Term Paper: Arab Rule in Sicily

By 732 CE, the armies of the Umayyad Caliphate, with their conquest of the Iberian Peninsula well under way, had crossed the Pyrenees only to be defeated in France by Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours. With only 250 kilometers between Carthage in North Africa and the western Sicilian city of Trapani and just eight kilometers from Messina on the northeast corner of Sicily to Reggio di Calabria on the toe of Italy’s boot, it might seem that Sicily would be the ideal route through which Muslim armies from Ifriqiya could attack what Winston Churchill once called the “soft underbelly” of Europe. However, it was another hundred years before the military of the Aghlabid dynasty in Ifriqiya invaded Sicily in 827 and eventually established an emirate there. Over the next two and a half centuries between this invasion and the conquest of the island from the mainland by the Normans in 1071, Arab Muslims exercised at least partial, but often total, control over Sicily. Despite this comparatively brief period of Arab-Muslim rule, the period had enormous economic, political, and cultural consequences for the island, many of which persisted long after the Arabs were gone.

Because of its geographic location at the center of the Mediterranean and the ability to sail there from Carthage in a matter of days and from there to Reggio in only hours, Sicily has played an enormous strategic role for all governments that have held it. Aside from its obvious military importance, because of Sicily's temperate climate, this role has been chiefly economic and principally agricultural. Under Roman rule, the island had served as a breadbasket for other areas, producing wheat that was largely exported elsewhere.[1] Following periods of Vandal and Gothic occupation, the Byzantine Empire extended its rule over Sicily in the mid-sixth century CE, during which period the island largely continued to play this important economic/agricultural role, particularly after the loss of Egypt to the Muslims in 641 and the long embattled state of Anatolia through the ninth century. In addition, a mint was established at Syracuse in the 640s.[2]

With the establishment of Arab control, these roles necessarily changed. Perhaps in contrast with expectations, although military conflict hampered trade at times, Sicily nevertheless continued to serve as an important economic crossroads, both in terms of currency and agriculture. First, Sicily's role in the production of currency continued during the Arab period. British historian Alex Metcalfe notes that the Arab minting of coins began almost immediately, noting, "the first coinage with the Arabic legend Ṣiqilliyya were struck at the siege of Castrogiovanni as early as 829 and, within four years of the fall of Palermo, the first coins bearing the name of its governor are attested."[3] Metcalfe reports further that, although the Aghlabid dynasty failed to establish use of the gold dinar in Sicily, the later Fatimid dynasty that ruled the island successfully circulated the tari, with the coin remaining in circulation both on Sicily and the mainland for centuries to follow.[4]

More importantly, agriculture in Sicily expanded tremendously under Arab rule. The economist Andrew M. Watson has described an Arab "agricultural revolution" that impacted the economies all of area occupied by the Arabs, Sicily included. Watson records a total of sixteen food crops, as well as cotton,[5] and he suggests that the implanting of crop species from warm Arab climates into areas such as Sicily resulted in longer growing seasons with more abundant yields.[6] The introduction of diversification among crops resulted in greater choice among landowners and farmers for how land could be used.[7] Finally, innovations by Arabs to irrigation systems resulted in cotton being grown on some of the previously worst land in Sicily, and Watson writes that "we may assume that this crop also helped to push back the frontier of sedentary agriculture."[8] Today, several important exports from Sicily, including lemons and cotton, come from crops introduced during the Arab period, and wheat continues to be produced there.[9]

From a political perspective, as already noted, the key change that occurred in the ninth century CE was that political control passed from Byzantine to Arab hands. In some ways, there is perhaps no more emblematic way to examine this change than to compare the roles of Sicily's two main cities -- Syracuse on the eastern coast and Palermo in the northwest -- during the period under discussion. In the seventh century, the Byzantines elevated Sicily to the status of a theme -- the chief administrative division of the empire -- and Emperor Constans II moved his imperial court to Syracuse as well, using the city as a base to raid Lombard-held areas of Italy. Until its fall to the Arabs in 878, Syracuse remained the capital of the theme.[10] However, Metcalfe reports, "Much of the material infrastructure of Syracuse itself – its walls, churches and houses – was damaged, and the city was stripped of its transferable wealth in two months of post-conquest looting."[11]

Comparatively speaking, Palermo, then known as Panormus, seems to have become something of a backwater in the late Byzantine period, despite its earlier role as an important port. The French historian Vivien Prigent has argued that Palermo initially witnessed an increase in importance among Sicilian cities but that it eventually was eclipsed by other cities in the northwest of Sicily and never grew in size or importance such that it became necessary to replace the ancient Punic walls around the city with sturdier defenses.[12] Because it fell earlier than Syracuse, the Arabs established their capital in Palermo. The evolution of the capital city over a one hundred-year period is perhaps demonstrated by comparing eyewitness accounts of the city.

