Ormus

Encyclopedia : O : OR : ORM : Ormus

This article is about the kingdom of Ormus. :

For other uses, see Ormus (disambiguation)}}}.

The kingdom received its name from the fortified port city which served as its capital. It was one of the most important ports in the Middle East at the time as it controlled sea-way trading routes through the Persian Gulf to India and East Africa. This port was probably located on the island of Hormoz, which is located near the modern city of Bandar-e Abbas.

The name of the port, the island, and the kingdom is Iranian and ultimately derives from that of the Zoroastrian deity, Ahura Mazda, which becomes Ohrmazd in Pahlavi, Hirmiz in Manichaean Middle Persian, and Hormoz in modern Farsi.

History

In September, 1507, the Portuguese Alfonso d'Albuquerque landed on the island. Portugal occupied Ormuz from 1515 to 1622. It was during the Portuguese occupation of the island that the community of the Mandaeans first came to western attention; fleeing persecution in Basra, many Mandaeans settled in Ormuz, where they sought military aid from the Portuguese. The Mandaeans claimed to be "St. John Christians," analogous to the St. Thomas Christians of India, and offered to accept papal authority if the Portuguese would invade Basra. After the Portuguese made several abortive attempts to seize control of Basra, the Safavid ruler Abbas I of Persia conquered the kingdom with the help of the British, and expelled the Portuguese from the rest of the Persian Gulf, with the exception of Muscat. The Portuguese returned to the Persian Gulf in the following year as allies of Afrasiyab, the Pasha of Basra, against the Persians. Afrasiyab was formerly an Ottoman vassal but had been effectively independent since 1612. They never returned to Ormuz.

In the mid-17th century it was captured by the Imam of Muscat, but was subsequently recaptured by Persians. Today, it is part of the Iranian province of Hormozgan.

Depiction in literature

The Kingdome of Ormus
hath his owne King tributarte
vnto the King of Lu∫itania. it
containeth the whole shore of
Arabia from the paßage of the
riuer Euphrates vntil C. Raz. alga
ti, likewi∫e part of the Kingdome of
Per∫ia w. adioyneth to the Sea Ba∫ora
and almo∫t al the Ilands of the per∫ian
Gulfe. whose mothe r?itie is Ormus
in the Iland Geru a famous mart

Note that some of this text is missing due to printing faults; the ∫ is the letter for s or sh (see esh (letter)). The words "mothe r?itie" in the text can also be deciphered as "mother Litie", although there is a distinctive space between mothe and r, and the L (marked by ? above) looks most like a (. Lu∫itania refers to the Roman province of Lusitania, i.e. Portugal.

This text is likely derived from a caption on Ortelius' 1567 map of Asia, which was derived from Gastaldi's map of six years prior:

ORMVS Regnum, peculiarem habet Regem
Lusitaniæ Regi tributarium: continetque totam
Arabiam littoralem ab Euphratis fl. ostio vsque
ad C. Razalqati, nec nom partem Regni Persidis
quæ adiacet freto Basoræ, atque insulas fere omnes
sinus Persici. Cuius metropolis est vrbs Ormus
in insula Geru sita, emporium celebre. 


[The Kingdom of Ormus has as a distinctive feature a king
who is a tributary to the king of Lusitania. It comprises all 
the Arab coasts from the mouth of the Euphrates to 
Cape Razalqati, the part of the Persian Empire 
bordering on the Bazora straights and almost all islands 
in the Persian Gulf. Its capital is the city of Ormus
on the isle of Gerus, a famous market town.]

References

• (On the religion of Ormus) Foltz, R.C. 2004, "Spirituality in the Land of the Noble: How Iran Shaped the World's Religions", Oneworld Publications, Oxford, England. ISBN 1851683364

Portuguese Empire — Former colonies & present overseas territories''' 

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