Emirate of Sicily

Emirate of Sicily
إمارة صقلية (Arabic)
831–1091
Italy in 1000. The Emirate of Sicily is coloured in light green.
Italy in 1000. The Emirate of Sicily is coloured in light green.
Status
CapitalBalarm (Palermo)
Common languagesSicilian Arabic, Byzantine Greek, Berber languages, Judeo-Arabic
Religion
Shia Islam (Kalbids)
Sunni Islam
Chalcedonian Christianity
Judaism[1]
GovernmentMonarchy
Historical eraMiddle Ages
• Established
831
• Disestablished
1091
CurrencyTarì, dirham
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Theme of Sicily (Byzantine Empire under the Amorian dynasty)
County of Sicily
Today part ofItaly
Malta

The Emirate of Sicily or Fatimid Sicily (Arabic: إِمَارَة صِقِلِّيَة, romanizedʾImārat Ṣiqilliya) was an Islamic kingdom that ruled the Muslim territories on the island of Sicily between 831 and 1091.[2][failed verification] Its capital was Palermo (Arabic: بَلَرْم, romanizedbalarm), which, during this period, became a major cultural and political center of the Muslim world.[3]

Sicily was part of the Byzantine Empire when Muslim forces from Ifriqiya began launching raids in 652. Through a prolonged series of conflicts from 827 to 902, they gradually conquered the entirety of Sicily, with only the stronghold of Rometta, in the far northeast, holding out until 965.

Sicily became multiconfessional and multilingual, developing a distinct Arab-Byzantine culture that combined elements of its Islamic Arab and Berber migrants with those of the local Latin-Romance, Greek-Byzantine and Jewish communities. Beginning in the early eleventh century, the Emirate began to fracture from internal strife and dynastic disputes. Christian Norman mercenaries under Roger I ultimately conquered the island, founding the County of Sicily in 1071; the last Muslim city on the island, Noto, fell in 1091, marking the end of Islamic rule in Sicily.

As the first Count of Sicily, Roger maintained a relative degree of tolerance and multiculturalism; Sicilian Muslims remained citizens of the County and the subsequent Kingdom of Sicily. Until the late 12th century, and probably as late as the 1220s, Muslims formed a majority of the island's population, except in the northeast region of Val Demone, which had remained predominantly Byzantine Greek and Christian, even during Islamic rule.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10] 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 by the Emirate has left some traces in modern Sicily. Minor Arabic influence remains in the Sicilian language and in local place names; a much larger influence is in the Maltese language that derives from Siculo-Arabic. Other cultural remnants can be found in the island's agricultural methods and crops, the local cuisine, and architecture.[11]

  1. ^ "Jewish Badge". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org.
  2. ^ "Brief history of Sicily" (PDF). Archaeology.Stanford.edu. 7 October 2007. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 9, 2007.
  3. ^ Of Italy, Touring Club (2005). Authentic Sicily. Touring Editore. ISBN 978-88-365-3403-6.
  4. ^ Alex Metcalfe (2009). The Muslims of Medieval Italy (illustrated ed.). Edinburgh University Press. p. 142. ISBN 978-0-7486-2008-1.
  5. ^ Michele Amari (1854). Storia dei musulmani di Sicilia. F. Le Monnier. p. 302 Vol III.
  6. ^ Roberto Tottoli (19 Sep 2014). Routledge Handbook of Islam in the West. Routledge. p. 56. ISBN 978-1-317-74402-3.
  7. ^ Graham A. Loud; Alex Metcalfe (1 Jan 2002). The Society of Norman Italy (illustrated ed.). BRILL. p. 289. ISBN 978-90-04-12541-4.
  8. ^ Jeremy Johns (7 Oct 2002). Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily: The Royal Diwan. Cambridge University Press. p. 284. ISBN 978-1-139-44019-6.
  9. ^ Metcalfe (2009), pp. 34–36, 40
  10. ^ Loud, G. A. (2007). The Latin Church in Norman Italy. Cambridge University Press. p. 494. ISBN 978-0-521-25551-6. 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.
  11. ^ Davis-Secord, Sarah (2017-12-31). Where Three Worlds Met. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. doi:10.7591/9781501712593. ISBN 978-1-5017-1259-3.

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