From Francesco Valegio, Nuova Raccolta di le piu Illustri et famose citta di tutto il mondo, Venice, 1575

A plate in Braun-Hogenberg's Civitates

Orbis Terrarum, Cologne 1577 Hormuz


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Abdurazzak (1470) (Envoy of Shah Rukh to India)
Matla'us Sa'dain wa Majmu'ul Bahrain:
The coming of the two favorable stars, and the reunion of the two seas. Persia
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Kamal-ud-Din Abd-ur-Razzaq ibn Ishaq Samarqandi (Herat 1413–1482) was a Persian chronicler and Islamic scholar. He was an ambassador of Shah Rukh, the Timurid dynasty ruler of Persia. His book Matla-us-Sadain wa Majma-ul-Bahrain (The Rise of the Two auspicious constellations and the Confluence of the Two Oceans), which contains a detailed chronicle of the history of his part of the world from 1304 to 1470 and which takes much of its contents from other writings. His mentioning of Zanzibar twice as business partner in faraway harbours is important to the history of East Africa.

 

Taken from:  R.H.Major : India in the Fifteenth Century
Also called Abd-al Razzac (or El-Samarkandy)
Visited India 1440-1443

Ormuz (1), which is also called Djerrun, is a port situated in the middle of the sea, and it is the only port of its kind in the world. Merchants from all the seven climes (iqlim) Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, Azerbaijan, Arabian and Persian Iraq, Fars (2), Khurasan (3), Ma-wara-amahar (4), Turkistan (5), the kingdom of Deschti-Kapt-chack (6), the countries inhabited by the Kalmucks (7), China's provinces and Peking, visit this port. Inhabitants from the Ocean coast come here from China, Java, Bengal, Ceylon, Tenasserim (8), Socotra (9), Schahrinou (10), the Maldive Islands, the Malabar Coast (11), from Abyssinia, Zanzibar, the ports of Bidjanagar (12), Kalbergah (13), parts of Gujarat (14) and Cambay (15)the coast of Arabia, .....

Kalikut (16) is a very save haven, which like that of Ormuz (1) brings together merchants from every city and from every country;  where one finds in abundance the precious objects brought from maritime countries, especially from Habshah (Ethiopia) Zirbad, (the countries below the wind) and Zanzibar.

(1) Ormuz: Hormuz is a city on the island of Hormuz off the coast of Iran; important in former times as trade center.

(2) Fars: region in Iran.

(3) Khurasan: Khorasan: Afghanistan + Eastern Iran.

(4) Ma-wara-amahar: Ma Wara-ee Alnahar: Arabic for beyond the river. The Transoxiana of the ancients. (= Bokhara, Samarcand, Osrushnah).

(5) Turkistan: Turkestan, also spelled Turkistan, is a historical region in Central Asia corresponding to the regions of Transoxiana and Xinjiang.

(6) Deschti-Kapt-chack: Dasht-i-Kipchak: the desert of Kipchak in Tartary.

(7) Kalmucks: The Kalmyks are a Mongolian subgroup in Russia and Kyrgyzstan, whose ancestors migrated from Dzungaria.

(8) Tenasserim: former name of the Tanintharyi Region in Myanmar (Burma).

(9) Socotra; island on the coast of Somalia.

(10) Schahrinou: Sivanur, province Bejapoor, fifty miles south south-east from Darwar.

(11) Malabar Coast; India's southwestern coast.

(12) Bidjanagar: Vijayanagar, (Sanskrit: “City of Victory”) great ruined city in southern India and also the name of the empire ruled from that city between 1336 and about 1614.

(13) Kalbergah: Calberga: 107 miles west of Hyderabad.

(14) Gujarat: in northwestern India.

(15) Cambay; in the Indian state of Gujarat.

(16) Kalikut: Calicut; on the west coast of India.