Chapter 

The Normans of Sicily from

“the O ther Side”: The Medieval
A r a b i c S ou r c e s
Giovanna Palombo

“
M ay Allah restore it to Islam.” This phrase is often encountered
in medieval Arabic writings when referencing the island of Sicily after
it had passed from Muslim into (Christian) Norman hands. Sicily had
belonged to the dār al-Isllām (the Islamic world) for over 200 years,
during which the island developed strong political, commercial, and
intellectual ties with its Muslim neighbors, especially North Africa.1
The Muslims knew well the many qualities of Sicily: the island was
a fertile land producing huge quantities of grain and was located in
a pivotal geographical position in the Mediterranean, which pro-
vided strong commercial and strategic advantages. At the end of the
eleventh century, when the Normans took possession of Sicily, the
Muslims considered the end of their rule over the island as a cata-
strophic loss. This Muslim perspective, though, is rarely taken into
consideration in historical accounts of medieval Europe. The passage
of the island into Christian hands has typically been presented as a
positive—almost joyful—event, and the Normans have been portrayed
as liberators in the narratives of medieval chroniclers such as William
of Apulia, Geoffrey Malaterra, and Amatus of Montecassino.2 These
medieval authors tended to portray the Normans of Italy—whether
embarking on the conquest of Sicily or, later on, expanding over other
Muslim territories—in a positive light, driven by a combination of

C. Karagoz et al. (eds.), Sicily and the Mediterranean

© Claudia Karagoz and Giovanna Summerfield 2015
30 G i o v a n n a Pa l o m b o

Christian fervor and personal ambition. The Normans were praised

because they succeeded in recapturing areas from Muslim hands and
bringing those territories back into the domain of Christianity, as in
the cases of Sicily and Malta. Unequivocally, the Western chronicles
of Norman times are tainted by a strong pro-Norman propaganda.
Since, when dealing with the Normans of Italy, even the more recent
historical narratives of Medieval Europe have continued to rely on
Latin sources, it follows that the positive assessment passed on by the
medieval chroniclers of the West still remains the standard interpre-
tation. Consequently, Norman people and their deeds in the Italian
South are generally presented not only from a Western perspective,
but also from a completely pro-Norman point of view.3
To counterbalance the mainstream image of the Normans of Sicily
as they are portrayed in European accounts, this chapter will exam-
ine the Arabic sources regarding the same events.4 It is important to
emphasize that the present study does not aim to provide a less biased
version of the Normans since, clearly, the Arabic accounts do not escape
their authors’ own partisan perceptions or, possibly,
y misconceptions of
the enemies’ side. Without denying the obvious fact that all sources
are biased in one way or another, this is an attempt to provide an alter-
native side of the story—one which does not celebrate the Normans
of Sicily as liberators from a non-Christian presence, or as restorers of
order by bringing Sicily back into Latin-speaking, Christian Europe.
More importantly, in addition to focusing on the Arabic versions of
the events, the analysis aims to test whether the paradigm of alter-
ity or otherness—broadly used among historians to define the rela-
tions between medieval Christians and Muslims—actually fits here
and may be appropriately applied to explain the nature of the interac-
tions between the Normans of Sicily and their Muslim neighbors.5
Were their relations merely based on constant conflicts? And did the
Muslims perceive the new rulers of Sicily as “the Other,” namely, an
adversary who was viewed as antithetical in traditions, manners, val-
ues, and beliefs, and whose different Weltanschauungg was irrecon-
cilable with their own?6 Instead of using a paradigm of alterity that
emphasizes the presence of conflicts and differences, I will argue that
the Normans of Sicily do not fit the Muslim stereotypical view of the
Christians as the Other, mainly because of what Sicily represented in
the Muslims’ minds. As a result of both the fact that the island had
belonged, for a long time, to the dār al-Isllām and of the Norman
policy of embracing aspects of Arabic culture, the perception of Sicily
as a familiar land, close in geography and, to a certain extent, in cus-
toms, affected how the new conquerors of Sicily were viewed by the