The first, from 880 CE, is a letter from Theodosius, a Greek monk residing in Syracuse, to Leo, an archdeacon of the Christian church, detailing an eyewitness account of the Arab conquest of Syracuse after decades of sporadic sieges and raids. From Syracuse, Theodosius was brought as a slave to Palermo, which he describes as an "extremely famous and populous city,"[13] in which multiple ethnicities intermingled both freely and in the prisons. He commented further, "Wherefore the people being crowded together in such a press of inhabitants, began to build and inhabit houses without the walls, to such an extent that they really built many cities round the original one, not unequal to it, if one choose, either for attack or defence [sic]."[14] Clearly in the short period between the fall of Palermo and Theodosius's visit, the city had already crown in size and importance.

The second account of Palermo dates from 972 CE, by which point the city had grown even more. The author, Ibn Hawqal, an Arab cartographer born in present-day southern Turkey who wrote a book about his travels, wrote that Palermo "consists of five quarters, each one close to the others, but situated in such a way that the borders of each are clearly defined. The largest quarter … is enclosed by a high defensive stone wall and inhabited by merchants." Beyond the city now extending to five quarters, all of which Ibn Hawqal describes in some detail, it is also clear that the city had grown sufficiently in importance that it was now defended by more substantial walls. In the outlying areas of the city, Ibn Hawqal reports the presence of more than two hundred mosques, stating, "I have not heard anything like it except what they say about Cordova [in Spain]."[15]

In fact, regarding the city walls, Ibn Hawqal specifically describes the city quarter called Al-Khalisa, known today as Kalsa, nothing that it "has a wooden wall which is not like the stone wall that surrounds the Old City."[16] Metcalfe dates the building of this city quarter to the reign in Palermo of Khalil ibn Ishaq, an army commander sent by the Fatimids from Cairo to restore order during a period of strife.[17] This same Khalil was responsible for tearing down the earlier walls. In the "Cambridge Chronicle," an anonymous history of Sicily written in the tenth or eleventh century, it is reported that, on October 13 of either 937 or 938, Khalil "entered [Palermo] with large numbers of troops and began to raze the walls of [Palermo] and pull down its gates."[18] Metcalfe finally reports the walls being further fortified in 967.[19] The walls to which Ibn Hawqal bore witness five years later were, it turns out, perhaps quite new.

Clearly, Palermo's role as capital city of Sicily, which it remains today, was the direct outgrowth of the transition from Byzantine to Arab rule. However, it bears mention that Arab control of Sicily encompassed several different governments, in the forms of caliphates and dynasties, between the eighth and eleventh centuries. The Aghlabid dynasty, based in Carthage in North Africa (Ifriqiya), was the power that first invaded Sicily in 827 and secured control over the whole island. However, in 909, the Aghlabids lost Ifriqiya to the Shia Fatimid Caliphate based in Egypt. In 948, the Fatimids appointed the Kalbid dynasty to rule Sicily. In 973, the Fatimids installed the Zirid dynasty in Sicily, which ruled the island until 1053, at which point central control broke down. Eight years later, the Norman conquest of Sicily began.[20]

More momentous than either the economic or political changes that Sicily experienced between the eighth and eleventh centuries were the cultural shifts that occurred there. These changes can be best understood through the lenses of religion and language. From the standpoint of religion, Sicily underwent with the Arab invasion the obvious infusion of a Muslim population in what was formerly a Christian population with a small Jewish minority. The standard imposition of rule of Christians and Jews by Muslims would involve the imposition of the status of dhimmi, with the requirement payment of certain taxes and limited toleration. This type of rule was imposed over the western portion of the island, and a large number of former Christians also converted to Islam. However, in the eastern portion of the island, which both was more difficult to conquer and lay in closer proximity to the Italian mainland, the status of Christians ranged from dhimma to the requirement of tribute payments to de facto independence.[21] Long-term truces between the Byzantine Empire and the Muslim rulers of Sicily facilitated such a status quo. 

