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

m 56 n Vassilios Christides On the other hand, the Byzantines organized a special fleet in Constantinople and a number of thematic fleets which undertook the defense of their islands 1 . Neither the Abbasids nor the Fatimids (909–1176), whose state emerged in the Maghrib and later expanded to Egypt and beyond, dared to attack Con- stantinople and to undertake a maritime holy war aiming at the conquest of Constantinople. During the 9 th and 11 th centuries numerous Arabic sources as well as the Per- sian traveler Nā ṣ ir-i-Khusraw (d. ca. 1074 AD) inform us that a large number of Byzantine ships freely visited the Arab ports securing special trade permission (security conduct), and likewise Arab ships visited the Byzantine ports 2 . Under- water archaeology confirms the literary sources 3 . The shipwreck of Serçe Limani was a Byzantine merchant ship which, after freely visiting many Arab ports, sank loaded with Syrian glass and other products in Serçe Limani at the turn of the 11 th century 4 . At this time of intense trade relations between Byzantium and the Abbasid and Fatimid states, any so-called Arab piratical activities against the islands would have been unprofitable and detrimental to their common financial interests. These intense trade relations between the Byzantines and the Arabs at this period are reflected in the Arabic source Kitāb al-Taba ṣṣ ur by Pseudo- Jāhiz, who reports that at the time of the Abbasids, imports from the Byzantine Empire included gold vessels, embroidered clothes and other luxury items; in addition marble workers and water engineers were proposed to be brought from Byzantium 5 . It is especially during the Abbasid period, mainly in the 9 th and 10 th centu- ries, that Byzantine-Arab official exchanges of prisoners as well as liberation 1 Ahrweiler H. Byzance et la mer. La marine de guerre, la politique et les institutions maritimes de Byzance aux VIIe–XVe siècles , Paris, 1966. P. 107–111. An attempt was made by Whittle J., The “Theme“of Carabisiani, in: Treasures of Arab-Byzantine Navigation (7 th – 13 th C.) , ed. V. Christides et al., Athens, 2004. P. 139–145, to date the reorganization of the Byzantine navy but without reaching any definite date. 2 Schefer Ch., trans. Sefer Nameh relation du voyage de Nassiri Khosrau , Amsterdam 1970, p. 41: “Tripoli [of Syria] est un entrepôt commercial fréquenté par les navires qui viennent de la Grèce, du pays des Francs, de l’Espagne et du Maghreb…Le sultan possède à Tripoli des navires qui se rendent en Grèce”. 3 The new recent underwater findings in the Theodosian port of Constantinople will definitely illuminate many obscure aspects of the construction of Byzantine ships; see: Ufuk Kocabas. Recent Shipwreck Discoveries in Constantinople’s Theodosian Harbour, in: Graeco-Arabica 12, forthcoming. 4 Bass G. F., Matthews Sh. D., Steffy J. R., Van Doorninck, Jr., Frederick H. Serçe Limani. An Eleventh-Century Shipwreck , vol. I, College Station, Texas, 2004. 5 Kitāb al-Taba ṣṣ ur b’il-Tijāra , ed. H. H. ‘Abd al-Wahāb, Beirut 1983, p. 34–35; French trans- lation Ch. Pellat, Le Kitāb al- Taba ṣṣ ur b’il-Tijāra attribué à Jā ḥ iz , in: Arabica I (1954), p. 159; English translation of the relevant passage in Lewis B., Islam. Volume II: Religion and Society , Oxford, p. 154.