century
Rudi Matthee, Department of History, University of Delaware, USA

This paper considers the strategic and diplomatic approach of Portugal vis-a-vis the Persian Gulf and especially Iran during the sixteenth century, with a focus on the regnal period of Joao III and Sebastiao (1521-1578), when the crusading zeal that had characterized the reign of D. Manuel (1495-1521) had given way to a more sober and pragmatic approach to empire and when the Portuguese supposedly were more focused on the Mediterranean than on the Persian Gulf.

In this period, coinciding with the reign of the Ottoman Sultan, Suleiman the Lawgiver (1520-1566), Portugal was faced with many challenges in the Islamic world at large and the Persian Gulf in particular. The Ottoman seizure of Aden in 1538, Basra in 1546 and Qatif and al-Hasa in 1550-51, made the Persian Gulf an urgent concern for the Portuguese, forcing them to find ways to reassert their presence and influence in the region.

Using Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and Latin sources, in addition to the odd Persian-language document, this presentation will analyze the mutual interests that caused Persia and Portugal to engage in diplomatic contacts and to find common ground in this period of supposedly low-intensity relations. It will examine the cooperation between the two countries in the siege of Rayshahr in 1539, the Enrique de Macedo's mission to Shah Tahmasb in 1550, and the various Portuguese-Papal attempts to include Iran in an anti-Ottoman alliance in the subsequent period. The Portuguese approach to Persia in all this was motivated by a combined desire to revive the crusades in the form of an anti-Turkish coalition and pragmatic attempts to thwart Ottoman influence in the Persian Gulf. Persia's rulers considered the Portuguese useful for providing assistance against insubordination by local rulers as well as vital for the supply of Western firearms.

Rudi Matthee is Professor of Middle Eastern History at the University of Delaware. He received his BA and MA in Arabic and Persian language and literature from the University of Utrecht, Netherlands. He studied in Iran (1976-1977) and in Egypt (1981-1983) and holds a PhD in Islamic Studies from UCLA (1991). He taught at the University of Denver, 1991-1993, and since 1993 he has been at the University of Delaware. Dr. Matthee is the author of The politics of trade in Safavid Iran: Silk for silver, 1600-1730 (1999) (recipient of prize for Best Non-Persian Language Book on Iranian History, 1999, awarded by the Iranian Ministry of Culture; honorable mention for Best Book on the Middle East Published in Britain, 1999) and The pursuit of pleasure: Drugs and stimulants in Iranian history, 1500-1900 (2005) (recipient of the 2004-05 Saidi-Sirjani Prize, awarded by the International Society for Iranian Studies, and the Albert Hourani Prize, awarded by the Middle East Studies Association of North America.) He is the co-editor with B. Baron of Iran and beyond: Essays in honor of Nikki R Keddie (2000); and co-editor with Nikki Keddie of Iran and the surrounding world: Interactions in culture and cultural politics (2002). He has produced some 35 articles on Safavid and Qajar Iran dealing with issues of political, socio-economic and material history. He was a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (2002-2003) and the President of the Association of Persian-Speaking Societies (2003-2005).

The Portuguese on Qeshm
Daniel Thomas Potts, School of Archaeology, University of Sydney, Australia

The largest island in the Persian Gulf, Qeshm, also boasts one of the best-preserved Portuguese forts in the region. Yet while the strategic importance of Hormuz has been much discussed by scholars, Qeshm's role was to a great extent ignored until Floor and Faghfoory's recent monograph (The first Dutch-Persian commercial conflict, 2004). In this paper the strategic role of Qeshm will be discussed, with particular reference to the Portuguese remains there. Archaeological and historical evidence of Portuguese presence on Qeshm will be presented, including a previously unpublished Portuguese tombstone, with some comparative discussion of Qeshm in relation to other loci of Portuguese power in the lower Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea.

Daniel Thomas Potts was educated at Harvard (BA 1975, PhD 1980) and has taught at the Free University of Berlin, the University of Copenhagen, and the University of Sydney, where he has held the Edwin Cuthbert Hall Chair of Middle Eastern Archaeology since 1991. In addition to participating in excavations at Tepe Yahya in Kerman province during the 1970s, he has co-directed the joint Iranian-Australian expedition to the Mamasani region of western Fars since 2002. His work in Iranian archaeology and pre-Islamic history has ranged widely, from prehistoric times through the Sasanian period. His interest in the Portuguese in the Persian Gulf began many years ago and was sharpened by a visit to Qeshm several years ago. His publications include Excavations at Tepe Yahya, 1967-1975: The third millennium (2001), The archaeology of Elam: Formation and transformation of an ancient Iranian state (1999) and, with K. Roustaei, The Mamasani archaeological project - stage 1: A report on the first two seasons of the ICAR-University of Sydney expedition to the Mamasani district, Fars province, Iran (2007). He has also written numerous entries for the Encyclopaedia Iranica, and is on the editorial board of Iranica Antiqua.

