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Emirate of Crete

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Emirate of Crete
Iqritish
824/827–961
CapitalChandax
Religion
Sunni Islam
GovernmentMonarchy
Emir 
• 820s – c. 855
Umar I ibn Hafs
• 949–961
Abd al-Aziz ibn Shuayb
Historical eraMiddle Ages
• Andalusian exiles land on the island
824/827
• Byzantine reconquest
961
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Byzantine Crete
Byzantine Crete

The Emirate of Crete was a Muslim state that existed on the Mediterranean island of Crete from the late 820s to the Byzantine reconquest of the island in 961.

Crete was conquered by a group of Andalusian exiles, who landed on the island in ca. 824 or in 827/828 and quickly established an independent state there. Numerous Byzantine attempts to recover the island failed disastrously, and for the approximately 135 years of its existence, the emirate (called Iqritish or Iqritiya by the Arabs) was one of the major foes of Byzantium. Crete commanded the sea lanes of the Eastern Mediterranean and functioned as a forward base and safe haven for corsair fleets from the Muslim world that ravaged the Byzantine-controlled shores of the Aegean Sea. The emirate's internal history is less well-known, but all accounts point to considerable prosperity deriving not only from piracy, but also from extensive trade and agriculture. The emirate was brought to an end by Nikephoros Phokas, who launched a huge campaign against it in 960–961.

History

Crete had been the target of Muslim attacks since the first wave of the Muslim conquests in the mid-7th century. It had suffered a first raid in 654 and again in 674/675,[1] and parts of the island were temporarily occupied during the reign of the Abbasid Caliph al-Walid I (r. 705–715).[2] Nevertheless, the island was never conquered and despite occasional raids in the 8th century it remained securely in Byzantine hands;[3] Crete was too far from the Arab naval bases in the Levant for an effective expedition against it to be undertaken.[4]

Conquest of Crete

At some point in the second half of the reign of Byzantine emperor Michael II (r. 820–829), a group of Andalusian exiles landed on Crete and began its conquest.[5] These exiles had a long history of wanderings behind them. They were the survivors of a failed revolt against the emir Al-Hakam I of Córdoba in 818. In the aftermath of its suppression, the citizens of the Cordovan suburb of al-Rabad were exiled en masse. Some settled in Morocco, but others, numbering over 10,000, took to piracy, probably joined by other Andalusians. Some of the latter group, under the leadership of Umar ibn Hafs ibn Shuayb ibn Isa al Balluti, commonly known as Abu Hafs, landed in Alexandria and took control of the city until 827, when they were besieged and expelled by the Abbasid general Abdullah ibn Tahir al-Khurasani.[6][7] The exact chronology of their landing in Crete is uncertain. Following the Muslim sources, it is usually dated to 827 or 828, after the Andalusians' expulsion from Alexandria.[8] Byzantine sources however seem to contradict this, placing their landing soon after the suppression of the large revolt of Thomas the Slav (821–823). Further considerations regarding the number and chronology of the Byzantine campaigns launched against the invaders and prosopographical questions of the Byzantine generals have led other scholars like Vasileios Christides and Christos Makrypoulias to propose an earlier date, ca. 824.[9]

The Saracen fleet sails towards Crete. Miniature from the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript.

Under the terms of their agreement with Ibn Tahir, the Andalusians and their families left Alexandria in 40 ships. Historian Warren Treadgold estimates them at some 12,000 people, of whom ca. 3,000 would be fighting men.[10] According to Byzantine historians, the Andalusians were already familiar with Crete, having raided it in the past. They also claim that the Muslim landing was also initially intended as a raid, and was transformed into a bid for conquest when Abu Hafs himself set fire to their ships. However, as the Andalusian exiles had brought their families along, this is probably later invention.[8] The Andalusians' landing-place is also unknown; some scholars think that it was at the north coast, at Suda Bay or near where their main city and fortress Chandax (Arabic: ربض الخندق, rabḍ al-ḫandaq, "Castle of the Moat", modern Heraklion) was later built,[8][11] but others think that they most likely landed on the south coast of the island, and then moved to the more densely populated interior and the northern coast.[12][13]

