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Home Family & Life Culture & Entertainment Did You Know that Muslims Ruled Part of Italy for Over 200 Years?

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Did You Know that Muslims

Ruled Part of Italy for Over
200 Years?
Muslim Sicily: The Rise and Fall of Islam in Italy
Firas AlKhateeb
09 August, 2020

Fatimid Rule
The early 900s saw a momentous movement arise in North Africa that
would affect Muslims throughout the Islamic world. In 909, a claimed
descendant of the Prophet Muhammad ‫ﷺ‬, Abdullah al-Mahdi, declared
himself Imam of the Isma’ili Shi’a community and the rightful leader of the
Muslim world.
Using a network of informants and proselytizers across North Africa and
playing off of Amazigh discontent with Arabs, he quickly consolidated
power and captured Qayrawan, overthrowing the Aghlabid Dynasty.
Since its inception, the emirate of Sicily had been
tied to North Africa’s government, and the local
leaders recognized that this would probably have
to continue even with the Shi’a Fatimids.
A representative chosen by Sicily’s elite
attempted to meet with the Fatimid leader to secure Sicily’s relative
autonomy, but was imprisoned in North Africa. In his place, al-Mahdi sent a
Shi’i governor and qadi to rule over the island in the name of the Imam.
With Sicily’s reputation of rebelliousness, the new Fatimid administration
enacted heavy-handed policies meant to subdue the province. The attempt
at direct control, coupled with a new tax, the khums, which decreed that
1/5th of all earnings were to be forwarded directly to the Fatimid Imam, led
to widespread opposition by the Sunni population and the almost
immediate overthrow of the first Fatimid governor.
A subsequent rebellion in 913 entirely rid the island of Fatimid domination
for a few years, but was brutally suppressed by the Fatimids in 918.
Another revolt began in 937 in Agrigento and was supported by Muslim
communities across the island starting in 939.
A Fatimid expedition put down this revolt, massacring towns which were
then repopulated by new immigrants from North Africa who were more
loyal to the Fatimid government.
In an attempt to solidify their control over the island, the Fatimids
appointed al-Hasan al-Kalbi, a military governor loyal to the Fatimid Imam,
as governor of the island in 964. He would inaugurate a dynasty on the
island, where his descendants would rule under Fatimid authority for the
next hundred years.
While the era of the Kalbid Dynasty in Sicily saw the conquest of the last
remaining Christian outposts, ongoing conflict on the island did not cease.
Fatimid repression of Sunni Islam, to which the vast majority of the island’s
Muslims adhered, exacerbated tensions, while conflict between native
Sicilian Muslims and North African Arabs and Amazigh immigrants caused a
major social divide.
Militarily, the Kalbid Dynasty saw the waning of Sicily’s power in the central
Mediterranean. By the early 1000s, Kalbid emirs were not inclined to
continue raids against Byzantine outposts on the southern part of the
Italian Peninsula. Furthermore, the populace itself became more sedentary,
with numerous men seeking exemptions to avoid military conscription.

The Norman Conquest and the Fall of Muslim

Sicily
The early 11th century saw the imposition of new taxes on Sicily’s Muslims
by the Kalbid emir al-Akhal meant to strengthen the island as an
independent polity that can manage its own defense. Since the Fatimid
conquest of Egypt in 969, the bulk of North Africa’s naval and military power
shifted to the eastern Mediterranean, leaving Sicily vulnerable to Byzantine
attack.
The new taxes, coupled with pre-existing tensions between the island’s
population and its Fatimid/Kalbid rulers, caused a group of Sicilian notables
to seek the help of the newly-independent Zirid Dynasty of Tunisia. In 1036
a Zirid force crossed from North Africa to Sicily and quickly took over
Palermo and killed al-Akhal.
The Zirids may have wanted to bring the island under their own control,
much like the Aghlabids two centuries earlier. Fears of North African
domination caused Palermo’s residents to revolt against their new Zirid
governors and force the expedition back to Tunisia not long after it arrived
on the island.

The church of San

Giovanni degli Eremiti in
Palermo, Sicily. It
operated as a masjid
during the era of Muslim
Sicily.

At this point, control of the island entered a period of decentralization, as

provinces, led by military leaders, declared their independence in the
absence of a central government on the island. Much like the Ta’ifa Period
of al-Andalus, ethnic, political, and economic rivalries divided the region’s
Muslims into competing factions.
Another similarity to the Andalusian model was the arrival on the scene of
powerful Christian kingdoms eager to take advantage of Muslim disunity.
The Normans, a dynasty originally from Northern Europe that was famed
for its military ability (as evidenced by their conquest of England in 1066)
ruled over southern Italy and took the opportunity to invade the island in
1052.
A Zirid attempt to defend the island never materialized due to their
preoccupation with tribal wars in North Africa, coupled with the
determination of the Sicilian Muslims to not be ruled by a North African
power.
By 1065, most of the island was under Norman control. Palermo fell in
1072, Syracuse followed in 1085 (incidentally the same year the Andalusian
city of Toledo fell to Castile), and the final outpost of Islamic control in Sicily,
the southern coastal city of Noto, fell in 1090.
Like in al-Andalus, a Muslim population (it’s likely the majority of the island
followed Islam by the time of the Norman conquest) continued to live under
Christian rule.
Treatment of the Muslim population was dependent on the aims and
temperament of the Norman king in power at the time. The reign of Roger
II from 1130 to 1154 was particularly tolerant. It was during his reign that
the great geographer al-Idrisi completed his world atlas known as Tabula
Rogeriana.
Regardless, thousands of Muslims chose voluntary migration to Muslim
lands over continuing to live under Norman Christian control. Meanwhile,
the ongoing Crusades in the Levant, coupled with sporadic Muslim revolts
in Sicily worsened relations between Muslims and Christians throughout
Europe.
In 1189, Palermo’s Muslims were massacred and in 1199, Pope Innocent III
declared Muslims in Sicily to be “hostile elements” to the state. Numerous
forced and self-imposed exiles continued during the 12th and 13th
centuries, and in 1266 the last Muslims were forced from the island, ending
over 400 years of Islam in Sicily.
First published at Lost Islamic history.com
Pages: 1 2

Italy Islamic history Islamic civilization Islam in Europe

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