And to Bill Cameron, I have to say that there maybe is a point that you've missed, which is the after math effect of the dawn of the Portuguese on the Indian Ocean have given to the region.
Ridwan,
Why should the appearence and repulsion of the Portuguese change anything at all? I can't see how this will somehow spark an Ottoman colonization push; in the Indian Ocean they were a satisified power and not a revisionist one.
The Ottomans, and both their Muslim and non-Muslim predecessors in the Middle East, had been enjoying their piece of the spice trade since before Alexander. All the polities and cultures involved were "satisfied"; that is they were happy with the status quo. It provided the goods they needed, goods they either consumed or trade onward.
Let me suggest that you pick up a book on the Indian Ocean spice trade prior to ~1500 CE. It was vast and cosmopolitian. Chinese traded along it's eastern edges, Greeks and Muslims along it's western edges, and the middle was, and a jumbled whole host of others including Hindis, Acehnese, and Indian Jews worked the middle. It was a working system that no one involved felt the need to upset.
Defeating the Portuguese isn't going to change anything for two factors. First; the Ottomans did beat the Portuguese for a short period. An 80-year-old Ottoman admiral whose name escapes me stomped de Gama off India's southwest coast. It took the Portuguese years to grab and hold what little they did and then they were never able to control the approaches to the Red Sea. (That last bit is also part of the second factor.)
Second; the Portuguese were never able to monopolize the trade. They may have monopolized the delivery of those goods to
Europe by seriously undercutting the previous prices those goods sold for in
Europe, but they never seriously endangered the flow of those goods along the Indian Ocean trade routes. When the Portuguese seized control of the approaches to the Persian Gulf, all they did was shut down "Sinbad's Route". Goods still moved up the Red Sea to Egypt and the Ottomans.
All the Portguguese presence meant was that the Ottomans and other people in the Middle East sold fewer goods on to Europe. They still had plenty for their own internal consumption.
As I suggested, find a book on the subject. It's a fascinating one.
Bill