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Ṣiqilliya صِقِلِّيَة (Arabic) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 827–1091 | |||||||||
 Italy in 1000. The Emirate of Sicily is in light green. | |||||||||
| Status |
| ||||||||
| Capital | Palermo | ||||||||
| Common languages | Classical Arabic (official) ,Sicilian Arabic ,Sicilian,Byzantine Greek,Berber languages,Judeo-Arabic | ||||||||
| Religion | |||||||||
| Government | Monarchy | ||||||||
| Historical era | Middle Ages | ||||||||
• Established | 827 | ||||||||
• Disestablished | 1091 | ||||||||
| Currency | Tarì,dirham | ||||||||
| |||||||||
| Today part of | Italy Malta | ||||||||
The island ofSicily[note 1] was underIslamic rule from the late ninth to the late eleventh centuries.[1] It became a prosperous and influential commercial power in theMediterranean,[2] with its capital ofPalermo[note 2] serving as a major cultural and political center of the Muslim world.[3]
Sicily was a peripheral part of theByzantine Empire when Muslim forces fromIfriqiya (roughly present-dayTunisia) began launching raids in 652. During the reign of theAghlabid dynasty of Ifriqiya, aprolonged series of conflicts from 827 to 902 resulted in the gradual conquest of the entire island, with only the stronghold ofRometta, in the far northeast,holding out until 965. TheFatimid Caliphate replaced Aghlabid rule after 909. From 948 onwards, the island was governed by theKalbid dynasty, who ruled as autonomousemirs while formally acknowledging Fatimid authority.
Under Muslim rule, Sicily becamemulticonfessional and multilingual, developing a distinctArab-Byzantine culture that combined elements of its Islamic Arab and Berber migrants with those of the local Latin, Greek, and Jewish communities. Lucrative new crops were introduced, advanced irrigation systems were built, and urban centers were beautified with gardens and public works; the resulting wealth led to a flourishing of art and science.
Beginning in the early eleventh century, political authority began to fracture from internal strife and dynastic disputes. ChristianNorman mercenaries underRoger I ultimatelyconquered the island, founding theCounty of Sicily in 1071; the last Muslim city on the island,Noto, fell in 1091, marking the end of independent Islamic rule in Sicily. As the first Count of Sicily, Roger maintained relative tolerance and multiculturalism; Sicilian Muslims remained citizens. Until the late twelfth century, and probably as late as the 1220s, Muslims formed a majority of the island's population, and even occupied positions in theroyal court. But by the mid thirteenth century, Muslims who had not already left or converted to Christianity were expelled, ending roughly four hundred years of Islamic presence in Sicily.
Over two centuries of Islamic rule has left some traces in modern Sicily.[4] Minor Arabic influence remains in theSicilian language and in local place names; a much larger influence is in theMaltese language that derives fromSiculo-Arabic. Other cultural remnants can be found in the island's agricultural methods and crops, cuisine, andarchitecture.[5]
In 535,EmperorJustinian I reconquered Sicily for theRoman Empire, which by then was ruled fromConstantinople. As the power of what is now known as theByzantine Empire waned in the West, a new and expansionist power was emerging in the Middle East: theRashidun Caliphate, the first major Muslim state to emerge following the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad in 632. Over a period of twenty five years, the caliphate succeeded in annexing much of thePersian Sasanian Empire and former Roman territories in the Levant and North Africa. In 652, underCaliph Uthman, an invasion captured most of the island, but Muslims occupation was short-lived, as they left following his death.[citation needed]
By the end of the seventh century, with theUmayyad conquest of North Africa, the Muslims had captured the nearby port city ofCarthage, allowing them to build shipyards and a permanent base from which to launch more sustained attacks.[6]
Around 700, the island ofPantelleria was captured byUmayyads, and it was only discord among the Muslims that prevented an attempted invasion of Sicily at that time. Instead, trading agreements were arranged with the Byzantines, and Muslim merchants were allowed to trade goods at Sicilian ports.[citation needed]
The first true attempt at conquest was launched in 740; in that year the Muslim prince Habib, who had participated in the 728 attack, successfully capturedSyracuse. Ready to conquer the whole island, they were however forced to return to Tunisia by aBerber revolt. A second attack in 752 aimed only to sack the same city.[citation needed]
In 826,Euphemius, the commander of theByzantine fleet of Sicily, forced a nun to marry him. EmperorMichael II caught wind of the matter and ordered that General Constantine end the marriage and cut off Euphemius' nose. Euphemius rose up, killed Constantine and then occupied Syracuse; he in turn was defeated and driven out to North Africa.[1] He offered rule of Sicily over toZiyadat Allah, theAghlabid emir ofIfriqiya (around present-dayTunisia), in return for a place as a general and safety; the Emir agreed, offering to give Euphemius the island in exchange for a yearly tribute. The conquest was entrusted to the 70-year-oldqadiAsad ibn al-Furat, who led a force 10,000 infantry, 700 cavalry and 100 ships.[1] Reinforced by the Muslims, Euphemius' ships landed atMazara del Vallo, where the first battle against loyalist Byzantine troops occurred on July 15, 827, resulting in an Aghlabid victory.
