History of Islam in southern Italy
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The Islamic conquest and domination of Sicily, as well as parts of southern Italy, is a process whose origin must be traced back in the general expansion of Islam from the 7th century onwards (see Muslim conquests for more details).
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[edit] First attacks
The first attacks from Islamic ships to Sicily, then part of the Eastern Roman Empire, occurred in 652: they were Arabs from Syria, led by Mu'àuia ibn-Hodeig of the Kinda tribe, and remained on the island for several years. The Byzantine exarch of Ravenna Olympius also came to Sicily but were unable to oust the invaders, who returned to Syria after collecting a large booty.
A second expedition occurred in 669. This time the strong, ravaging force consisted of 200 ships from Alexandria. They sacked Syracuse and returned to Egypt after a month of pillaging. After the Umayyad conquest of Africa (complete around 700), attacks from Muslim fleets repeated in 703, 728, 729, 730, 731, 733 and 734, the last two times meeting with a substantial Byzantine resistance.
The first true expedition with true conquest aims occurred on 740: in that year the Muslim prince Habib, who participated on the 728 attack, and his son Abd-ar-Rahman, after a successful siege of Syracuse, were ready to conquer the whole island when they were called back to Tunisia by a Berber revolt. A second attack in 752 aimed only to sack the city.
In 805 the Imperial patrician of Sicily, Constantine, signed a ten years truce with Ibrahim I ibn al-Aghlab, Emir of Ifriqiya, but this did not prevent other Muslim fleet from other area of Africa and Spain to attack Sardinia and Corsica in 806-821. In 812 Ibrahim's son, Abdallah I, set an invasion force to conquer Sicily. His ships were however pushed back first by the intervention of Gaeta and Amalfi, and later by a tempest which destroyed much of them. However, they managed to conquer the islands of Lampedusa and, in the Tyrrhennian Sea, to ravage Ponza and Ischia. A further agreement between the new patrician Gregorius and the Emir established the freedom of commerce between southern Italy and Ifriqiya. After a further attack by Mohammed ibn-Adballad, cousin of Emir Ziyadat Allah I in 819, no news of subsequent Muslim attack to Sicily are known until 827.
[edit] Conquest of Sicily and Southern Italy
The Muslim conquest of Sicily and Southern Italy lasted 75 years. According to some sources, the conquest was spurred by the Byzantine commander on the island, Eufemius, who feared the punishment from Emperor Michael II for a sexual misfit. After a short-lived conquest of Syracuse, during which he was proclaimed emperor, he was compelled by the loyal forces to flee to Africa at the court of Ziyadat Allah. The latter accepted to conquer Sicily, with the promise to leave it to Eufemius in exchange of a yearly tribute, and entrusted its conquest to the 70 years old qadi Asad ibn al-Furat. The Muslim force counted 10,000 infantry, 700 cavalry and 100 ships, reinforced by Eufemius' ships and, after the landing at Mazara del Vallo, knights. A first battle against the Byzantine loyal troops occurred on July 15 near Mazara, resulting in an Aghlabid victory.
Asad subsequently conquered the southern shore of the island and laid siege to Syracuse. After a year of siege, and an attempted mutiny, his troops were however able to defeat a large army sent from Palermo, also backed by a Venetian fleet led by doge Giustiniano Participazio. But when a plague killed much of the Muslim troops, as well as Asad himself, the Muslism retread to the castle of Mineo. Later they returned to the offensive, but failed to conquer Castrogiovanni (the modern Enna, where Eufemius died) and retreated back to Mazara. In 830 they received a strong reinforcement of 30,000 African and Spanish troops. The Spanish Muslim defeated the Byzantine commander Teodotus in the July-August of that year, But again a plague forced them to return to Mazara and then to Africa. The African Berber units, which had been sent to besiege Palermo, managed to capture it after a year-long siege in the September 831.[1]
Ziyadat Allah sent his cousin on the island in Abu-Fihr in 833. The Byzantines were defeated in the early 834 and in the following year, his troops reaching as far as Taormina. The war dragged on for several years with minor Ahglabid victories, the Byzantines resisting in their strongholds of Castrogiovanni and Cefalù. New troops arrived in the island by the new Emir Al-Aghlab Abu Affan, which occupied Platani, Caltabellotta, Corleone, Marineo and Geraci, granting the Muslim the total control of western Sicily.
