History of Islam in southern Italy
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The history of Islam in Sicily and southern Italy began with the first
In 965 the
Sicily
First Arab attacks on Sicily (652–827)
The first attacks by Arab ships on Sicily, then part of the Byzantine Empire, occurred in 652 under the Rashidun Caliphate of Uthman. Olympius, the Byzantine exarch of Ravenna, came to Sicily to oust the invaders but failed.
A second Arab expedition to Sicily occurred in 669. This time, a strong, ravaging force consisting of 200 ships from Alexandria attacked the island. They sacked Syracuse, Sicily and returned to Egypt after a month of pillaging. After the Arab conquest of North Africa (completed around 700), attacks from Arab fleets repeated in 703 (during the reign of Musa ibn Nusayr as governor of Ifriqiya 703–715), 728, 729, 730, 731 (during the reign of Ubayda ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Sulami as governor of Ifriqiya 727–732), 733, and 734 (during the reign of Uqba ibn Qudama as governor of Ifriqiya 732–734).
The first true conquest expedition was launched in 740. In that year,
In 805, the imperial patrician of Sicily, Constantine, signed a ten-year truce with Ibrahim I ibn al-Aghlab, Emir of Ifriqiya, but this did not prevent Arab fleets from other areas of Africa and Spain from attacking Sardinia and Corsica from 806 to 821. In 812, Ibrahim's son, Abdallah I, sent an invasion force to conquer Sicily. His ships were first harassed by the intervention of Gaeta and Amalfi and were later destroyed in great number by a tempest. However, they managed to conquer the island of Lampedusa and to ravage Ponza and Ischia in the Tyrrhenian Sea. 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 in 819 by Mohammed ibn-Adballad, cousin of Amir Ziyadat Allah I of Ifriqiya, no subsequent Arab attacks on Sicily are mentioned by sources until 827.
Conquest of Sicily (827–902)
Euphemius and Asad
The Arab conquest of Sicily and parts of southern Italy lasted 75 years. According to some sources, the conquest was spurred by
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 able to defeat a large army sent from Palermo backed by a Venetian fleet led by doge Giustiniano Participazio. However, the Muslims retreated to the castle of Mineo when a plague killed many of their troops and Asad himself. They later returned to the offensive but failed to conquer Castrogiovanni (the modern Enna, where Euphemius died), retreating back to Mazara. In 830, they received a strong reinforcement of 30,000 African and Spanish troops. The Spanish Muslims defeated the Byzantine commander Theodotus in July and August of that year, but a plague once again forced them to return to Mazara and then to Africa. The African Berber units sent to besiege Palermo captured it in September 831 after a year-long siege.[9] Palermo, renamed al-Madinah, became the Muslim capital of Sicily.[10]
Abu Fihr Muhammad ibn Abd-Allah
In February 832, Ziyadat Allah sent his cousin
In 836, Muslim ships helped their ally,
Abbas ibn Fadhl
In 851, the governor and general
.Jafar ibn Muhammad
In the summer of 868, the Byzantines were defeated for the first time near Syracuse. Hostilities resumed in the early summer of 877 by the new sultan, Jafar ibn Muhammad al-Tamini, who besieged Syracuse; the city fell on May 21, 878. The Byzantines now maintained control over a short stretch of coast around Taormina, while the Muslim fleet attacked Greece and Malta. The latter fleet was, however, destroyed in a naval battle in 880. For a while, it seemed that the Byzantines could regain Sicily, but new land victories for the Muslims re-established their control. A revolt in Palermo against Governor Seuàda ibn Muhammad was crushed in 887.
The death of the strong Emperor
As Ibrahim was forced to abdicate in Tunis, he decided to lead in person the operations in southern Italy. Taormina, the last main Byzantine stronghold in Sicily, fell on August 1, 902. Messina and other cities opened their gates to avoid a similar massacre. Ibrahim's army also marched on southern Calabria, besieging Cosenza. Ibrahim died of dysentery on October 24. His grandson stopped the military campaign and returned to Sicily.
Aghlabid Sicily (827–909)
At this point (902), Sicily was almost entirely under the control of the Aghlabids with the exception of some minor strongholds in the rugged interior. The population had been somewhat increased by Muslim migrants from Iberia, North Africa, and the Middle East. The emir in Palermo nominated the governors of the main cities (qadi) and those of the less important ones (hakim), along with the other functionaries. Each city had a council called a gema, composed of the most eminent members of the local society, which was entrusted with the care of the public works and of the social order. The conquered Sicilian population lived as dhimmi or converted to Islam.