Asad subsequently conquered the southern shore of the island and laid siege toSyracuse. Afteryear-long siege, and an attempted mutiny, his troops were able to defeat a large army sent fromPalermo, backed by a Venetian fleet led by DogeGiustiniano Participazio. A sudden outbreak of plague killed many of the Muslim troops, as well as Asad himself, forcing the Muslims to retreat to the castleMineo. They later renewed their offensive, but failed to conquerCastrogiovanni (modern Enna) where Euphemius was killed, forcing them to retreat back to their stronghold at Mazara.
In 830, the remaining Muslims of Sicily received a strong reinforcement of 30,000 Ifriqiyan andAndalusi troops. The Iberian Muslims defeated the Byzantine commander Teodotus between July and August of that year, but again a plague forced them to return to Mazara and later Ifriqiya. However, Ifriqiyan units sent to besiege the Sicilian capital of Palermo managed to capture it after a year-long siege in September 831.[7] Palermo was made the Muslim capital of Sicily, renamedal-Madinah ("The City"),[8] and it became the base for further conquests on the island.[9][10]
The conquest was an incremental, see-saw affair. With considerable resistance and many internal struggles, it took over a century for Byzantine Sicily to be fully conquered.[1] Messina was besieged and captured in 842 or 843, possibly with the support of someNeapolitans, and became a base for subsequent campaigns into theItalian mainland.[11][12][13] Syracuse wascaptured in 878.[14] The conquest of the island was not fully completed until 902, whenTaormina wasconquered.[14][15] Even after this, however, some patches of local Byzantine/Christian resistance continued until 967, after the end of the Aghlabid period.[16][17]
In succession, Sicily was ruled by theSunni Aghlabid dynasty in Ifriqiya until 909, when they were overthrown and replaced by theShiiteFatimids.[16] The first years of Fatimid rule after 909 were difficult, as the Sicilian Muslims had already begun to acquire a distinct identity and they resisted attempts by new outsiders to assert themselves. The first Fatimid governor was expelled in 912 and the second one,Ibn Qurhub, rebelled until 916. Fatimid authority was only established more securely with the defeat of rebels and the surrender of Palermo in 917.[18] Salim ibn Abi Rashid served as Fatimid governor from 917 to 936. He was related by marriage to theKalbids, a high-ranking family loyal to the Fatimids.[19] Another major revolt for independence shook the island in 937 and was only suppressed in 941.[20]
In 948, the Fatimid caliphal-Mansur appointed the Kalbid commander al-Hasan ibn Ali al-Kalbi as governor of the island. He became the first emir of the Kalbid dynasty, which effectively ruled the island for the next century on behalf of the Fatimids.[21] Al-Hasan returned to Ifriqiya upon the death of al-Mansur, leaving his sonAhmad as governor of the island, though he returned later to assist in campaigns against the Byzantines. Under Ahmad's tenure, Taormina wasconquered again in 962 andRometta wasconquered soon after.[19] The Fatimids subsequentlyconquered and moved to Egypt in 972–973, leaving theZirids as their viceroys in Ifriqiya.[22] It was only after this move to Egypt that the Fatimid caliphs implicitly recognized the Kalbids as hereditary rulers, who thenceforth governed the island asamirs on their behalf.[21]
Throughout this period, Sunni Muslims formed the majority of the Muslim community in Sicily,[23] with most (if not all) of the people of Palermo being Sunni,[24] leading to their hostility to the Shia Kalbids.[25] The Sunni population of the island was replenished following sectarian rebellions across north Africa from 943–947 against the Fatimids' harsh religious policies, leading to several waves of refugees fleeing to Sicily in an attempt to escape Fatimid retaliation.[26] The Byzantines took advantage of temporary discord to occupy the eastern end of the island for several years.
