Cretan Emirate

Spanish Arabs Capture Crete

During the reign of the Emir of Cordoba, Umayyad Al-Hakam I, a series of revolts took place involving radical Muslims. The riots in Cordoba took place in 805 and 806, which were quickly suppressed. In 807, in Toledo, the 14-year-old heir to the emir, Abd ar-Rahman, destroyed the most influential part of the city’s population. Shocked by the Toledo massacre of Cordoba for 7 years, it remained calm, but in 814 an uprising broke out again. The rebels besieged the Emir’s palace, but after Al-Hakam ordered to set fire to the suburbs, where most of the rebels lived, they rushed to save their families. As a result, most of the rebels were exterminated, and those remaining under pain of crucifix were ordered to leave the country in three days. The exiles reached the Mediterranean Sea , where one part of them went to West Africa, where in 818 settled in the state of Idrisides , and the other to Egypt.

The latter, in the amount of 15,000 people, led by Umar Abu Hafs in the year 199 Hijra (814/815 AD) landed in the vicinity of Alexandria . Egypt, where at that time Abdullah ibn Alsari rebelled against Caliph al-Mamun , could not prevent this. In the year 203 hijra (818/819 AD), the Spanish Arabs, having entered into an alliance with one of the Berber tribes, captured Alexandria. Only in 825, al-Mamun was able to pay attention to Egyptian affairs and send troops under the command of Tahir ibn Hussein to suppress the rebellion and expel the aliens from Al-Andalus. The latter agreed to leave Egypt without a fight, choosing the place of their new settlement Crete, where back in 824 they made a reconnaissance raid.

Despite the fact that Thomas the Slav was executed as far back as 823, the uprising caused by him was not yet completely crushed, and Byzantium did not have enough strength to defend the island. In 825 (according to Byzantine, in 828 according to Arabic sources), exiles led by Umar I Abu Hafs landed in 40 ships in Sud Bay in Crete. Not meeting any resistance, the troops robbed the island for 20 days. Having established themselves in Crete, the Arabs built the Handak fortress (modern Heraklion ). Then they conquered the island, capturing 29 cities whose names were not preserved.

Suppressing the rebellion of Thomas the Slav, Emperor Michael II tried to recapture the island of Crete. But the Arabs recaptured all the expeditions. In 825/826 the protospafarium Fotin (great-grandfather of Zoe , wife of Emperor Leo VI ^[1] ) was defeated, in 829 Crater led 70 diers, in 827 Oorif off the island of Thasos ^[2] .

In turn, the Arabs raided the islands of the Aegean, Peloponnese . Under Said I, Athos was plundered, capturing the monks. In 872, the Dalmatian coast was looted. On the way back, the commander of the Byzantine fleet , Patrician Nikita, overtook the Arab fleet near Crete and destroyed 26 ships with Greek fire . The Arabs suffered a new defeat at Cape Malei (off the coast of the Peloponnese). This led to a break in the raids on Byzantium.

A few years later, the attacks resumed. Aegina suffered greatly from them, and the inhabitants of Naxos and Patmos paid tribute. In 893, during the reign of Umar II, Samos was devastated, in 903, during the reign of Muhammad, Lemnos . Taking advantage of the fact that Byzantium was at war with the Bulgarians at this time, the Cretan fleet devastated the Peloponnese, Central Greece and Thessaloniki . In 906 ^{[3] the} Byzantine Imeri defeated the Cretans. And in 911, he was defeated at Samos by the Cretan and Syrian fleets. Around 923, the Cretan naval commander Leo Tripolitan was defeated at Samos.

The attacks of the Cretan emirate on the islands in the Aegean led to Greek military expeditions to Crete. Emperor Constantine VII gathered a large army and a large fleet of Trier with Greek fire. But because of the command of Konstantin Gongil, the Byzantines lost in 949. The new army was sent by his successor Roman II . At the head of the expedition was Domestic Nikifor Fock . The Byzantines besieged the capital of the emirate, the city of Handak, surrounding it with wall-hung cars. March 7, 961 ^[4] as a result of the assault on the city was taken.

The city was plundered, the walls and mosques were destroyed, the inhabitants were enslaved and resettled in other lands of Byzantium. In their place settled "the community of Armenians, Romans and other immigrants" ^[4] . The last emir of the island, Abd al-Aziz, and his son Numan, as captives, were taken to Constantinople . Numan converted to Christianity and became a Byzantine commander. In 971, he died in the war of the Byzantines with Svyatoslav .

The Byzantine and Muslim sources describe in different ways both the conquest of Crete by the Arabs, its existence and the consequences of liberation from pirates.

In Byzantine sources, the Cretan emirate is estimated as a pirate who destroyed or expelled Christians from the island, where Nicofor Foca put things in order.

According to the Muslim version, after the conquest, Christians and Jews remained on the island (even as slaves). Under Muslims in Crete, science and culture developed actively, and public buildings were built. And after the Greek liberation, all the buildings were destroyed, Muslim books and libraries were burned.

• 828-841 Umar I Abu Hafs
• 841-880 Said I , son of Umar I Abu Hafs
• 880-895 Umar II , son of Said I
• 895–910 Muhammad , son of Said I
• 910-915 Yusuf , son of Umar I
• 915-925 Ali I , son of Yusuf
• 925-940 Ahmad , son of Umar I
• 940–943 Said II , son of Ahmad
• 943–949 Ali II , son of Ahmad
• 949-961 Abd al-Aziz , son of Saeed II

• Cretan Muslims
• Muslims in Greece

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