Arabic Sources For Sicily 1025 1204 PDF
Arabic Sources For Sicily 1025 1204 PDF
Arabic Sources For Sicily 1025 1204 PDF
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Arabic Sources for Sicily
JEREMY JOHNS
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original colonists and newcomers, between Arabs and Berbers. Such unrest
first became endemic and then developed into civil war. The Kalbid governor
Ahmad ibn Abil-Futuh Yusuf, known as al-Akhal, the Dark (101938) was
challenged by one of his brothers, who appealed successfully to the Zirid emir
for support. Al-Akhal countered by appealing to the Byzantine emperor
Michael IV (103441). Constantine Opos, the katepan (governor) of Italy,
crossed to Sicily and helped al-Akhal to defeat a Zirid expedition in 1037.
After the assassination of his ally, al-Akhal, in 1038, Michael IV launched
a major expedition, led by George Maniakes and intended to reconquer
Sicily. Most of the strongholds of the east coast were taken, including
the old Byzantine capital of Syracuse, before Maniakes was recalled to
Constantinople in 1040. The expedition rapidly collapsed and, by 1042, all
that Maniakes had won had been lost.
The Muslims of Sicily united around a brother of al-Akhal, al-Hasan b.
Abil-Futuh, who tookor was awarded by the Fatimid caliphthe title
Samsam al-Dawla, Sword of the State. Samsam al-Dawla is a shadowy figure, whose career can only be reconstructed with difficulty. A careful reading
of the Arabic sources, apparently confirmed by two letters from the Cairo
Genizah,1 indicates that he may have ruled for more than a decade, until
10523, when he was expelled by the elders of Palermo.
Samsam al-Dawla was the last Kalbid governor of Sicily and, on his fall, unitary Kalbid rule fragmented into a kaleidoscope of rival petty principalities.
When Ibn al-Thumna, the ruler of Syracuse, was defeated by Ibn al-Hawwas,
lord of Castrogiovanni (Enna), in 1060, he sought mercenary support from
the leaders of the Normans, who were rapidly gaining control of southern
Italy. Following two preliminary raids, Robert Guiscard, duke of Apulia, and
his younger brother, Roger de Hauteville, count of Calabria, crossed to Sicily
in May 1061 with a mercenary force in support of Ibn al-Thumna. After the
latter was murdered by the Muslim commander of Entella in the summer of
1062, the Norman brothers pursued the conquest of Sicily.
In 1062, the new Zirid emir, Tamim ibn al-Muizz (10621108) dispatched
two of his sons, Ayyub and Ali, at the head of a relief expedition to the
island. Ayyub landed at Palermo and soon established himself as master of
the west, while Ali based himself at Agrigento, in order to support Ibn
al-Hawwas against the Norman threat to Castrogiovanni. A joint force of
Sicilian and Ifriqiyyan troops was heavily defeated at Cerami in June 1063.
1
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In the mid 1060s, Ayyub withdrew from Palermo to Agrigento. The affection shown for him by the citizens excited the jealousy of Ibn al-Hawwas,
who ordered them to expel Ayyub and, when they refused, attacked. Ibn
al-Hawwas was killed in the fighting, and Ayyub proclaimed ruler.
Subsequently, Ayyub returned to Palermo, where fighting broke out between
his men and the citizens. The Arabic sources blame this conflict for the decision of Ayyub and Ali to abandon the island in the year 461 AH (31 October
106819 October 1069). But, if that date is correct, the immediate threat to
the capital posed by the Norman victory at Misilmeri, in the spring or
summer of 1068, is likely to have contributed to their decision.
Events in Palermo during the period between the withdrawal of Ayyub
and the Norman conquest of the city are particularly obscure. The Latin
sources report only that the surrender of the capital to the Normans in
January 1072 was negotiated by its leading citizens. It is therefore possible
that, after the flight of Ayyub, the city was governed by a council drawn from
its most prominent men. However, it seems that, for at least some of this
period, Ibn al-Baba, a Muslim merchant who figures largely in the letters of
the Cairo Genizah,2 became the last ruler of Islamic Palermo. His fate is
uncertain, but he may have escaped to Alexandria before the Norman siege
closed around the city in July or August 1071.3
See above, n. 1.
This account of the career of Samsam al-Dawla and of the last years of Islamic Sicily differs
significantly from the reconstruction of events given by Amari and by Gil (see below: Amari,
Storia, vol. 2, 47890; Gil, Sicily and its Jews, 54662) and summarises the conclusions of a
forthcoming study by the present author.
