Bandar ʿAbbās is Iran's main Persian Gulf port and the country's primary naval base. Bandar ʿAbbās was founded in the early eleventh/seventeenth century, in the context of a conflict between the Ṣafavids and the Portuguese over control of Hormuz Island and the Persian Gulf littoral, and, more specifically, of attempts by Shāh ʿAbbās I (r. 995-1038/1587-1629) to circumvent the land trade-route through Ottoman territory by opening a maritime outlet for Iran's exports, particularly silk. After the shah took Lār and Bahrain Island