In 836 Muslim ships helped Andrew II of Naples, their ally, besieged by Beneventan troops, [2] and with Neapolitan support in 843 Messina was also conquered. In 845 also Modica fell and the Byzantines suffered a crushing defeat near Butera, losing c. 10,000 men. Lentini was conquered in 846. In 847 Bari on the coast of Puglia was dominated by the Arabs. It became its own Emirate and regulated Saracen rule throughout Southern Italy except for Sicily who was its own Emirate also. Bari received great Saracen influence and became a very moorish style city. Ragusa was conquered in 848.
In 851 the governor and general Al-Aghlab Abu Ibrahim, whose rule had been highly appreciated by his new Palermitan and Sicilian subjects, especially if compared to the former Byzatine vessations, died. He was succeded by Abbas ibn-Fadhl, the ferocious victor of Butera. he started a campaign of ravages against the lands still in Byzantine hands, capturing Butera, Gagliano, Cefalù and, most of all, Castrogiovanni (winter 859). All the Christian survivors from that fortress were executed, children and women sold as slaves at Palermo. The fall of the most importan fortress in the island pushed the emperor to send a large army in 859-860, but this was defeated by Abbas, as well as the fleet which had carried it. The Byzantines reinforces led many of the cities subjugated by the Muslim to revolt, and Abbas devoted the years 860-861 to reduce them. Abbas died in 861, replaced by his uncle Ahmed ibn-Jakub and, from February 862, by Abdallah, son of Abbas; the latter was in turn replaced by the Aghlabids with Khafagia ibn-Sofian, who captured Noto, Scicli and Troina. In the summer of 868 the Byzantines were defeated near Syracuse.
[edit] Decline
In 1002, the Venetian fleet defeated the Muslims at Bari, and in 1005, the Pisans won a battle against Muslims off Reggio in the Strait of Messina. In 1016, under Papal instigation, Genoa and Pisa drove Mujahid, King of Denia from the coast of Sardinia. In 1087, the two powers captured the port of Mahdiya on the coast of modern-day Tunisia, and burnt its shipping.[3]
Robert Guiscard ("the cunning"), son of Tancred, a Norman vavassor, invaded Sicily in 1060. The island was split between three Arab emirs, and the sizeable Christian population insurrected against the ruling Muslims. One year later Messina fell, and in 1072, Palermo was taken by the Normans. The loss of the cities, each with a splendid harbor, dealt a severe blow to Muslim power on the island. Eventually all of Sicily was taken. In 1091, Noto in the southern tip of Sicily and the island of Malta, the last Arab stongholds, fell to the Christians. By the eleventh century Muslim power in the Mediterranean had began to wane.[4]
[edit] Muslims today
Muslim communities in southern Italy have survived until today. During the 1970s, a prosperous Italian ecomony saw immigration of Muslims from Jordan, Syria and Palestine. Recently, many Muslims from war-stricken Bosnia and Kosovo have tried to illegally enter the Mediterranean country.[5]
[edit] The Islamic and Arabic influence
Ibn Hawqal, the eminent Arab traveler, visited Sicily in year 972 and described the city of Palermo in his book “Al-Masalik wal Mamlik” as "the city of the 300 mosques". This Islamic and Arabic identity of the island was still preserved even 100 years after the arrival of the Normans as described by the Spanish-Arab geographer Ibn Jubair who landed in the island after returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1184. To his surprise, Ibn Jubair enjoyed a very warm reception by the Norman Christians. He was further surprised to find that even the Christians spoke Arabic, that the government officials were still largely Muslim, and that the heritage of some 200 previous years of Muslim rule of Sicily was still intact [6]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Previte-Orton (1971), vol. 1, pg. 370
- ^ Previte-Orton (1971), pg. 370
- ^ Previte-Orton (1971), pg. 371
- ^ Previte-Orton (1971), pg. 507-11
- ^ Haddad (1999), pg. 608
- ^ AramcoWorldMagazine.
[edit] References
- Previte-Orton, C. W (1971). The Shorter Cambridge Medieval History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
