Year 1054. The emir of the taifa of Denia, Alí, son of Muyahid, responds to a call of relief of the fatimí Egyptian caliph, after the year of plague and famine that had ravaged his kingdom, and fleet from the port of Denia a great ship loaded with food and cereals to Egypt.
This was the beginning of a close relationship between the Taifa of Denia and the Caliphate of Egypt. As a token of appreciation for Ali's gesture, the caliph of Egypt returned the ship loaded with jewels, gold, silver and other riches and, more importantly, allowed the kingdom of the taifa of Dénia to establish a direct commercial relationship with Egypt in a time when its trade routes with North Africa were about to disappear.
In the ship that left from Dénia two letters written by the vizier of Ali, Ibn Arqam, sent to the imam Caliph Fatimí of Egypt and its vizier. These missives have never been translated into Spanish, and now, the Ajuntament de Dénia and the Egyptian Institute of Islamic Studies plan to translate and publish them, along with their study, with the collaboration of Doctor Gustavo Turienzo.
In this way the relationship between Dénia and Egypt will return from the past and will also take shape in a series of activities that will allow to know more and better these relations of a millennium in a cycle of conferences scheduled for the spring of 2018. To this end, the City Council of Dénia has invited the cultural advisor of the Embassy of the RA of Egypt and director of the Egyptian Institute of Islamic Studies, Basem Saleh Daoud, to visit these days the city and to know the funds of the Archaeological Museum, which has important archaeological pieces of fatimí Egypt of century XI, reflection of which in that time there was a solid connection between the Taifa of Dénia and the Califato of Egypt.
