Read The Great Arab Conquests Online
Authors: Hugh Kennedy
The Great Arab Conquests (62 page)
The island of Roda in the Nile at Fustāt was a major centre of shipbuilding and in the early Arab sources the island is simply called ‘Jazirat al-Sina
c
a’ or the Island of the Arsenal. This seems to have been established after a Byzantine raid on the Egyptian coastal town of Burullus in 673, presumably because the site, well upriver from the coast, would allow ships to be built and repaired safe from any raider. Papyrus documents of 709 shows the governor demanding that carpenters and other tradesmen be sent to the superintendent of the arsenal at Fustāt to help in the construction of ships.
30
c
a’ or the Island of the Arsenal. This seems to have been established after a Byzantine raid on the Egyptian coastal town of Burullus in 673, presumably because the site, well upriver from the coast, would allow ships to be built and repaired safe from any raider. Papyrus documents of 709 shows the governor demanding that carpenters and other tradesmen be sent to the superintendent of the arsenal at Fustāt to help in the construction of ships.
30
Further indications of what went on in an early Muslim arsenal can be found in a form letter of appointment from the caliph (unnamed) to the (also unnamed) governor of a frontier area, recorded in a tenth-century source.
31
Like most such documents, much of it is taken up with general exhortations and common sense. It begins with a whole series of pious commands to obey God, favour good people over bad and so on, but it does give some orders directly connected with ports and ships. The governor is urged to spend money to keep the ships and their equipment in good order and to bring the ships up out of the water in the winter. He should send out spies and keep himself well informed. He should not allow any Greek fire experts (
naffatīn
), sailors, throwers of projectiles (
qadhdhfīn
) or any other tradesmen into the ships unless they are properly qualified and capable of working well. Only the best troops were to be employed. He is to inspect the shipbuilding yards and make sure that there are adequate supplies of wood, iron, flax, pitch (
zift
) and other things so that the ships are properly built and well caulked and supplied with oars and sails (
qulu ū
c
). Reliable and experienced sailors are to be selected. Merchants are to be watched in case they are spies. He should also keep an eye on the harbours to make sure that no ships go in or out without his knowledge. Everything in the dockyards should be kept clean and well maintained, ready for action. He should check that there are adequate supplies of oil (
naft
), balsam and ropes, all in good order.
31
Like most such documents, much of it is taken up with general exhortations and common sense. It begins with a whole series of pious commands to obey God, favour good people over bad and so on, but it does give some orders directly connected with ports and ships. The governor is urged to spend money to keep the ships and their equipment in good order and to bring the ships up out of the water in the winter. He should send out spies and keep himself well informed. He should not allow any Greek fire experts (
naffatīn
), sailors, throwers of projectiles (
qadhdhfīn
) or any other tradesmen into the ships unless they are properly qualified and capable of working well. Only the best troops were to be employed. He is to inspect the shipbuilding yards and make sure that there are adequate supplies of wood, iron, flax, pitch (
zift
) and other things so that the ships are properly built and well caulked and supplied with oars and sails (
qulu ū
c
). Reliable and experienced sailors are to be selected. Merchants are to be watched in case they are spies. He should also keep an eye on the harbours to make sure that no ships go in or out without his knowledge. Everything in the dockyards should be kept clean and well maintained, ready for action. He should check that there are adequate supplies of oil (
naft
), balsam and ropes, all in good order.
There is nothing in this that any sailor could disagree with. No doubt Muslim arsenals, like military installations everywhere, often fell below the highest standards, but the administration clearly had a good idea about what was required and was prepared, at least in principle, to spend money on it.
32
Both the Arabs and their Byzantine opponents drew on a common legacy of ship design. The great triremes and quinquiremes of the Hellenistic and early Roman period had long since disappeared from the waters of the Mediterranean to be replaced by small, lighter galleys. No wrecks of warships from this period have been identified so we are dependent on scanty references in literary sources and a small number of inadequate drawings and graffiti to reconstruct what the warships of the period may have looked like. A great deal remains uncertain. The nature of the source material, both textual and in visual representations, means that we know slightly more about Byzantine ships in the early Middle Ages than about Arab ones, but there is little evidence that the warships used by each side differed in any significant way.
The standard Byzantine warship of the period was called the
dromon
or
chelandion
and the Arabs adopted the same types, calling them
shinī
or
shalandi
. Merchant ships in this period relied exclusively on wind power but warships were propelled by oars, using sails only when cruising in suitable weather or as a supplementary power source. Oars were essential to provide speed and manoeuvrability during combat. It has been estimated that an average
dromon
would have been about 30 metres in length and, given a 1:8 ratio of beam to length, a breadth of between 3 and 4 metres. Muslim ships were probably similar. The largest
dromon
crew known from Byzantine sources was 230 oarsman and 70 marines on one ship, but most probably carried between one and two hundred men.
dromon
or
chelandion
and the Arabs adopted the same types, calling them
shinī
or
shalandi
. Merchant ships in this period relied exclusively on wind power but warships were propelled by oars, using sails only when cruising in suitable weather or as a supplementary power source. Oars were essential to provide speed and manoeuvrability during combat. It has been estimated that an average
dromon
would have been about 30 metres in length and, given a 1:8 ratio of beam to length, a breadth of between 3 and 4 metres. Muslim ships were probably similar. The largest
dromon
crew known from Byzantine sources was 230 oarsman and 70 marines on one ship, but most probably carried between one and two hundred men.
