For this was the first great age of Muslim piracy. Having gone as far as they could on land, Muslims from Spain and all throughout the North African coast spent their energy invading the Mediterranean islands. Though some had already been raided in previous centuries, the Balearic Islands, Corsica, Crete, Cyprus, Malta, Sardinia, and Sicily were utterly devastated and occupied during the ninth.* Mass slaughter and/or slavery, the imposition of jizya, and the destruction of churches all but depopulated these tiny Christian islands.