As soon as he learned of the Arab landing, Emperor Michael II reacted and sent successive expeditions to recover the island. Byzantium's ability to respond effectively however was curtailed by the losses suffered during the revolt of Thomas the Slav, and, if the landing occurred in 827/828, by the diversion of ships and men to counter the gradual conquest of Sicily by the Tunisian Aghlabids.[14] The first expedition, under Photeinos, strategos of the Anatolic Theme, and Damian, Count of the Stable, was defeated in open battle, where Damian was killed.[15][16] The next expedition was sent a year later and comprised 70 ships under the strategos of the Cibyrrhaeots Krateros. It was initially victorious, but the over-confident Byzantines were then routed in a night attack. Krateros managed to flee to Kos, but there he was captured by the Arabs and crucified.[17][18] Ch. Makrypoulias suggests that these campaigns must have taken place before the Andalusians completed their construction of Chandax, where they transferred the capital from the inland site of Gortyn.[19]

The "pirate" emirate

Map of the Aegean Sea, with Crete in the bottom

Having repulsed the early Byzantine attacks, Abu Hafs slowly consolidated his control of the entire island,[18] and installed himself as the island's ruler. He recognized the suzerainty of the Abbasid Caliphate, but ruled as a de facto independent prince.[8] The conquest of the island was of major importance, as it transformed the naval balance of power in the Eastern Mediterranean and opened up the hitherto secure Aegean Sea littoral to frequent and devastating raids.[20]

The Andalusians also occupied several of the Cyclades during these early years, but Michael II organized another large-scale expedition, recruiting an entire new marine corps, the Tessarakontarioi, and building new ships. Under the admiral Ooryphas, this fleet managed to evict the Arabs from the Aegean islands, but failed to retake Crete.[21][22] Michael II's successor Theophilos (r. 829–842) sent an embassy to Abd ar-Rahman II of Córdoba, trying to win him over to a joint action against the Andalusian exiles, but beyond Abd ar-Rahman's giving his assent to any action against them, this came to nothing.[8] In October 829, the Cretans destroyed an imperial fleet was destroyed off Thasos and then proceeded to lay waste Mount Athos.[23][24] Later they attacked Lesbos (837) and the coasts of the Thracesian Theme, where they destroyed the monastic centre of Mount Latros, but were heavily defeated by the local strategos, Constantine Kontomytes.[8][25]

After the death of Theophilos in 842, new measures to confront the Cretan threat were undertaken by the new Byzantine regime: in 843 a new maritime theme, that of the Aegean Sea, was established to better deal with the Saracen raids, and another expedition to recover Crete was launched under the personal leadership of the powerful logothetes and regent Theoktistos. Although it succeeded in occupying much of the island, Theoktistos had to abandon the army due to political intrigues in Constantinople, and the troops left behind were slaughtered by the Arabs.[26][27] In an effort to weaken the Saracens, in 853 several Byzantine fleets engaged in coordinated operations in the Eastern Mediterranean, and attacked the Egyptian naval base of Damietta, capturing weapons intended for Crete.[8] Despite some Byzantine successes against the Arabs in the following years, the Cretans resumed their raids in the early 860s, attacking the Peloponnese, the Cyclades and Athos.[8][28] In 866, the Byzantine Caesar Bardas assembled another large-scale expeditionary force to subdue Crete, but his murder at the hand of Basil the Macedonian only two weeks after the fleet set sail from the capital spelled the end of the undertaking.[29][30]

Ooryphas punishes the Cretan Saracens, as depicted in the Madrid Skylitzes

In the early 870s, the Cretan raids reached a new intensity: their fleets, often commanded by Byzantine renegades, ranged the Aegean and further afield, reaching the Dalmatian coasts. On one occasion a Cretan fleet even penetrated into the Marmara Sea and unsuccessfully attacked Proconnesos; the first time since the Second Arab Siege of Constantinople in 717–718 that a foreign fleet had come so close to the capital itself.[8] In 873 and again in 874 however, they also suffered two successive heavy defeats at the hands of the new Byzantine admiral, Niketas Ooryphas. After the latter battle in particular, Ooryphas took many prisoners, whom he tortured extensively in revenge for their raids.[8][31] These victories apparently led to a temporary truce, and it appears that the Cretan emir Saipes (Shuayb I ibn Umar) was obliged to paid tribute to Byzantium for about a decade.[32]

Raids nevertheless soon resumed, joined by North African and Syrian fleets.[33] The Peloponnese in particular suffered considerably from their raids, but also Euboea and the Cyclades: the island of Patmos came under Cretan control, and Naxos was forced to pay them tribute.[34] Athens may have been occupied in ca. 896–902,[3] and in 904, a Syrian fleet led by Leo of Tripoli sacked the Byzantine Empire's second city, Thessalonica. The Saracens of Crete co-operated closely with their Syrian counterparts, who often used Crete as a base or a stop-over, as during Leo of Tripoli's fleet return from Thessalonica, when many of the over 20,000 Thessalonian captives were sold or gifted as slaves in Crete.[34][35] In 911, another large-scale expedition of well over 100 ships was launched against Crete, headed by the admiral Himerios, but it was forced to leave the island after a few months and was then destroyed in battle off Chios by a combined Cretan and Syrian fleet.[34][36][37]

Byzantine reconquest

The conquest of Chandax, the main Muslim stronghold in Crete, as depicted in the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript.