The early Middle Ages saw a number of important changes in the way in which warships were designed and built.
33
The first was the change in hull construction. In the ancient world, hulls had been built using planks laid edge to edge and held together by pegged mortise-and-tenon joints. As reconstructed from the preserved wood, the Yassa Adi ship of 626 was built in the modern way, using a frame of ribs to which the planks are then attached; it made for a lighter, more economical but less robust style of vessel. We do not know whether the navies took advantage of the new techniques of hull construction that we find in the Yassa Adi ship, but they probably did, because these were cheaper and lighter. The second was the change from underwater rams to above-water spurs at the bows of the ships. Classical ships had used underwater rams as an important weapon in naval warfare, but these had been phased out by late antiquity and the lighter hull constructions would have been strained by a direct impact.
34
The third innovation was a change in the shape and rigging of sails. Late Roman ships had used square sails rigged across the beam of the ship, but at some unknown time in the early Middle Ages these came to be replaced by triangular lateen sails, which made tacking close to the wind easier. Arab ships seem to have used lateen sails from the start. Another characteristic development of the period was the use of wooden, deck-top ‘castles’ to give a height advantage to the marines when fighting at close quarters. In late antiquity ships had been steered with two large oars at the stern, and this seems to have continued until the tenth or eleventh century, when such steering oars were replaced by a single stern rudder.
33
The first was the change in hull construction. In the ancient world, hulls had been built using planks laid edge to edge and held together by pegged mortise-and-tenon joints. As reconstructed from the preserved wood, the Yassa Adi ship of 626 was built in the modern way, using a frame of ribs to which the planks are then attached; it made for a lighter, more economical but less robust style of vessel. We do not know whether the navies took advantage of the new techniques of hull construction that we find in the Yassa Adi ship, but they probably did, because these were cheaper and lighter. The second was the change from underwater rams to above-water spurs at the bows of the ships. Classical ships had used underwater rams as an important weapon in naval warfare, but these had been phased out by late antiquity and the lighter hull constructions would have been strained by a direct impact.
34
The third innovation was a change in the shape and rigging of sails. Late Roman ships had used square sails rigged across the beam of the ship, but at some unknown time in the early Middle Ages these came to be replaced by triangular lateen sails, which made tacking close to the wind easier. Arab ships seem to have used lateen sails from the start. Another characteristic development of the period was the use of wooden, deck-top ‘castles’ to give a height advantage to the marines when fighting at close quarters. In late antiquity ships had been steered with two large oars at the stern, and this seems to have continued until the tenth or eleventh century, when such steering oars were replaced by a single stern rudder.
In many ways naval warfare was little more than land warfare fought on ships. Byzantine treatises on naval warfare do suggest arranging the fleet in crescent formations with the commander and the strongest ships in the centre. One of them also suggests that if battle is joined off the enemy coast, it is better to be near the shore so that their sailors will be tempted to abandon ship and swim for it! Beyond these there seem to have been few guides for the tactical deployment of ships. Battle was usually begun with the throwing of projectiles, arrows, stones and inflammable materials. In addition to siphons for the Greek fire, usually mounted in the bows, ships would carry catapults for propelling stones and pots of Greek fire. One of the more fanciful ideas was to hurl containers of scorpions or vipers on to the decks of enemy ships, an idea that may seem more attractive in theory than it does in the practical circumstances of fighting from ship to ship.
35
The main weapons were bows and cross-bows and in the end naval battles, like the Battle of the Masts, were probably decided by hand-to-hand fighting between soldiers, much as on land.
35
The main weapons were bows and cross-bows and in the end naval battles, like the Battle of the Masts, were probably decided by hand-to-hand fighting between soldiers, much as on land.
The crews were made up of two elements, the oarsmen and sailors on one hand and the soldiers or marines on the other. The evidence suggests that in Byzantine ships the two groups were not entirely separate and that sailors could also become fighters if required. In early Muslim navies, by contrast, there seems to have been a fairly strict distinction between the soldiers, who were Arab Muslims, and the seamen, who were Coptic or Syrian Christians. Such distinctions must have become irrelevant by the ninth and tenth centuries, especially in corsair ships.
