Gwadar: History
=== Ancient ===
The inhabitation of Gwadar, like most of Balochistan, appears to be ancient. The area shows inhabitation as early as the Bronze Age with settlements around some of the area's oasis. It is from this settlement pattern that the word Makran, the original name of Balochistan, is derived. For a period, it was a region of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. It is believed to have been conquered by the founder of the Persian Empire, Cyrus the Great. The capital of the satrapy of Gedrosia was Pura, which is thought to have been located near the modern Bampūr, in Iranian Balochistan. During the homeward march of Alexander the Great, his admiral, Nearchus, led a fleet along the modern-day Makran coast and recorded that the area was dry, mountainous, and inhabited by the "Ichthyophagoi" 'fish-eaters', an ancient Greek rendering of the ancient Persian phrase "Mahi Khorana," which has itself become the modern word "Makran". After the collapse of Alexander's empire the area was ruled by Seleucus Nicator, one of Alexander's generals. The region then came under Mauryan rule around 303 BCE, after Seleucus made peace with Emperor Chandragupta and ceded the territory to the Mauryans.
The descendants of the original inhabitants are known as Med people, They were mentioned in the early Muslim historiography as seafarers; some of them were pirarea as Bawarij in the Indian Ocean from their harbors in Debal, Kutch and Kathiawar, to as far as the mouth of river Tigris and Ceylon. Today they are integrated and speak Baloch and Urdu. They are related to the early Sindhi peoples of Makran such as the Jadgals.
The region remained on the sidelines of history for a millennium until the Arab-Muslim army captured Makran in CE 643 and over the intervening (and nearly equivalent) amount of time the area was contested by various powers. This was then followed by almost two centuries of local rule by the various Baloch tribes. The city was visited by Ottoman Admiral Seydi Ali Reis in the 1550s and mentioned in his book Mirat ul Memalik (The Mirror of Countries), 1557. According to Seydi Ali Reis, the inhabitants of Gwadar were Baloch and their chief was Malik Jelaleddin, son of Malik Dinar.
In the 15th century the Portuguese conquered parts of India and Oman. They planned to proceed with annexation of the coastal area of Makran. They attacked Gwadar under the leadership of Vasco da Gama, but under the supervision of Commander Mir Ismaheel Baloch, the Portuguese were defeated by the Baloch. A few times the Portuguese looted and set the coastal villages on fire, but they failed to capture Gwadar. Cannons of the Portuguese army were found lying near the Central Jail of Gwadar. The grave of Mir Ismaheel Baloch is situated near the Mountain of Batal Gwadar, constructed by Mir Ismaheel Baloch himself during life. He died in 1468, heirless.
Towards the end of the 18th century, the Khan of Kalat, Nasir Khan I Ahmadzai, granted suzerainty over Gwadar to Sultan bin Ahmad, the ruler of Muscat. When the sultan subsequently retook Muscat, he was to continue his rule in Gwadar by appointing a wali (or "governor"). This wali was then ordered to subjugate the nearby coastal town of Chabahar (now in Iran). The Gwadar fort was built during Omani rule. In the middle of the 18th century, Nasir Khan captured Gwadar and its surrounding areas after defeating the Gichki Baloch tribe and included it in the Khanate of Kalat. …