| Conflict: | Battle of Ash-Shihr |
| Place: | Ash-Shihr, Kathiri Sultanate |
| Combatant1: | Kingdom of Portugal |
| Combatant2: | Kathiri Sultanate |
| Commander2: |
|
| Commander1: | Duarte de Meneses Luís de Meneses[1] |
| Casualties2: | 480+ killed |
| Casualties1: | Unknown |
| Strength1: | 8 ships.[2] 6 galleons.[3] 400-700 soldiers |
| Strength2: | Unknown |
The Battle of Ash-Shihr was an attack launched by the Portuguese navy in 1523 on the city of Ash-Shihr which was a part of the Kathiri Sultanate.[4]
In Thursday, February 28, 1523 (10 of the month of Rabi’ al-Awwal in the year 929 AH), the Portuguese governor of India, Dom Duarte de Meneses, dispatched his brother, Dom Luís de Meneses, to the Red Sea with a force of 6 galleons. Dom Luís was tasked with delivering an ambassador to the Christian Emperor of Ethiopia and hunting hostile Muslim trade ships sailing between the Indian Ocean and Jeddah.[5] Along the way, he called at the city of Ash-Shihr.
After claiming that the property of a Portuguese merchant who had died in al-Shiḥr had been unlawfully seized by the Kathīrī sultan, Dom Luís ordered the assault of the city.[6] It was then successfully attacked and sacked while the inhabitants fled. Shihr was further plundered by the settlement's garrison, and by vagrants.[7] The city's defenders attempted to face them on the beaches, but they were routed and the emir Mutran b. Mansur was killed in battle with a bullet. The battle continued for three days between the people of the city of Al-Shihr and the Portuguese forces.
Seven of Ash-Shihr's legal scholars and learned men were killed by the Portuguese. These men would collectively come to be a known as “The Seven Martyrs of al-Shiḥr” and whose tomb would become the site of an annual pilgrimage.[8]