Raids into Southern Italy continued under the Kalbids into the 11th century, and in 982 a joint Christian army under the EmperorOtto II and the brothersLandulf andPandulf was defeated atStilo near Crotone inCalabria. But EmirAbu'l-Qasim was killed in battle and with EmirYusuf al-Kalbi (986–998) a period of steady decline began. Under al-Akhal (1017–1037) the dynastic conflict intensified, with factions within the ruling family allying themselves variously with the Byzantine Empire and the Zirids. After this period,Al-Mu'izz ibn Badis attempted to annex the island for the Zirids, while intervening in the affairs of the feuding Muslims; however, the attempt ultimately failed.[27][failed verification]
By the 11th century, mainland southern Italian powers were hiringNorman mercenaries, who were Christian descendants of theVikings; it was the Normans under Roger de Hauteville, who becameRoger I of Sicily, that captured Sicily from the Muslims.[1] In 1038, a Byzantine army underGeorge Maniaces crossed the strait of Messina, and included a corps ofNormans. After another decisive victory in the summer of 1040, Maniaces halted his march to lay siege to Syracuse. Despite his conquest of the latter, Maniaces was removed from his position, and the subsequent Muslim counter-offensive reconquered all the cities captured by the Byzantines.[28] The NormanRobert Guiscard, son of Tancred, thenconquered Sicily in 1060 after takingApulia and Calabria, while his brotherRoger de Hauteville occupiedMessina with an army of 700 knights.
The Emirate of Sicily began to fragment amid intra-dynastic quarrels.[1] In 1044, under emirHasan al-Samsam, the island devolved into fourqadits, or small fiefdoms: Trapani, Marsala, Mazara and Sciacca led by Abdallah ibn Mankut; that of Girgenti, Castrogiovanni and Castronuovo under Ibn al-Hawwàs; Catania held by Ibn al-Maklatí; and that of Syracuse under Ibn Thumna, while al-Samsam retained control of Palermo longer, before it adopted self-rule under a council ofsheikhs. There followed a period of squabbles among the qadits that likely represented kin-groups jockeying for power. Ibn Thumna killed Ibn al-Maklatí, took Catania and married the dead qadi's widow who was the sister of Ibn al-Hawwàs. He also took ibn Mankut's qadit, but when his wife was prevented from returning from a visit to her brother, theFatimid-allied Ibn Thumna attacked Ibn al-Hawwàs only to be defeated. When he left Sicily to recruit more troops, this briefly left Ibn al-Hawwàs in control of most of the island.[29] In waging his war on his rivals, Ibn Thumna had collaborated closely with the Normans, each using the other to further their goal of ruling the entire island, and though Ibn Thumna's death in a 1062 ambush led the Normans to draw back and consolidate, Ibn Thumna's former allies appear to have continued the alliance, such that Muslim troops constituted the majority of the Hauteville "Norman" army in Sicily.[30]
TheZirids of North Africa sent an army to Sicily led by Ali andAyyub ibn Tamin, and these troops progressively brought the qadits under their control, killing al-Hawwàs and effectively making Ayyub emir of Muslim Sicily. However, they lost two decisive battles against the Normans. The Sicilians and North Africans were defeated in 1063 by a small Norman force at theBattle of Cerami, cementing Norman control over the north-east of the island. The sizeable Christian population rose up against the ruling Muslims. Then in 1068, Roger and his men defeated Ayyub at theBattle of Misilmeri, and the Zirids returned to North Africa, leaving Sicily in disarray. Catania fell to the Normans in 1071. Palermo, ruled since the Zirid withdrawal by Ibn al-Ba'ba, a man apparently of Spanish Jewish descent from the city's merchant class who led the city with the support of its sheikhs, would in turn fall on 10 January 1072 after a five-month siege.[31][32] Trapani capitulated the same year.