The Catholic Monarchy's last emissary and embassy to Persia: D. Garcia de Silva y Figueroa and his Comentarios
George Bryan Souza, Department of History, University of Texas at San Antonio, USA

This article deals with the Catholic Monarchy (a term used for the Spanish Crown and its empire from 1580 to 1640, when the Crowns of Spain and Portugal were one) and its diplomatic, economic and military relations with Persia in the early seventeenth century. It is based upon Spanish and Portuguese archival records, published documents and accounts, as well as, the pertinent secondary literature. It deals with the Catholic Monarch's tardy decision to send an ambassador of appropriate rank, stature, and authority to Persia, the reluctant support and tensions between the embassy and divergent interests in the Portuguese empire in Asia (the 'Estado da India') and the embassy's failure. There is a brief discussion of the failure of the embassy and re-examination of the importance of this event on the Portuguese loss of Hormuz and Portuguese-Persian relations and the 'Estado da India.' However, the primary focus of the article is on the last emissary, D. García Silva y Figueroa, which discusses his selection, career, and personality, as a diplomat and an observer, by utilizing a nearly completed annotated, English translation of D. Garcia Silva y Figueroa's writings or Comentarios. The historiographical importance of his work is discussed, as well as, its possible influence upon subsequent European observers and writings on Persia in the seventeenth century.

George Bryan Souza is an adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Texas, San Antonio. Educated at Stanford University (BA with Departmental Honors in History), the School of Oriental and African Studies, at the University of London (MA in Southeast Asian Area Studies), and Trinity College, Cambridge University (DPhil in History), he is the author of The survival of empire: Portuguese trade and society in China and the South China Sea, 1630-1754 (1986) and numerous articles. Over the past few years, he has received support for his research interests in global maritime economic history, the history of European expansion, and cross-cultural contact and exchanges in the early modern period from the following institutions: Affiliated fellow, IIAS, Leiden University, Netherlands; IANTT/FLAD research grants, Lisbon, Portugal; Bernardo Mendel fellowships, at the Lilly Library, Indiana University; research grant from the American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies; and visiting senior research ellow at the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore for 2006/2007. Dr. Souza has promoted and participated in a project in association with Professor Jeffrey Turley of Brigham Young University that has critically introduced, annotated, and produced the first English translation of D. Garcia de Silva y Figueroa's Comentarios.

Commerce in opium and medicinal plants between the Portuguese Estado da India and Persia, 1550-1700
Timothy D. Walker, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, USA and Universidade Aberta de Lisboa, Portugal

This work will present an overview of the place of opium and medicinal plants in the commerce between Portuguese and Persian merchants in the Indian Ocean context. The paper will cover early knowledge and understanding of these drugs, their use as medicinal agents (and, in the case of opium, as a recreational substance or reward for garrison troops), and their importance as commercial commodities. The proposed work stems from a larger current research project aimed at assessing the methods and effect of the dissemination throughout the Portuguese maritime colonial network in Asia of medicinal substances and healing techniques originating in India. Portuguese colonial agents (missionaries, colonial officials, marine commanders and state-licensed medical practitioners) accomplished this dissemination in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when Indian medicine played a significant role in the state-sponsored health care institutions of the Portuguese colonies.

The paper will address the following issues:

• Earliest Portuguese exposure to opium in Asia in the sixteenth century and the transfer of information about this drug to Europe by Portuguese and Dutch observers.
• Concept and use of opium as a recreational substance in the Portuguese 'Estado da India.'
• Role of opium in the garrisoning and maintenance of Imperial military outposts.
• Use of opium as a medicine in colonial hospitals and infirmaries (1670-1830).
• Trade in opium and other medicines between Persia and the Portuguese colonies by merchants and missionary organizations (1550-1700).
• Procurement of opium from Persia and export to other imperial destinations.
• Availability of Persian opium in Portuguese pharmacies in the sixteenth-eighteenth centuries.
• Role of the opium trade and the link with the Indian Ocean slave trade.

Timothy D. Walker (BA, Hiram College, 1986; MA, PhD, Boston University, 2001) is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, and a Visiting Professor at the Universidade Aberta in Lisbon, Portugal. Teaching fields include early modern Europe, the Atlantic world, the Portuguese and their empire, maritime history and European global colonial expansion. His publications include Doctors, folk medicine and the inquisition: The repression of magical healing in Portugal during the enlightenment (2005), Slaves or soldiers? African conscripts in Portuguese India, 1857-1860 (in Richard Eaton and Indrani Chatterjee, eds., Slavery in the Indian Ocean region, 2006), A commodities price guide and merchants' handbook to the ports of Asia: Portuguese trade information-gathering and marketing strategies in the 'Estado da India' (circa 1750-1800) (in Charles Borges and Michael N. Pearson, eds., Metahistory: History questioning history; a Festschrift for Teotonio R. de Souza, 2007), Slaves, soldiers and the Indian mutiny as seen from Goa: One Portuguese response to the crisis in British India, 1857-1859 (in The Portuguese Studies Review, 2004), Acquisition and circulation of medical knowledge within the Portuguese colonial empire during the early modern period (in Daniela Bleichmar, Kristin Huffine and Paula De Vos, eds., Science, power and the order of nature in the Spanish and Portuguese empires, 2007), Slave labor and chocolate in Brazil: The culture of cacao plantations in colonial Bahia (17th-19th centuries) (in Carole Counihan and Martin Bruegel, eds., Food and foodways, special issue, 2007), Physicians and surgeons in the service of the inquisition: The nexus of religion and conventional medical training in enlightenment-era Portugal (in Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham, eds., History of medicine in context, 2007), (in A new history of chocolate (working title), forthcoming), Confections and healing: Chocolate in the Portuguese court and empire, c. 1580-1830 (in Louis Grivetti and Howard Shapiro, eds., A new history of chocolate (working title), forthcoming).