The Arabs initiated land reforms that increased productivity and encouraged the growth of smallholdings, a mere dent in the dominance of the landed estates. The Arabs further improved irrigation systems. With about 300,000 inhabitants, Palermo in the 10th century was the most populous city in Italy.[14] A description of the city was given by Ibn Hawqal, a Baghdad merchant who visited Sicily in 950. A walled suburb called the Kasr (the citadel) was (and remains) the center of Palermo, and the great Friday mosque stood 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 Hawqal reckoned there were 7,000 individual butchers trading in 150 shops.
Fatimid Sicily (909–965)
In 909, the African Aghlabid dynasty was replaced by the
The island was governed by a Fatimid emir for the following 20 years. In 937, the Berbers of Agrigento revolted again but after two resounding successes were decisively beaten at the gates of Palermo. An army was then sent by the new Fatimid caliph, al-Qa'im bi-Amr Allah, to besiege Agrigento twice until it fell on November 20, 940. The revolt was totally suppressed in 941 with many of the prisoners sold as slaves and Governor Khalil boasting to have killed 600,000 people in his campaigns.
Independent emirate of Sicily (965–1091)
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After suppressing another revolt in 948, the Fatimid Caliph
In 956, the Byzantines reconquered Reggio and invaded Sicily; a truce was signed in 960. Two years later a revolt in Taormina was bloodily suppressed, but the resistance of the Christians in the Siege of Rometta led the new emperor Nikephoros II Phokas to send an army of 40,000 Armenians, Thracians, and Slavs under his nephew Manuel, who captured Messina in October 964.[17] The Byzantine forces, however, were swiftly routed in Rometta and at the Battle of the Straits, and the city soon fell to the Muslims, completing the Islamic conquest of Sicily. Manuel, along with 10,000 of his men, was killed in the fray.[18]
The new emir
The emirate reached its cultural peak under the emirs Ja'far (983–985) and Yusuf al-Kalbi (990–998), both patrons of the arts. The latter's son Ja'far was instead a cruel and violent lord who expelled the Berbers from the island after an unsuccessful revolt against him. In 1019, another uprising in Palermo was successful, and Ja'far was exiled to Africa and replaced by his brother al-Akhal (1019–1037).
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With the support of the Fatimids, al-Akhal defeated two Byzantine expeditions in 1026 and 1031. His attempt to raise a heavy tax to pay his mercenaries caused a civil war. Al-Akhal asked the Byzantines for support while his brother abu-Hafs, leader of the rebels, received troops from the
The local population conquered by the Muslims were Greek speaking Byzantine Christians, but there were also a significant number of Jews.
Decline (1037–1061) and Norman conquest of Sicily (1061–1091)
In 1038, a Byzantine army under
The Norman Robert Guiscard, son of Tancred, invaded Sicily in 1060. The island was split between three Arab emirs, and the Sicilian population rose up against the ruling Muslims. One year later, Messina fell, and in 1072, Palermo was taken by the Normans.[23] 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 strongholds, fell to the Christians. By the 11th century, Muslim power in the Mediterranean had begun to wane.[24]
Swabian rule (1194–1250)
After the Norman conquest, many Muslims decided to leave Sicily and to go into exile like the famous poets like Abu Al Hasan Al Balnubi and Ibn Hamdis who also wrote poetry regarding their exile. Nevertheless, some Muslims remained in the island, but they lived confined in an inner territory of western Sicily, in the area ranging from Palermo to Agrigento.[25] The existence of Muslims was constant issue during Hohenstaufen rule in Sicily under Henry VI and his son Frederick II. Many oppressive measures were introduced by Frederick to please the popes who were afraid of Muslims so close to the papal state.[26] This resulted in a rebellion by Sicilian Muslims,[27] which in turn triggered organized resistance and systematic reprisals which marked the final chapter of Islam in Sicily.[28] Under Frederick's reign, Moors were progressively eradicated until the massive deportation of the last Muslims of Sicily.