Linguistically, the effects of Arab-Muslim rule were longer, persisting to the present day. The Romans had established the speaking of a Romance language in Sicily, but as the Byzantines took control, Greek slowly began to be established as a common spoken language. Quite obviously, the Arab invaders spoke Arabic. Today, the language spoken in Sicily is a Romance language that demonstrates a marked Arabic influence. For instance, Berkeley professor of Romance Languages Barbara De Marco has argued that the contemporary Sicilian term for a simpleton -- mamaluccu -- is cognate with the Arabic word for a slave – mamluk.[22] Similarly, Metcalfe has demonstrated how several Sicilian town names, including Calatrasi and Calatafimi, are formed in part from the Arabic word for a fort -- qal'at.[23] These examples supplement the previous instance of the Al-Khalisa section of Arab Palermo, now known Kalsa.

Clearly, the impact of the Arab invasion and conquest of Sicily beginning in the ninth century C.E. had monumental effects on the island. In addition to the political shift from Byzantine to Islamic political control, the economic role of Sicily as granary and mint to the surrounding areas expanded greatly. From a cultural standpoint, the effect was arguably the greatest, with a large-scale religious metamorphosis among the population lasting centuries but the linguistic effects of the conquest persisting to the current day. While the Arab-Muslim impact on Spain is perhaps better known today due to its longer duration, the impact of the Muslim world on Sicily was also quite profound.

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[1] This epithet for Sicily (together with North Africa and Sardinia) seems to originate in Cicero's Pro Lege Manilia 34: "He [Cnæus Pompeius], when the weather could hardly be called open for sailing, went to Sicily, explored the coasts of Africa; from thence he came with his fleet to Sardinia, and these three great granaries of the republic he fortified with powerful garrisons and fleets." Translated by C.D. Yonge, Perseus Digital Library, accessed November 28, 2015, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0019%3Atext
%3DMan.%3Achapter%3D12%3Asection%3D34

[2] Michael F. Hendy, Studies in the Byzantine Monetary Economy c. 300-1450 (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 421-422.

[3]Alex Metcalfe, The Muslims of Medieval Italy (Edinburgh, U.K.: Edinburgh University Press, 2009), 13.

[4] Ibid, 63-64.

[5] Andrew M. Watson, "The Arab Agricultural Revolution and Its Diffusion, 700-1100," Journal of Economic History, 34 (1974): 9.

[6] Ibid, 10

[7] Ibid, 14

[8] Ibid, 15

[9] Jack Altman, This Way Sicily (Lausanne, Switzerland: JPM Publications, 2002), 3.

[10] Thomas S. Brown, "Byzantine Italy (680-876)," in The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire, c. 500-1492, edited by Jonathan Shepard, 433-464. (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 436-437.

[11] Metcalfe, ibid, 28.

[12] Vivien Prigent, "Palermo in the Eastern Roman Empire," in A Companion to Medieval Palermo: The History of a Mediterranean City from 600 to 1500, edited by Annliese Nef (Boston: Brill, 2013), 11-38.

[13] Theodosius of Syracuse to Leo Diaconus, 880 C.E., Quoted in Francis Marion Crawford, The Rulers of the South, 2 vols. (London: MacMillan & Co. Ltd., 1900), chapter 2, University of Chicago Web site, accessed November 23, 2015, http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Italy/_Texts/CRAROS/2/2*.html

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibn Hawqal, Excerpt from Book of the Traditions of Countries, 972 C.E., Translated by William Granara, "Ibn Hawqal in Sicily," Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, 3 (1983): 95.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Metcalfe, ibid, 50.

[18] Taʾrīkh Jazīrat Ṣiqilliya [History of the Island of Sicily, also known as The Cambridge Chronicle], circa 10th or 11th century C.E., MSS in the Cambridge University Library (Arabic text), United Kingdom, translated by Alex Metcalfe, who kindly provided his unpublished translation of this material for use here.

[19] Metcalfe, ibid, 56.

[20] Ibid, xi-xvii.

[21] Ibid, 106-108.

[22] Barbara De Marco, "The Sounds of Change: Arabic Linguistic Influences in Sicily," in Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1988, edited by Thomas J. Walsh (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 1989), 94-101.

[23] Metcalfe, ibid, 36.