Ближний Восток и его соседи

g 61 h Vassilios Christides The Odyssey of the Andalusian Conquerors of Crete: from Cordoba Via Alexandria to Crete 1 Abstract : At the time of the reign of the emir Ḥ akam I (736-822) in Cordoba of Spain, there was a great upheaval caused by the newly converted Muslim inhabitants ( Mawāli ). The last rebellion of the Māwali (ca. 818 AD) was ruth- lessly suppressed by the emir Ḥ akam I who murdered most of their leaders and forced the rest of the Mawāli to abandon Spain. Thereafter, the exiled Mawāli , who had survived, started roaming around the Mediterranean as desperate refugees. After a long wandering, most of them found refuge in Alexandria of Egypt. There they were again forced to abandon the country and roamed in the Eastern Mediterranean. Finally, taking advantage of the insecurity that pre- vailed in the Aegean Sea because of the rebellion of Tomas (821–823), they managed to conquer Byzantine Crete in ca 825–26. There they established a new Arab dynasty which lasted until 961 when Crete was reconquered by the Byzantine general Nicephorus Phocas. Keywords: Andalusia, Cordoba, Almeria, Alexandria, ‘Abdallāh b. Ṭ ahir, Abū H  afs ‘Umar b. Shu‘ayb al-Ballūti, Emirate of Crete, Hakam I, Mawali. 1 It is an amended version of the article first published in Graeco-Arabica XII, Hêrodotos, Athens, 2017–2018, 21–56.