Судан и Большой Ближний Восток

317 Vassilios Christides. The Cycle of the Arab-Byzantine Struggle in Crete... A scrutiny of the text of Skyltitzes can clarify the cause of this confu- sion. According to Skylitzes, the Andalusian suppliants asked their emir to help them emigrate to any prosperous place without mentioning the island of Crete in particular, and he sent them to the eastern [Aegean] islands. 1 It was actually during their search in the Aegean that they found and raided Crete, and AbuHafş, their leader, knowing how prosperous the island of Crete was, arranged later a systematic expedition against it and conquered it. According to the Arabic sources, the expedition took place after a temporary settlement of the Andalusians in Alexan- dria from where they started their expedition with 40 ships provided by the Egyptians. 2 Skylitzes and other Byzantine authors, omitting the temporary settlement of the Andalusians in Alexandria, created a confusion about the dating of the Andalusians’ expedition to Crete. As N. Panagiotakis suggested, probably there was an initial Andalusian raid against Crete [on the way of their first aimless wandering in the Eastern Mediterranean], dated, as I believe, to ca 822–824, followed later by an [organized by the Egyptians] expedition for the conquest of the island (ca 826). 3 This explains the inconsistency of the Arabic sources concerning the exact dating of the Arab conquest of Crete. 4 The second Andalusian attack was facilitated by the chaotic situation that prevailed in theAegeanduring the revolutionofThomas (ca821–823). 5 1 See Thurn, 42, line 12: “των πρός την εω κειμένων νήσων”. 2 Christides, The Conquest of Crete by the Arabs , 89–92. 3 Ibid. 4 The exact dating of theAndalusians’ settlement inEgypt cannot be defined precisely.Modernscholars usuallyplace it ca200–210A.H(AD826); seeW.Muiz, The Caliphate: Its Rise, Decline and Fall , Beirut 1963, 507: “Egypt had been long the scene of chronic revolts, aggravated by the inroad of Spanish refugees who joined the insurgents and for several years held Alexandria (200–210 A.H.)”. 5 It is surprising that a number of modern scholars failed to understand one of the basic rules of naval warfare that warships, especially in medieval times, cannot be easily replaced when destroyed. See M. Kremp, “Thomas/ Michael-Konfliki”, in Arabisches Kreta , 326. Tsougarakis’ argument ( Byzantine Crete, 178) that the Byzantine fleet was not destroyed during Thomas’ revolt because immediately after the Arab conquest of Crete, the Byzantines started their attempts to reconquer the island cannot be sustained. In fact, the provincial fleet was utterly destroyed during