Anything you can think of that would spare them from such a fate, if those circumstances arise? They're not really well located enough to be a good buffer state against anything a power in the Byzantine/Ottoman postion would be interested in having a buffer state against.
What about an Egypt that never loose the spice market? Let's assume that such an egyptian power could hold places in Indian Ocean and managing to keep all the Red Sea for its private use, forbidding the access of Eastern Africa to Ottomans or Byzantines?
I think it could be something worth of consideration, and worth of having a buffer-state between it and another country.