[3] After relating a raid by the Muslims of Fraxinetum on the city of Acqui, which he describes as fifty miles from Pavia, Liudprand records: "At the same time, in the Genoese city, which has been built in the Cottian Alps, overlooking the African sea, eighty miles distant from Pavia, a spring flowed most copiously with blood, clearly suggesting to all a coming calamity.
Indeed, in the same year, the Phoenicians [North Africans] arrived there with a multitude of fleets, and while the citizens were unaware, they entered the city, killing all except women and children.
It says only that the Caliph Muḥammad Abu l-Ḳāsim al-Ḳāʾim bi-amr Allāh, who had succeeded to the throne earlier that year, sent a fleet to Genoa and captured it.
[5] According to the Muslims sources, a fleet of ships left Mahdia under the command of Yaʻqūb ibn Isḥāq on 18 June 934 (7 Rajab 322) to attack the Rums (Christians).
"[5] The Fatimid fleet then approached Genoa from the west, from the direction of Spain, having apparently sailed along the coast and across the Gulf of Lion.
According to ʿImād al-Dīn, "the prisoners were exhibited and the fleet was decorated" while Yaʻqūb "entered the city wearing his most beautiful clothes".
Benjamin Kedar, who is responsible for drawing scholars attention to the potential relevance of ʿImād al-Dīn on this question, argues that the linen and raw silk mentioned among the loot carried away by the Fatimids are evidence of trade with the Islamic world.
Genoese charters only survive in significant numbers from the second half of the tenth century onwards, a fact which itself may be a result of the destruction wrought in 935.
[3] In the late thirteenth century, Jacopo da Varagine believed that the Genoese fleet had been away when the Fatimids attacked.