«Тахиййат»: Сборник статей в честь Н. Н. Дьякова

Piracy, Privateering and Maritime Violent Actions m 55 n (ca. 717–718) 1 .This policy was sincerely inspired by the spirit of jihād (holy war) according to which any war should be undertaken by the Muslims not as a practi- cal need but as a fulfillment of duty in Allah’s path 2 . It is the duty of the Muslims to protect the dar al-Islām (area of the Muslims) against the dār al- Ḥ arb (area of war) and eventually to secure the dominance of the former in the latter. Accord- ing to the maritime jihād as with the land jihād , certain rules- although vaguely expressed by the Arab jurists- are to be followed as it will be discussed further in this work in connection with the later period. Thus, theoretically unnecessary vio- lence, i. e. killing of women and children and unreasonable destruction of prop- erty, was not permitted 3 . Of course, theory and practice do not always coincide; nonetheless, it is an over simplification to label all the Arab sea raids during the Umayyad period as simple, piratical unrestricted actions. Actually, they corre- spond to similar raids, equally destructive, by the Byzantines at this period against Damietta and the Syrian ports. These raids were inspired by the Byzantines’ de- sire to recover the lost Byzantine maritime bases in Egypt and Syria 4 . During the Abbasid period (750–1258) the situation in the Eastern Medi- terranean changed drastically. On the one hand, the Arabs had highly devel- oped their maritime technology which by the 9 th –10 th century reached the level of the Byzantines, and it was perhaps sometime at this period that there was first composed an Arabic translation of the Byzantine treatise of naval warfare by Leo VI which was used by the 14 th century Arab author Ibn al-Manqali 5 . 1 For the second siege of Constantinople see: Christides V. The Second Arab Siege of Constantinople (717–718?): Logistics and Naval Power, in: Bibel, Byzanz und Christlicher Orient. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 187, ed. D. Bumazhnov, E. Grypeou, T. B. Sailors and A. Toepel, Leuven — Paris —Walpole, MA, 2011. P. 511–533. 2 See: Khadduri M. War and Peace in the Law of Islam , Baltimore, 1955. P. 102. It should be mentioned here that while theoretically there is no secular war in Islam, actually every war of the Muslims was inspired by various factors. Frank R. Trombley properly states:“A hard question to answer is what level of religious consciousness motivated the ordinary Muslim fighter; see Trombley, Frank R., The Arabs in Anatolia and the Islamic Law of War ( fiqh al- jihād ) (Seventh-Tenth Centuries), in: Al-Masāq 16.1 (March 2004), p. 149. Anne-Marie Eddé, correctly answers that we cannot simply suppose that a Muslim fighter was inspired “unique- ment pour le jihād ”; see Eddé, Anne-Marie, Discussion sur la communication deA. M. Eddé et F. Micheau, in: Le combattant au Moyen Ấge. Histoire ancienne et médiévale , ed. Societé des Historiens Médiévistes, Paris, 1995. P. 75. 3 See: Ḥ amīdullāh M. Muslim Conduct of State , 7 th ed., Lahore, 1977. P. 203: “Muslim soldiers should not fire directly on women and minors”. 4 For a succinct description of the Byzantines’ raid against Damietta, see: Kindi. Tasmiyāt Wulāt Mi ṣ r , ed. R. Guest, Gibb Memorial Series 19, London, 1912. P. 201. According to this au- thor, large number of Muslim and Christian men and women were captured; other Arabic sourc- es exaggerate the number of captives and the destruction afflicted on this port by the Byzantines. 5 The exact dating of the Arabic translation of Leo VI’s treatise is disputable; see Chris- tides, Ibn al-Manqali (Mangli) and Leo VI: New Evidence on Arabo-Byzantine Ship Con- struction and Naval Warfare, in: Byzantinoslavica 56 (1995), p. 84–85.