3
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title of duke of Apulia. Then, on Christmas Day 1130, Roger II had himself
crowned king of Sicily by the anti-Pope Anacletus II (11308). For the next
sixty years years, King Roger II (113054), his son William I (11541166),
and his grandson William II (11661189) ruled the Norman kingdom of
Sicily and presided over a period of greater peace and prosperity than the
island had known since antiquity.
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ever and wherever his authority failed, the growing numbers of Latin immigrants from the mainland took the opportunity to drive the Muslims from
their houses and their lands, and to massacre them. Such pogroms occurred
during the minority and early rule of Count Roger II (110511), during the
baronial rebellion against William I in 11612, andmost disastrouslyon
the death of William II in November 1189. As news of the kings death
spread through the city, the Latin citizens began to massacre the Muslims of
Palermo, and to loot their property. The Muslims sought to escape by fleeing
to the hills of the Muslim reservation, where resistance to persecution gradually hardened into open rebellion. For much of the half century from 1189
until 1246, inland western Sicily was controlled by an independent rebel
Islamic state, ruled by its own leaders, from a chain of hill-top castles, where
they minted their own coins bearing the Islamic profession of faith, and from
where they sought to obtain the assistance of the Muslim rulers of the
Mediterranean and beyond. It was largely the support of Muslim rebels that
permitted Markwald of Anweiler to seize control of Sicily in 1201 and the
Emperor Frederick II was obliged to launch two concerted campaigns
against the Musim rebels, in 12213 and again in 12456, before warfare,
massacre, compulsory transportation to the mainland, forced conversion,
and immigration effectively destroyed the Muslim community of Sicily.
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At this early stage, rather than issuing documents that described the boundaries of a piece of land to be granted, it was easier to list the names of the
heads of household that inhabited it, and to grant them with all their property. Thus, from as early as 1093, Count Roger I issued Arabic and bilingual
(ArabicGreek) registers (jaraid, sing. jarida) of the populations granted to
the Latin churches that he founded in Sicily, such as Palermo cathedral or
the abbey of St Agatha at Catania, or to his barons, such as Roger Forestal
or Julian of Labourzi. The young Roger II and the regent Adelaide also
issued bilingual ArabicGreek decrees, addressed to their Arabic- and Greekspeaking officials. But, within a generation or so of the conquest, as the preconquest officials employed by the Norman regime came to the end of their
careers and were increasingly replaced by Greek administrators, Arabic gradually ceased to be a language in which documents were issued by the central
administration. For a period of twenty years from 1111 to 1130, no Arabic
document has survived, and none is known to have been issued.
After his coronation on Christmas Day 1130, Roger II and his leading ministers, especially George of Antioch, a probably Cilician Armenian who had
been trained in Byzantine Syria, and had subsequently defected first to Zirid
Ifriqiyya and then to Norman Sicily, set about creating the Sicilian monarchy
de novo by importing wholesale the essential accoutrements and symbols of
kingship from Byzantium, the courts of the Islamic Mediterranean, and the
Latin west. Among the imports from Fatimid Cairo, which George of Antioch
had visited many times as Rogers ambassador and where he cultivated close
friendships with leading officials amongst the Cilician Armenian diaspora,
were scribes, diplomatic forms and practices, and bureaucratic structures
drawn from the Fatimid administration. Immediately after Rogers coronation, his reformed Arabic administration (diwan) began to issue a series of
Arabic and bilingual documents which continued until the reign of Constance
and which Frederick II attempted, unsuccessfully, to revive. The primary purpose of royal diwan was not administrative efficiency but the projection of the
image of the multicultural Norman monarchy. None of the internal records of
the royal diwan are preserved, but only the Arabic and bilingual documents
that it issued to baronial andespeciallyecclesiastical beneficiaries. Most
are grants of lands, men and other privileges from the royal demesne, including registers (jaraid) of the names of the men and descriptions of the boundaries of the lands (hudud) granted. With the exception of one or two
documents that were preserved in private family archives, most were preserved
by the Christian churches of the island.