Cretan piracy reached another high in the 930s and 940s, devastating southern Greece, Athos and the western coasts of Asia Minor. As a result, Emperor Constantine VII (r. 913–959) sent another expedition in 949. This too was routed in a surprise attack, a defeat which Byzantine chroniclers ascribe to the incompetence and inexperience of its leader, the eunuch chamberlain Constantine Gongyles.[34][38][39] Constantine did not give up, and during the last years of his reign began preparing another expedition. In the event, it would be carried out under his successor, Romanos II (r. 959–963), who entrusted its leadership to the capable general Nikephoros Phokas. At the head of a huge fleet and army, Phokas sailed in June or July 960, landed on the island and defeated the initial Muslim resistance. A long siege of Chandax followed, which dragged over the winter to 961, until the city was stormed on 6 March.[34][40]

The city was pillaged, and its mosques and walls were torn down. The inhabitants either killed or carried off into slavery, while the island's last emir, Abd al-Aziz ibn Shuayb (Kouroupas), and his son al-Numan (Anemas) were taken captive and brought to Constantinople, where Phokas celebrated a triumph.[34][41] The island was converted into a Byzantine theme, and the remaining Muslims were converted by missionaries like Nikon "the Metanoeite". Among the converts was the prince Anemas, who entered Byzantine service and fell at Dorostolon, in the war against the Rus'.[41][42]

Legacy

The island's Arab period remains relatively obscure, due to a paucity of surviving evidence regarding its internal history. Furthermore, other than a few place names recalling the Saracens' presence, no major archaeological remains from the period survive in Crete, possibly due to deliberate Byzantine destructions after 961.[43] This has influenced the way the emirate is regarded in general: scholars, relying mostly on Byzantine accounts, have traditionally viewed the Emirate of Crete through a Byzantine lens as a quintessential "corsair's nest" and little else.[44]

The picture painted by the few and scattered pieces of evidence from the Muslim world however is that of an ordered, Muslim state with a regular monetary economy and extensive trade links, and there is evidence that Chandax was a cultural centre of some importance.[45] The survival of numerous gold, silver and copper coins, of almost constant weight and composition, testifies to a strong economy and a high living standard among the population.[46] The economy was strengthened by extensive trade with the rest of the Muslim world, especially with Egypt, and by a booming agriculture: the need to sustain an independent state, as well as access to the markets of the Muslim world, led to an intensification of cultivation. It is also possible that sugar cane was introduced to Crete at the time.[47]

It is unclear what happened to the island's Christians after the Muslim conquest; the traditional view is that most were either converted or expelled.[18] There is evidence however from Muslim sources for the continued survival of Christians on Crete, although according to the same sources the Muslims, whether descendants of the Andalusians or more recent migrants, formed the majority.[48] There is also some evidence of rival factions on the island, either Christian or Muslim, as when Theodosius the Deacon reports the "inhabitants of crags and caves" under their leader Karamountes descending from the mountains during Nikephoros Phokas' siege of Chandax.[49]

List of emirs

The succession of the emirs of Crete has been established by Arab and Byzantine sources, but chiefly through their coinage. The dates of their reigns are therefore largely approximate:[50][51]

  • Abu Hafs Umar I ibn Shuayb ibn Isa al-Ghaliz al-Iqritish (Apohapsis in Greek sources), ruled 827/828 – ca. 855
  • Shuayb I ibn Umar (Saipes or Saet in Greek sources), ruled ca. 855–880
  • Abu Abdallah Umar II ibn Shuayb (Babdel in Greek sources), ruled ca. 880–895
  • Muhammad ibn Shuayb al-Zarkun (Zerkounes in Greek sources), ruled ca. 895–910
  • Yusuf ibn Umar II, ruled ca. 910–915
  • Ali ibn Yusuf, ruled ca. 915–925
  • Ahmad ibn Umar II, ruled ca. 925–940
  • Shuayb II ibn Ahmad, ruled ca. 940–943
  • Ali ibn Ahmad, ruled ca. 943–949
  • Abd al-Aziz ibn Shuayb II (Kouroupas in Greek sources), ruled 949–961, the last emir
  • Al-Numan ibn Abd al-Aziz (Anemas in Greek sources), son of the last emir, was captured and served in the Byzantine army, falling at the Battle of Dorostolon in 971.