[29] The historians have calculated that the number of expelled Muslims from Sicily was around 60,000, which means almost all of the Muslim population of the island.[30][31] Most went to North Africa, while others were initially deported to a series of cities on mainland Italy: Lucera, Girifalco, Acerenza, Stornara, Casal Monte Saraceno and Castel Saraceno.[25] From 1224 to 1239 some of these Muslims tried to return in Sicily, but in 1239 Frederick decided to deport all of them only in Lucera and the other cities were abandoned.[25] The annihilation of Islam in Sicily was completed by the late 1240s when the final deportations to Lucera took place.[32]
Deportation of the last Muslims from Lucera (1300)
Some of the expelled Muslims were deported to
During Aragonese rule (1412-1516)
During Sicily's time in the Crown of Aragon, the Spanish Inquisition arrived on the island. The first Muslim executed during this period was a renegade (Christian) convert who was burned in 1506. This renegade, however, would be the only person executed by the inquisition in Sicily during the rule of Ferdinand II, which "functioned rather carefully" there.[38]
During Spanish rule (1516–1713)
In the early years of Spanish rule, many Muslims or former Muslims were held as slaves in Sicily and accounted for a significant portion of Sicily's population.[39] Such population was no longer present in Sicily by the early 17th century when, to escape the Spanish inquisition of the Moriscos (Muslims who had converted to Christianity) in the Iberian peninsula, a few Moriscos migrated to Sicily. During this time there were several attempts to rid Sicily of its formerly Muslim population. Unlike the Jewish Neofiti, however, it is doubtful that the order was carried out in practice. The main reason that some former Muslims were able to remain in Sicily was that they were openly supported by the Duke of Osuna, now officially installed as viceroy in Palermo, advocated to the Spanish monarch in Madrid for allowing the Moriscos to stay in Sicily, exempting them from enslavement or from expulsion to Barbary, as long as they wanted “to be Christians and live accordingly.” On many occasions, the Duke of Osuna openly stressed the heroism of the Moors who had freed eight Christian prisoners in Bizerte, Tunisia. They were presented in such a positive light that Osuna did not hesitate to take them into his service.[40]
Under Philip II, five Muslims were executed and another two were executed in effigy by the inquisition. Four of these Muslims were executed at a special 1572 auto held at the waterfront of Messina (after Lepanto) in the presence of Don Juan of Austria and a Papal legate. They consisted of three renegade converts (from Calabria, Corsica, and Venice respectively) and a physician from Granada known as Perabana. Perabana, who was a mixed Jewish and Moorish ancestry, had adopted his current name while serving with the Ottoman navy. They had been captured at Lepanto, and while imprisoned he openly professed his Islamic views and called Catholic sacraments "nonsense"; his firmness led the three others to do the same. Between 1617 and 1640 (under Philip III and Philip IV), nine heretics were burned at Palermo autos, including two African slaves who "relapsed 'pertinaciously' to Islam."[38]
Italian Peninsula
Emirate of Bari (847–871)
The Adriatic port city of Bari, in the Apulia region of southern Italy, was captured by a Muslim army in 847, then remained under Muslim control for the next 25 years. It became the capital of a small independent Islamic state with an emir and a mosque of its own. The first ruler of Bari was Khalfun, who had probably come from Sicily. After his death in 852, he was succeeded by Mufarraq ibn Sallam, who strengthened the Muslim conquest and enlarged its boundaries. He also asked for official recognition from Baghdad Caliph al-Mutawakkil's governor in Egypt as wāli (i.e., prefect ruling over a province of the Abbasid empire). The third, and last, emir of Bari was Sawdan, who came to power around 857 after the murder of Mufarraq. He invaded the lands of the Lombard Duchy of Benevento, forcing duke Adelchis to pay a tribute. In 864, he obtained the official investiture requested by Mufarrag. The town was embellished with a mosque, palaces and public works.
