God-accursed island

For the Arabs, Crete served as an important lair from which to gain control of shipping routes in the Eastern Mediterranean. The Mozarabs, Saracens or Afri, as the Arabs of Crete are often referred to in Byzantine sources, launched successive pirate raids, terrorizing the islands and shores of the Aegean, as in attacks on Mytilini (Lesbos) in 862 and Mount Athos shortly thereafter. For 136 years, Chandax served as a den for corsairs' booty and a major slave market, as the Byzantine author Ioannis Kameniatis informs us in 904.