The loss of the main port cities dealt a severe blow to Muslim power on the island. The last pocket of active resistance was Syracuse governed byIbn Abbad (known as Benavert in western chronicles). He defeated Jordan, son of Roger of Sicily in 1075, occupied Catania again in 1081, and raided Calabria shortly after. However, Roger besieged Syracuse in 1086, and Ibn Abbad tried to break the siege with a naval battle, in which he died accidentally. Syracuse surrendered after this defeat. His wife and son fled to Noto and Butera. Meanwhile, the city of Qas'r Ianni (Castrogiovanni, modern Enna) was ruled by a Hammud, who surrendered and converted to Christianity only in 1087. After his conversion, Hammud subsequently became part of the Christian nobility and retired with his family to an estate inCalabria provided by Roger I. In 1091,Butera andNoto in the southern tip of Sicily and the island ofMalta, the last Arab strongholds, fell to the Christians with ease. After the conquest of Sicily, the Normans removed the local emir, Yusuf Ibn Abdallah from power, while respecting the customs of the residentArabs.[33]
The new Arab rulersinitiated land reforms, which in turn increased productivity and encouraged the growth of smallholdings, a dent to the dominance of the landed estates. The Arabs further improved irrigation systems throughQanats and introduced new and lucrative crops, includingoranges,lemons,pistachio andsugarcane. A description ofPalermo was given byIbn Hawqal, aBaghdad merchant who visited Sicily in 950. A walled suburb called theKasr (the palace) is the center of Palermo until today, with the great Friday Mosque on the site of the later Roman cathedral. The suburb of Al-Khalisa (Kalsa) contained the Sultan's palace, baths, a mosque, government offices, and a private prison. Ibn Hawqual reckoned 7,000 individual butchers trading in 150 shops. The population of the city during this period is uncertain, as figures given by Arab writers during the era were unreliable.Paul Bairoch estimated Palermo's population at 350,000 in the 11th century, while other historians likeStephan R. Epstein estimated it to be closer to 60,000. Based onal-Maqdisi's statement that Palermo was larger thanOld Cairo,Kenneth Meyer Setton put the figure above 100,000 but below 250,000.[34][35]Around 1330, Palermo's population stood at 51,000.[36]
Arab traveler, geographer, and poetIbn Jubair visited the area in the end of the 12th century and described Al-Kasr and Al-Khalisa (Kalsa):
The capital is endowed with two gifts, splendor and wealth. It contains all the real and imagined beauty that anyone could wish. Splendor and grace adorn the piazzas and the countryside; the streets and highways are wide, and the eye is dazzled by the beauty of its situation. It is a city full of marvels, with buildings similar to those of Córdoba, built of limestone. A permanent stream of water from four springs runs through the city. There are so many mosques that they are impossible to count. Most of them also serve as schools. The eye is dazzled by all this splendor.
Throughout this reign, revolts by Byzantine Sicilians occurred, especially in the east, and part of the lands were even re-occupied before being quashed.[28]
The local population conquered by the Muslims were Greek-speaking and Latin-speaking Byzantine Christians,[37] but there were also a significant number of Jews.[38] The Orthodox and Catholic populations were members of one Church until the events of 1054 began to separate them, the sack of 1204 being the last straw as far as the Byzantine "Orthodox" were concerned.
Christians and Jews were tolerated under Muslim rule asdhimmis but were subject to some restrictions; they were also required to pay thejizya, or head tax, and thekharaj or land tax, but were exempt from the tax that Muslims had to pay (Zakaat). Under Arab rule there were different categories of Jizya payers, but their common denominator was the payment of the Jizya as a mark of subjection to Muslim rule in exchange for protection against foreign and internal aggression. The conquered population could avoid this subservient status by converting to Islam. About half the population was Muslim at the time of the Norman Conquest. The co-existence with the conquered population fell apart after the reconquest of Sicily starting in the 1160s and particularly following the death of KingWilliam II of Sicily in 1189. The policy of oppression visited upon Christians was applied to Muslims.
