ABSTRACT
The Portuguese hoped to found a great Indian Christian Empire, and in the process were to oppress the Muslims without mercy. The fight with the Moors had induced in the Portuguese a state of national exaltation, and they would perhaps in any case have been the first in the Eastern field. The Crusade for the Holy Places had taken on the wider character of a great struggle between the Cross and the Crescent, and the War against the Moors had fired the imagination of the people of Southern Europe. The determination of the Portuguese to capture this lucrative commerce thus received sanction and inspiration from their fierce crusading zeal. The Moplahs were quick to realise the threat, and the early Portuguese attacks upon Arab ships near Calicut set the seal upon the enmity between the Muslims and the Portuguese.