The administrative papyri from seventh- and eighth-century Egypt give us a unique insight into the recruitment of sailors and the supplying of the fleet. The most important of these is the series of letters from Qurra b. Sharīk, the Arab governor of Egypt from 709 to 714, to the administrator of the small upper Egyptian town of Aphrodito, now Kūm Ishqaw, one of which has already been quoted in the discussion of the 703 raid on Sardinia. The documents are in Greek, Coptic and Arabic, but the most important from our point of view are the Greek ones, for Greek was still the main administrative language in provincial Egypt, even though the central government in Fustāt operated in Arabic.
Aphrodito is a long way from the sea, and while the local people may have had experience of river boats on the Nile, it is hard to imagine that many of them had any direct experience of sailing on the high seas. In spite of this, they were still expected to contribute to the Egyptian fleet. Each area was expected to supply a certain number of sailors. We are told that these might be recruited from bath-keepers, fullers or shepherds, that is men engaged in fairly low-status manual jobs, and each village was supposed to have a register of eligible men. The local landowners were obliged to produce these men and provide sureties so that if they did not appear, the government could hire substitutes. In one letter from the local landowners to the governor they guarantee what they will do:
We declare we are willing, we guarantee, we are responsible and we go surety and we are reliable for the persons of these sailors, being those of our fields, whose names we shall display for you at the bottom of this guarantee-declaration We are sending them northwards as sailors of ships in the 7th year of the indiction for the cursus [raid] of the 8th indiction.
s
In this way they will fulfil their duty as sailors in the census of Egypt without turning aside. But if any of them turn aside, we are ready to pay any fine that our lord the all-famous governor may impose on us.
36
The document ends with the names and addresses of three sailors and the signatures of the guarantors.
In another letter, the local people are ordered to send two and a half (!) sailors to join the fleet being organized by Abd Allāh b. Mūsa b. Nusayr in Africa. They are to be paid wages of 1 1/6 solidi and travel expenses of 1 1⁄6 from ‘the state treasury’, presumably meaning the money the district owed in taxes.
Rowing in galleys, especially war galleys belonging to an alien ruling class, can never have been a popular career option, but the letters suggest that, although service was in theory compulsory if you were on the list, you did at least get paid for it. These were not galley slaves as had been used in ancient Rome. Furthermore, it is clear that sometimes, but by no means always, it was possible to make a money payment instead of doing the service in person. One papyrus even contains a requisition for cushions and it has been suggested, perhaps over-optimistically, that these were for the rowers’ benches.
37
We have already noted how Qurra wrote to find out the fate of those men from Aphrodito who had joined the unsuccessful raiding fleet of Atā b. Rāfi. Some had died, others had returned home but some had remained in Africa, and the governor wanted to know why. Was it possible that service in the navy offered at least some men an opportunity to escape from the restrictions of village life and make a new start for themselves?
37
We have already noted how Qurra wrote to find out the fate of those men from Aphrodito who had joined the unsuccessful raiding fleet of Atā b. Rāfi. Some had died, others had returned home but some had remained in Africa, and the governor wanted to know why. Was it possible that service in the navy offered at least some men an opportunity to escape from the restrictions of village life and make a new start for themselves?
If the navy needed people, it also needed materials for shipbuilding. Again the landowners of Aphrodito were called upon to help out. Timber was clearly the most important of these. Some timber came from the ancient forests in the Lebanese mountains but Egypt itself produced some good wood. There was the lebbek tree, of which it was said that ‘if two pieces were firmly joined together and left in the water for a year, they would become as one’, the acacia tree, whose wood was hard as iron, and the palm tree. One letter from Qurra requires that the pagarch of Aphrodito send beams of palm and fig-tree wood for building ships ‘on the island of Babylon [Fustāt]’ to be delivered this year for building ships for next year’s raid.
As well as wood, iron for nails was required and, again, the people of Aphrodito were required to take scrap or rough iron from the government store, make it into nails and send them to the chief of shipbuilding operations in Fustāt. Egypt itself produces no iron so these must have been imports, perhaps from Spain, or perhaps reused iron from Byzantine buildings. Finally there were ropes, and it is interesting to note that the English word cable is ultimately derived from the Arabic
habl
, meaning rope. Egypt was well supplied with hemp for this purpose.
habl
, meaning rope. Egypt was well supplied with hemp for this purpose.
Alongside this official government naval activity, there were irregular Arab corsairs, unpaid and joining up in the hope of booty. It was such corsairs, not the navies of the caliphs, which were responsible for the conquest of Crete in 824 and the establishment of pirate nests in southern Italy on the Garigliano river and in the south of France at Fraxinetum (Fréjus) in the late ninth and early tenth centuries. But these lie beyond the scope of this book.
11
VOICES OF THE CONQUERED
The maxim ‘to the victors the spoils’ applies not just to the physical reality of military success but often to the historiography of the events as well. The voices of the conquered are all too often swamped by the triumphalist histories of the conquerors. In the case of the Muslim conquests, however, we have a number of works, histories, apocalypses and poems, which give some insight as to how the people in the aftermath of the conquests regarded their new masters and what they considered to be the losses, and sometimes the benefits, that the conquests had brought them.
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