The ecclesiastical archives of Sicily also preserved most of the private
Arabic documents prepared according to Islamic law and practice for
Muslims under Norman rule. Some were transferred to ecclesiastical archives
when the property to which they relate passed to the church, others were
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
HANDBOOKS, SURVEYS, PROSOPOGRAPHIES
M. Amari, ed., Biblioteca arabo-sicula, ossia raccolta di testi arabici che toccano la
geografia, la storia, le biografie e la bibliografia della Sicilia, 1 vol. and 2 appendices
(Leipzig, 185787; repr. Baghdad, Maktabat al-muthanna, n.d., missing 2nd
appendix); 2nd edn. rev. U. Rizzitano and others, 2 vols., Accademia nazionale di
scienze lettere e arti di Palermo (Palermo, 1988); Italian trans. M. Amari,
Biblioteca arabo-sicula, ossia raccolta di testi arabici che toccano la geografia, la
storia, la biografia e la bibliografia della Sicilia. Raccolti e tradotti in italiano, 2 vols.
and appendix (Turin, 18809; various reprints, e.g. Edizioni Dafni, Palermo,
1982); 2nd edn. rev. U. Rizzitano and others, 3 vols., Accademia nazionale di
scienze lettere e arti di Palermo, (Palermo, 19978)
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PRIMARY SOURCES
Literary Sources
Only those sources unknown to Amari and of particular importance for this volume
are listed individually below (see above under Amari, Biblioteca arabo-sicula).
al-Himyari, Kitab Rawd al-mi tar fi khabar al-aqtar (The Scented Garden of
Information about Foreign Lands)
Historical and geographical dictionary compiled by Andalusian scholar Abu Abd
Allah Muhammad ibn Abd al-Munim al-Himyari (d. 1326/7). Sole source for naval
battle between Sicilian Muslims and Byzantines off Pantelleria, c.1050. Biography
of Sicilian Muslim jurist the imam Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ali al-Mazari
(d. 1141). Important source for career of Muhammad ibn Abbad, leader of Muslim
rebels of Sicily against Frederick II. Remarkable accounts of Palermo and Rome.
Editions:
I. Abbas, ed., Kitab Rawd al-mi tar f i khabar al-aqtar. A Geographical Dictionary
(Beirut, 1975)
Standard critical edition.
Translations:
A. De Simone, La descrizione dellItalia nel Rawd al-mi tar di al-Himyari, Quaderni
de Corso al-Imam al-Mazari 7 (Mazara del Vallo, 1984)
Accurate translation of entries relating to Italy and Sicily, with excellent
introduction and notes. Virtually unobtainable outside Sicily.
Abd al-Aziz ibn Nasir al-Mani, ed., al-Zahr al-basim wal-arf al-nasim f i mad ih
al-ajall Abil-Qasim (Riyad, 1984)
Adequate, uncritical edition with minimal apparatus.
Translations:
A. De Simone, Splendori e misteri di Sicilia in unopera di Ibn Qalaqis (Messina, 1996)
Generally reliable Italian translation of whole work with useful introduction and
notes. Index.
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Secondary Literature:
A. De Simone, Ibn Qalaqis in Sicilia, in B. Scarcia Amoretti and L. Rostagno, eds.,
Yad-Nama in memoria di Alessandro Bausani, 2 vols. (Rome, 1991), vol. 2, 32344
Una ricostruzione del viaggio in Sicilia di Ibn Qalaqis sulla base dellaz-Zahr albasim, in Arabi e Normanni in Sicilia. Atti del Convegno internazionale euro-arabo
(Agrigento, 2225 febbraio 1992) (Agrigento, 1993), 10925
Al-Zahr al-basim di Ibn Qalaqis e le vicende dei musulmani nella Sicilia
normanna, in B. Scarcia Amoretti, ed., Del nuovo sulla Sicilia musulmana (Roma,
3 maggio 1993), Giornata di studio, Fondazione Leone Caetani, Accademia
nazionale dei Lincei (Rome, 1995), 99152
J. Johns, Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily: the royal d iwan (Cambridge, 2002),
35, 133, 212, 2334, 2356, 237, 23941
With her introduction to the translation, De Simones three studies provide a
comprehensive account of Ibn Qalaqiss visit to Sicily (with a few additional
notes by Johns).
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Secondary Literature:
A. Amara, and A. Nef, Al-Idrisi et les Hammudides de Sicile: nouvelles donnes
biographiques sur lauteur du Livre de Roger, Arabica 48 (2001), 1217
Presents newly discovered information from al-Safadi concerning Hammudids in
Sicily (but see also Johns, Arabic Administration, 236, n. 101).
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Secondary Literature:
L. Genuardi, I defetari normanni, in E. Besta, Centenario della nascita di Michele
Amari, vol. 1, 15964
Unreliable, but historiographically interesting, discussion of the Sicilian registers
(jaraid).
D. Clementi, Notes on Norman Sicilian surveys, in V.H. Galbraith, ed., The Making
of Domesday Book (Oxford, 1961), 558
Historiographically interesting attempt to compare Sicilian registers (jaraid) of
lands and men to Domesday Book.