In 866 the Emperor Louis organised a response. After a five-year campaign, he fought his way deep into Apulia and Calabria but bypassing major population centres like Bari or Taranto. A few towns were freed of Muslim control and the various Muslim bands encountered were universally defeated.[41] Encouraged by these successes, Louis attacked Bari with a ground force of Franks and Lombards and aided by a Croatian fleet.[41] In February 871 the citadel fell and Sawdan was captured and taken to Benevento in chains.[41] In 1002 a last attempt of Saracen conquest was stopped, when a Venetian fleet defeated Muslims besieging Bari.[42]
Emirate of Taranto (840–880)
The Emirate of Taranto is the name given to an approximate Muslim settlement built starting from 840 by warriors from the recently conquered Sicily (827) who would have been under the command of a certain Saba, not better identified but remembered by Venetian chronicle of John the Deacon.[43] What was initially an entrenched camp of Muslim warriors from Sicily was consolidated in 846, to resist as a settlement in Saracen hands until 880.[44] The Venetians, to defend their role as a commercial port of Byzantium (whose traffic had been threatened by a destructive Saracen raid on Brindisi in 838),[45] already intervened in the spring of 841, probably on behalf of the Byzantines, moving against Taranto with a fleet of sixty ships, but were defeated in the Ionian Sea and pursued as far as Istria, where the Muslims sacked the island of Cres, also setting fire to Ancona and attempting an incursion from the mouth of the Po.[46] In the canal of Otranto they then destroyed other Venetian ships coming from Sicily. The following year the Saracens of Taranto pushed again as far as Kvarner Gulf, defeating a Venetian fleet that had arrived there to face them.[46] These victories strengthened the base of Taranto, at least in this time not an independent state, much less an "Emirate", but a foothold from which to start raids in the Adriatic and in the surrounding cities, initially at the service of the rebel Siconulf, prince of Salerno. Thus not only Saracens from Sicily arrived in Taranto, but also African Berber and Andalusian corsairs exiled to Crete, attracted by the prospects of easy booty.[47]
The last presumed emir of Taranto, a certain ʿUthmān, allegedly negotiated in 875 or 876 with Adelchi, Duke of Benevento, the liberation of Sawdān, the terrible emir of Bari, prisoner for 4–5 years in Benevento and that he would then take refuge again in Taranto, perhaps having already been its commander before ʿUthmān.[48]
The end of the Islamic presence in the Apulian city occurred in 880, by the Byzantine forces and the commander Leo Apostyppes. Under the energetic leadership of Basil I the Macedonian, between 876 and 880 a huge fleet commanded by the Syrian Nasar and two armies led by Procopius and Leo were set up.[44] The first result obtained by these was the occupation of Taranto in 880, and the enslavement of its Arab-Berber population, while the town was occupied by a Greek garrison.[44]
Latium and Campania
Throughout the ninth century, Arab ships dominated the Tyrrhenian Sea.
In 846 the
Three years later, the same coalition of maritime powers, led by Caesar of Naples and supported by the Papal States, defeated another Arabic fleet near the recently refortified
In 877,
[Pandenolf] began to attack Gaeta's territory, and in retaliation against the pope Docibilis unleashed a group of Arabs from Agropoli near Salerno on the area around Fondi. The pope was "filled with shame" and restored Traetto to Docibilis. Their agreement seems to have sparked off a Saracen attack on Gaeta itself, in which many Gaetans were killed or captured. Eventually peace was restored and the Saracens made a permanent settlement on the mouth of the Garigliano river.[59]
In 898 the
The Saracen camp at
Ottoman invasion of Otranto
In 1480, an Ottoman Turkish fleet invaded Otranto, landing nearby the city and capturing it along with its fort.
In 1537, the famous Turkish
Ottoman incursions on the south and west coasts of Italy continued into the 17th century. Pozzuoli and Castellamare in the Bay of Naples were attacked in 1548; Ischia in 1544; Reggio in Calabria in 1594 (cathedral destroyed); and Vieste, Vasto and Manfredonia were raided and sacked in 1554, 1560, and 1620 respectively.[65]
Sardinia
Starting from 705 to 706, the
In 1015 and again in 1016 the Emir
Islamic and Arabic influence and legacy
Arabic art and science continued to be influential in urban Sicily during the two centuries
See also
References
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In the year 827, Mazara was occupied by the Arabs, who made the city an important commercial harbour. That period was probably the most prosperous in the history of Mazara.
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- ^ Krueger, Hilmar C. (1969). "Conflict in the Mediterranean before the First Crusade: B. The Italian Cities and the Arabs before 1095". In Baldwin, M. W. (ed.). A History of the Crusades, vol. I: The First Hundred Years. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 40–53.
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- ^ Kenneth M. Setton, "The Byzantine Background to the Italian Renaissance" in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 100:1 (Feb. 24, 1956), pp. 1–76.
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- ^ Julie Taylor, Muslims in Medieval Italy: The Colony at Lucera, (Rowman & Littlefield Inc., 2003), 18.
- ^ Caroline Bruzelius, The Stones of Naples: Church Building in the Angevin Kingdom, 1266–1343, (Yale University Press, 2004), 107.
- ^ Previté-Orton (1971), vol. 1, pg. 370
- ^ a b Islam in Sicily Archived 2011-07-14 at the Wayback Machine, by Alwi Alatas
- ^ Previté-Orton (1971), p. 370
- ^ J. B. Bury, History of the Eastern Empire, (Cosimo Classic, 2008), 307.
- ^ J. B. Bury, History of the Eastern Empire, 307.
- ^ Overview of Italy in the late 9th century at cronologia.leonardo.it
- ISBN 978-0-521-37019-6..