Seated in what is now theRoyal Palace in Palermo, the emir held authority over most affairs of state, including the army, administration, justice, and the treasury. He appointed the governors of major cities, high ranking judges (qāḍī), and arbitrators for minor disputes between individuals (hakam). An assembly of notables calledgiamà'a played aconsultative role, albeit sometimes making important decisions in lieu of the emir. It is also very likely that the authorities operated atiraz, an official workshop that produced valuable fabrics such as silk, which were granted as a sign of appreciation to their subject or as a gift to foreign dignitaries.
Muslim sovereignty was never absolute across the island, and the creation of three subdivisions served to distinguish different approaches to government. Under the Arab rule the island was divided inthree administrative regions, or "vals", roughly corresponding to the three "points" of Sicily:Val di Mazara in the west;Val Demone in the northeast; andVal di Noto in the southeast. Western Sicily was moreIslamized and heavily populated by Arabs, allowing for full and direct administration; by contrast, the northeast region ofVal Demone remained majority Christian and often resistant to Muslim rule, prompting a focus on tax collection and maintaining public order, as a result, revolts by Byzantine Sicilians continuously occurred in the east where Greek-speaking Christians predominated. Parts of the island were re-occupied before revolts were quashed.By the 11th century, the Emirate of Sicily began to fragment as intra-dynastic quarreling fractured the Muslim government.[39]
The fighters orjunud in conquering the lands obtained four-fifths as booty (fai) and one fifth was reserved for the state or the local governor (thekhums), following the rules of Islamic law. However, this rule was not always respected and in many areas such as that of Agrigento the new owners would not have had the right. But it must be said that this distribution of the lands brought about the end of the large estates and the possibility of better exploitation of the lands. New crops were thus introduced where only wheat had been grown for centuries. Sugarcane, vegetables, citrus fruits, dates and mulberry trees appeared and mining exploitation began.[40]
The coin introduced by the Arabs was thedinar, in gold and weighing 4.25 grams. Thedirhem was silver and weighed 2.97 grams. The Aghlabites introduced thesolidus in gold and thefollis in copper. While following the conquest of Palermo in 886 thekharruba was coined which was worth 1/6 of adirhem.
The NormanKingdom of Sicily underRoger II has been characterized as "multi-ethnic in nature and religiously tolerant". Normans, Jews, Muslim Arabs, Byzantine Greeks,Lombards and native Sicilians lived in relative harmony.[41][42]Arabic remained a language of government and administration for at least a century into Norman rule, and traces remain in thelanguage of Sicily and evidently more in thelanguage of Malta today.[6] Muslims also maintained their domination of industry, retailing, and production, while Muslim craftsmanship, masonry, and expertise in government and administration were highly sought after.[43]
However, the island's Muslims were faced with the choice of voluntary departure or subjection to Christian rule. Many Muslims chose to leave, provided they had the means to do so. "The transformation of Sicily into a Christian island", remarks Abulafia, "was also, paradoxically, the work of those whose culture was under threat".[44][45] Also, Muslims gradually converted to Christianity, the Normans replaced Orthodox clergy with Latin clerics. Despite the presence of an Arab-speaking Christian population, Greek churchmen attracted Muslim peasants to receive a baptism and even adopted Greek Christian names; in several instances, Christian serfs with Greek names listed in the Monreale registers had living Muslim parents.[46][47] The Norman rulers followed a policy of steady Latinization by bringing in thousands of Italian settlers from the northwest and south of Italy, and some others from southeast France. To this day, there are communities in central Sicily which speak the Gallo-Italic dialect. Some Muslims chose to feign conversion, but such a remedy could only provide individual protection and could not sustain a community.[48]
