Marco Polo's boat back from China dropped him off in this proverbially wealthy city, from which he went overland back to Constantinople.
Many of this city's Jews fled during the three years in which the Jesuit Gaspar Baertz served on mission here. The French traveler Francois Pyrard coined a proverb about this place that "if the world were an egg, then [this place] would be the yolk." This city eventually lent its name to the island once known as Jarun, on which a "New" version of it was built in 1296. When it ruled a wider kingdom, Qalhat was the largest other city under its control. Mohammed Dirhem Ko was the alleged founder of this city, which was also frequently called Dar-al-Aman, or "abode of safety." The only joint invasion conducted by James I's England and Abbas I's Safavid empire targeted this place, which became a tributary of the (*) Portuguese after Afonso de Albuquerque raided it and built a castle here in 1507. Marco Polo's boat back from China dropped him off in this proverbially wealthy city, from which he went overland back to Constantinople. For 10 points, name this mercantile Arab city-state which, for much of the medieval and early modern periods, controlled the waterway into the Persian Gulf.
Many of this city's Jews fled during the three years in which the Jesuit Gaspar Baertz served on mission here.
Hormuz (or Ormus; or Ohrmuzd; accept Dar-al-Aman before "Dar-al-Aman")