See also

References

  1. ^ Treadgold (1997), pp. 313, 325
  2. ^ Canard (1986), p. 1082
  3. ^ a b Miles (1964), p. 10
  4. ^ Treadgold (1997), p. 378
  5. ^ Makrypoulias (2000), pp. 347–348
  6. ^ Canard (1986), pp. 1082–1083
  7. ^ Miles (1964), pp. 10–11
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Canard (1986), p. 1083
  9. ^ cf. Makrypoulias (2000), pp. 348–351
  10. ^ Treadgold (1988), pp. 251, 253
  11. ^ Treadgold (1988), p. 253
  12. ^ Makrypoulias (2000), p. 349
  13. ^ Miles (1964), p. 11
  14. ^ cf. Treadgold (1988), pp. 250–253, 259–260
  15. ^ Makrypoulias (2000), pp. 347–348
  16. ^ Treadgold (1988), pp. 253–254
  17. ^ Makrypoulias (2000), pp. 348, 351
  18. ^ a b c Treadgold (1988), p. 254
  19. ^ Makrypoulias (2000), pp. 349–350
  20. ^ Makrypoulias (2000), pp. 347, 357ff.
  21. ^ Makrypoulias (2000), pp. 348–349, 357
  22. ^ Treadgold (1988), pp. 255, 257
  23. ^ Miles (1964), p. 9
  24. ^ Treadgold (1988), p. 268
  25. ^ Treadgold (1988), pp. 324–325
  26. ^ Makrypoulias (2000), p. 351
  27. ^ Treadgold (1997), p. 447
  28. ^ Treadgold (1997), p. 451
  29. ^ Makrypoulias (2000), pp. 351–352
  30. ^ Treadgold (1997), p. 453
  31. ^ Treadgold (1997), p. 457
  32. ^ Canard (1981), pp. 1083–1084
  33. ^ Miles (1964), pp. 6–8
  34. ^ a b c d e f Canard (1986), p. 1084
  35. ^ Treadgold (1997), p. 467
  36. ^ Makrypoulias (2000), pp. 352–353
  37. ^ Treadgold (1997), p. 470
  38. ^ Makrypoulias (2000), pp. 353–356
  39. ^ Treadgold (1997), p. 489
  40. ^ Treadgold (1997), pp. 493–495
  41. ^ a b Treadgold (1997), p. 495
  42. ^ Canard (1981), pp. 1084–1085
  43. ^ Miles (1964, pp. 11, 16–17
  44. ^ cf. Canard (1986), p. 1083
  45. ^ Miles (1964), pp. 15–16
  46. ^ Christides (1984), pp. 33, 116–122
  47. ^ Christides (1984), pp. 116–118
  48. ^ Christides (1984), pp. 104–109
  49. ^ Miles (1964), p. 15
  50. ^ Miles (1964), pp. 11–15
  51. ^ Canard (1986), p. 1085

Sources

  • Canard, M. (1986). "Iqrītish". The Encyclopedia of Islam, New Edition, Volume III: H–Iram. Leiden and New York: BRILL. pp. 1082–1086. ISBN 90-04-08118-6.
  • Christides, Vassilios (1984), The Conquest of Crete by the Arabs (ca. 824): A Turning Point in the Struggle between Byzantium and Islam, Academy of Athens
  • Gardiner, Robert, ed. (2004), Age of the Galley: Mediterranean Oared Vessels since pre-Classical Times, Conway Maritime Press, ISBN 978-0851779553
  • Makrypoulias, Christos G. (2000), "Byzantine Expeditions against the Emirate of Crete c. 825–949", Graeco-Arabica (7–8): 347–362
  • Miles, George C. (1964), "Byzantium and the Arabs: Relations in Crete and the Aegean Area", Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 18: 1–32, doi:10.2307/1291204
  • Treadgold, Warren T. (1988), The Byzantine Revival, 780–842, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, ISBN 978-0-8047-1462-2 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)
  • Treadgold, Warren T. (1997), A History of the Byzantine State and Society, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, ISBN 0-8047-2630-2
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