"Lombard"pogroms against Muslims started in the 1160s. Muslim and Christian communities in Sicily became increasingly geographically separated. Though likely still a majority, the island's Muslim communities were mainly isolated beyond an internal frontier that divided the south and western half of the island from the Christian north and eastern half; in particular, the northeast region ofVal Demone had remained predominantlyByzantine Greek and Christian, even during Islamic rule.[49][50][51][52][53][54][55] As a subject people, Sicilian Muslims became dependent on the mercy of their Christian masters and, ultimately, on royal protection. AfterKing William the Good died in 1189, royal protection was lifted, and the door was opened for widespread attacks against the island's Muslims. This destroyed any lingering hope of coexistence, however unequal the respective populations might have been. The death ofHenry VI and his wifeConstance a year later plunged Sicily into political turmoil. With the loss of royal protection and withFrederick II still an infant in papal custody, Sicily became a battleground for rival German and papal forces. The island's Muslim rebels sided with German warlords likeMarkward von Anweiler. In response,Pope Innocent III declared a crusade against Markward, alleging that he had made an unholy alliance with the Saracens of Sicily. Nevertheless, in 1206 Innocent III had attempted to convince Muslim leaders to remain loyal.[56] By this time, the Muslim rebellion was in full swing. They were in control of Jato, Entella, Platani, Celso, Calatrasi, Corleone (taken in 1208), Guastanella and Cinisi. Muslim revolt extended throughout a whole stretch of western Sicily. The rebels were led by Muhammad Ibn Abbād. He called himself the "prince of believers", struck his own coins, and attempted to find Muslim support from other parts of the Muslim world.[57][58]
However, Frederick II, no longer a child, responded by launching a series of campaigns against the Muslim rebels in 1221. TheHohenstaufen forces rooted out the defenders of Jato, Entella, and the other fortresses. Rather than exterminate the Muslims. who numbered about 60,000, in 1223, Frederick II began deporting them toLucera in Apulia.[59] A year later, expeditions were sent against Malta and Djerba, to establish royal control and prevent their Muslim populations from helping the rebels.[57] Paradoxically, Saracen archers remained a common component of these "Christian" armies and the presence of Muslim contingents in the imperial army remained a reality even underManfred andConradin.[60]
The House of Hohenstaufen and their successors (Capetian House of Anjou andAragoneseHouse of Barcelona) gradually "Latinized" Sicily over the course of two centuries, and this social process laid the groundwork for the introduction of Latin (as opposed to Byzantine) Catholicism. The process of Latinization was fostered largely by the Roman Church and its liturgy. The removal of Islam in Sicily was completed by the late 1240s, when the final deportations to Lucera took place.[61] The remaining population of Sicilian Muslims converted toCatholicism due to the incentives put in place by Fredrich II.[62] By the time of theSicilian Vespers in 1282, there were no Muslims in Sicily, and the society was completely Latinized.
During the reigns of Frederick II as well as his son, Manfred, a large amount of Muslims were brought, as slaves, to farm lands and perform domestic labor. Enslaved persons in Sicily were not afforded the same privileges as the Muslims in mainland Italy.[63] The trend of importing a considerable amount of slaves from the Muslim world did not stop with the Hohenstaufen but was amplified under the Aragonese andSpanish crowns, and was in fact continued until as late as 1838.[64][65][66]
Arab period 827/902-1060/1093; The Arab and Norman conquests of Sicily were drawn-out affairs. The dates given above represent the first arrival of the new rulers and the fall of the last stronghold resisting them. It's important also to bear in mind that these dates reflect military/political transitions; culturally, the transitions were much slower.
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{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)Until the arrival of the Arabs, the most widely spoken language in Sicily was a medieval dialect of Greek. Under the Arabs, Sicily became a polyglot community; some localities were more Greek-speaking while others were predominantly Arabic-speaking." pages 141-142 "Mosques were constructed, often with the help of Byzantine craftsmen, and in Sicily the Church, formally under the Patriarchate of Constantinople from 732, remained solidly Greek Orthodox into the early years of Norman rule, when the beginnings of Latinization took place.
At the end of the twelfth century ... While in Apulia Greeks were in a majority–and indeed present in any numbers at all–only in the Salento peninsula in the extreme south, at the time of the conquest they had an overwhelming preponderance in Lucaina and central and southern Calabria, as well as comprising anything up to a third of the population of Sicily, concentrated especially in the north-east of the island, the Val Demone.