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

m 58 n Vassilios Christides say the above and other similar regulations of the maritime jihād clearly re- veal that all these false accusations found in the Byzantine sources, especially hagiographical, about piratical raids cannot be justified. There is no doubt that unnecessary maritime violence was also committed during naval warfare by the Arabs, but it was marginal against the general guidance of maritime jihād . Of course, the efforts of the Arab emirate of Crete in their naval warfare aimed at the increasing of dār al-Islam were more frequent and violent as well as their violations of the maritime jihād . The most important violation of the maritime jihād by the Cretan Arabs is their rare attacks against Byzantine merchant ships in the high seas. Muslim jurists disapproved of attacking enemy commercial vessels for economic fac- tors since such attacks would interrupt commercial transactions 1 . It is for this reason that the 9 th century Arab jurist Abū Yūsuf suggested that the Muslims should not confiscate any foreign merchant ship which was forced to enter a Muslim port because of adverse winds 2 . The most conspicuous attack by the Arabs of Crete in the high seas against a Byzantine ship appears in the Life of St. Joseph the Hymnographer (late 9 th C. AD). Unfortunately, no details about this assault are described. St. Joseph’s biographer simply reports that the saint was sailing to Rome in order to accomplish a religious mission and on his way, probably in the southern Aegean, a barbarian flotilla (obviously Arab Cretan), attacked his ship, captured the saint and sent him in shackles to Crete 3 . Perhaps the Arabs of Crete had learned about his official mission and for this reason they attacked him while sailing on a merchant or even a war- ship. He was liberated after a ransom payment 4 . Perhaps he had embarked on a merchant ship along with a flotilla of Byzantine merchantmen accompanied by warships. This was a common practice of the Arab merchantmen which criss- crossed the Mediterranean between the 11 th –13 th centuries in convoys guarded 1 Khalilieh. Islamic Maritime Law An Introduction (cf. note 25), p. 135. 2 See: Yūsuf Abū. Kitāb al-Kharāj , French trans. A. Ben Shemesh, Leiden — London, 1965. P. 293. 3 See: Ioannes Diaconus. S. Josephi Hymnographi Vita , in: P.G. 105, col. 931: “πλο ῖ α δ ὲ ἐ πιστάντα βαρβαρικ ὰ δεσμώτην ε ἰ ς Κρήτην ἀ πήγαγον”. The term “barbaricus” (barbarian) is used here for the Arabs of Crete. In the Byzantine and hagiographical sources, the general terms “Agarēnoi”, “Arabes”, “Ismaēlitai” are used in addition to some particular terms, i. e. Skylitzes’ calls them “Krētes” (Cretans) and occasionally “Ispanoi” (Spaniards); see Chris- tides, The Cycle of the Arab-Byzantine Struggle in Crete (ca 824/6–961 AD) in the Illumi- nated Manuscript of Skylitzes (Codex Matritensis Graecus Vitr. 26–2), in: Graeco-Arabica 11 (2011), p. 31. The information that Joseph was in shackles is not surprising. In both Byzantine and Arabic sources it is reported that such punishment could occur although it was usually not practiced in order to avoid reciprocal action for vengeance; see Khouri Odetallah, Arabs and Byzantines. The Problem of the Prisoners of War (cf. note 23), p. 47–48. 4 Ioannes Diaconus. S. Josephi Hymnographi Vita (cf. note 30), col. 932.