GUJARAT 183 founders. " Not till the reign of Ala-ad-din at the close of the thirteenth century did it become a Moslem prov- ince, and a century later it again became independent under a dynasty of Moslem kings. Their rise resembled the birth of the Malwa state. Mohammad ibn Firoz in 1391 granted the fief of Gujarat to Zafar Khan, the son of a converted Rajput, and five years later the fiefholder assumed the royal canopy. He soon enlarged his domin- ions, at first but a strip between hills and sea, by the annexation of Idar to the north and Diu in Kathiawar, plundered Jhalor, and even took possession of Malwa for a short space in 1407, setting his brother on the throne in the place of Hushang, the son of Dilawar. His successor, Ahmad I, founded the fortress of Ahmad- nagar, and also Ahmadabad, which has ever since been the chief city of Gujarat, and recovered Bombay and Salsette from the Deccan kings. Mahmud I not only carried on the traditional wars of his dynasty with Malwa on the east and Khandesh on the south, but kept a large fleet to subdue the pirates of the islands. Nor were Asiatic pirates the only disturbers of his coast. The first of the three great waves of European invasion was already beating on the shores of Gujarat. Vasco da Gama had reached the Malabar ports in 1498, and the effects of the new influence were soon felt far- ther north. The Portuguese had no more intention at first of founding an Eastern empire than had the later Dutch and English companies. The hostility of the Moslem traders compelled them to protect their agents, and a commercial policy was necessarily supported by
