Ближний Восток и его соседи

g 80 h Vassilios Christides en route to Alexandria. Porphyrogenitus further reports that, after Sicily, the refugees proceeded to raid Crete and some Byzantine islands. However, contrary to his exaggerated statements about the great devastation supposed- ly wrought by the Andalusians, these were likely to have actually been minor raids as they made their way to Alexandria. We should keep in mind that all their ships were loaded with women and children, and thus their incursions would have been limited. 79 The Time of the Long Journey of the Andalusian Refugees from al-Marīyah to Alexandria: A Plausible Speculation Byzantine and Arabic sources refer to numerous conflicting reports about the time the refugees passed to the last stage of their journey, i. e. the time they resided in Alexandria from where they sailed to Crete. A list of several dates concerning theAndalusian landing and conquest of Crete, as reported in general 79 Perhaps there was a possible stopover-station in Tripoli of Libya which had a well sheltered harbor. Navigation from Tripoli to Sicily was quite easy via Pantelleria. See Christides, “Ṭarābulus Al-Gharb”, EI 2 , X (1998), 212–213. Unfortunately, there is no source mentioning any possible stopover of the fugitives in Tripoli, which stands in the middle of a barren coastline offering an uninviting but necessary stopover station to ships sailing along the North African coast; see Christides, Byzantine Libya and the March of the Arabs towards the West of North Africa , BAR International Series 851, Oxford 2000, 18–19. Fig. 8. Itinerary of the Andalusian refugees from Almería to Crete via Alexandria (Map drawn by Christos Halkias, Department of Geography, Harokopeio University)