- ^ a b c Alex Metcalfe, Muslims of Medieval Italy, ed. Carole Hillenbrand, (Edinburgh University Press, 2009), 47.
- ^ Halm, Heinz (1996). The Empire of the Mahdi : The Rise of the Fatimids. Leiden. pp. 405–406.
- ^ Lev, Yaacov (1984). The Fatimid Navy, Byzantium and the Mediterranean Sea, 909–1036 CE/297–427 AH. Byzantion. pp. 220–252.
- ^ Campagnano, Gabriele (2017-06-01). "Pisa e gli Arabi: il Mito di Kinzica (1005)". Zhistorica (in Italian). Retrieved 2022-10-28.
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- ^ Gay, Jules (1904). L'Italie meridionale et l'empire Byzantin. Paris. pp. 450–453.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ "Saracen Door and Battle of Palermo - Best of Sicily Magazine". www.bestofsicily.com.
- ^ Previte-Orton (1971), pg. 507-11
- ^ ISBN 978-88-88615-50-9.
- ^ N.Daniel: The Arabs; op cit; p.154.
- ^ A.Lowe: The Barrier and the bridge, op cit;p.92.
- ^ Aubé, Pierre (2001). Roger Ii De Sicile – Un Normand En Méditerranée. Payot.
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- ^ "MONREALE in "Federiciana"". www.treccani.it (in Italian). Retrieved 2022-12-15.
- ^ "SARACENI DI SICILIA in "Federiciana"". www.treccani.it (in Italian). Retrieved 2022-12-15.
- ISBN 0-7139-9004-X.
- )
- ^ Julie Taylor. Muslims in Medieval Italy: The Colony at Lucera. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books. 2003.
- ^ Ataullah Bogdan Kopanski. Islamization of Shqeptaret: The clas of Religions in Medieval Albania. Archived 2009-11-25 at the Wayback Machine
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- ^ "Italian City States 1250–1453 by Sanderson Beck". beck.org.
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- ^ a b Monticolo, Giovanni (1890). Cronache Veneziane antichissime (1st ed.). Rome. pp. 113–114.
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: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ISBN 9788822061386.
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- ^ Skinner, see first chapter. See also the vast literature on the coming of the Normans to southern Italy.
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- ^ Michele Amari, Storia dei Musulmani di Sicilia, lt=Le Monnier, 1854, Vol. I, p. 364
- ^ ISBN 9788840381756.
- ^ a b Barbara Kreutz (1996). Before the Normans: Southern Italy in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 25–28.
- ISBN 9788840381756.
- ^ ISBN 9788840381756.
- ^ Kreutz, Barbara (1996). Before the Normans: Southern Italy in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 55–56.
- ISBN 8822738365.
- Chronica Monasterii Cassinensis.
- ^ Mary Stroll, The Medieval Abbey of Farfa: Target of Papal and Imperial Ambitions, (Brill, 1997), 32–33.
- ^ Mary Stroll, 24–25.
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- ^ Joranson, Einar. "The Inception of the Career of the Normans in Italy: Legend and History." Speculum, Vol. 23, No. 3. (Jul., 1948), pp. 353–396
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- ^ Omnia cum plano tenuit montana tyrampnus (III, 74). Bruce 2006, 132. For the Latin text of the Liber, cf. this PDF Archived 2011-08-11 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Bruce 2006, 134.
- ^ Tyerman, Christopher (2006), God's War: A New History of the Crusades, London: Penguin Books, p. 55
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Further reading
- Amari, Michele (1854), Storia dei Musulmani di Sicilia (in Italian), vol. I, Florence
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Amari, Michele (1858), Storia dei Musulmani di Sicilia (in Italian), vol. II, Florence
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Gabrieli, Francesco; Umberto Scerrato (1993). Gli Arabi in Italia. Cultura, contatti e tradizioni. Milan: Garzanti Scheiwiller. ISBN 88-7644-024-0.
- Masson, Georgina (1957). Frederick II of Hohenstaufen. A Life. London: Secker & Warburg. ISBN 0-436-27350-0.
- Metcalfe, Alex (2009). The Muslims of Medieval Italy. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-2008-1.
- ISBN 0-521-05993-3.
- Musca, Giosuè (1964). L'emirato di Bari, 847-871. Bari: Dedalo Litostampa.
- Skinner, Patricia (1995). Family Power in Southern Italy: The Duchy of Gaeta and its Neighbours, 850–1139. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Taylor, Julie Anne (April 2007). "Freedom and Bondage among Muslims in Southern Italy during the Thirteenth Century". Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs. 27 (1): 71–77. S2CID 216117913.