A. DEmilia, Diplomi arabi siciliani di compravendita del secolo VI Egira e loro
raffronto con documenti egiziani dei secoli IIIV Egira, Annali dellIstituto
universitario orientale di Napoli 14 (1964), 83109
Important study demonstrating the close parallels between Sicilian Arabic deeds
of sale and comparable documents from Islamic Egypt.
A. Noth, I documenti arabi di Ruggero II, in C. Brhl, Diplomi e cancelleria di
Ruggero II (Palermo, 1983), 189222 (rev. Italian version of A. Noth, Die arabischen Dokumente Roger II, in C. Brhl, Urkunden und Kanzlei Knig Rogers II von
Sizilien, Studien zu den normannisch-staufischen Herrscherurkunden Siziliens,
vol. 1 [Cologne and Vienna, 1978], 21761)
Important preliminary study of the Arabic and bilingual documents of Roger
II preparatory to the edition of the documents themselves, which Noth was
regrettably unable to complete before his untimely death. Firmly relocates the
Arabic administration of Norman Sicily in an Islamic context.
J. Wansbrough, Diplomatica siciliana, BSOAS 47 (1984), 1021
Generally slight review, with occasional startling insights.
G. Caracausi, I documenti medievali siciliani in lingua araba, in G. Brincat,
ed., Incontri siculo-maltese. Atti del II Convegno su MaltaSicilia: contiguit e
continuit linguistica e culturale (Malta, 46 aprile, 1986) (Malta, 1986), 1326
Rich study of the language of Sicilian Arabic documents from the perspective of
a classical philologist.
A. De Simone, I diplomi arabi di Sicilia, in Testimonianze degli arabi in Italia, 5775
Important and useful general overview of Sicilian Arabic documents.
O.R. Constable, Cross-cultural contacts: sales of land between Christians and
Muslims in 12th-century Palermo, Studia Islamica 85 (1997), 6783
Potentially interesting attempt to use Sicilian Arabic deeds of sale as a source for
status of Muslim community of Palermo under Norman rule. Marred by errors of
detail (often Cusas) and by general unfamiliarity with Sicilian context.
J. Johns, Arabic Administration (Cambridge, 2002)
Comprehensive study of the Arabic and bilingual documents issued by the
Norman administration (d iwan).
A. Metcalfe, Muslims and Christians in Norman Sicily. Arabic speakers and the end of
Islam (London and New York, 2003)
Important study of Sicilian Arabic language and its uses in Norman Sicily.
Secondary Literature (Onomastics of Sicilian Arabic Documents):
In the absence of a definitive study of all the Sicilian Arabic documents, especially of
the registers of men (jaraid), the following studies constitute an important source for
the prosopography of the communities that they describe.
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S.D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society. The Jewish communities of the Arab world as
portrayed in the documents of the Cairo Geniza, 5 vols. and index (by P. Saunders)
(Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 196793)
Sicily and Southern Italy in the Cairo Geniza documents, Archivio storico per
la Sicilia orientale 67 (1971) 933
M. Gil, The Jews in Sicily under Muslim rule, in the light of the Geniza documents,
in Italia Judaica I. Atti del I Convegno internazionale, Bari 1822 maggio, 1981
(Rome, 1983), 87134
Sicily 8271072 in light of the Geniza documents and parallel sources, in Gli
ebrei in Sicilia sino allespulsione del 1492: atti del V Convegno internazionale,
Palermo, 1519 giugno 1992 (Rome, 1995), 96171
N. Zeldes and M. Frankel, The Sicilian tradeJewish merchants in the
Mediterranean in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, in N. Bucaria, ed., Gli
Ebrei in Sicilia dal tardoantico al Medioevo. Studi in onore di mons. Benedetto
Rocco (Palermo, 1998), 24356
M. Gil, Institutions and events of the eleventh century mirrored in Geniza letters
(Part I), BSOAS 67 (2004), 15167
Institutions and events of the eleventh century mirrored in Geniza letters (Part
II), BSOAS 67 (2004), 16884
Sicily and its Jews, 8271072, in the light of the Geniza documents and parallel
sources, in M. Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages (Leiden and
Boston, 2004), 53593 (Eng. tr. by D. Strassler of Hebrew original by M. Gil, Tel
Aviv, 1997)
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Normanni, 17. Dezember 2003 bis 10. Mrz 2004 (Milan, 2004), 3759. English
and Italian versions of catalogue, including much material not in the German catalogue, forthcoming: M. Fontana, ed., Nobiles officinae: perle, filigrane e trame di
seta dal Palazzo Reale di Palermo (Catania, 2006)
Includes up-to-date bibliography for original inscriptions and secondary
literature.