page_title: Emirate of Sicily
section_title: Sicily under Arab rule
hierarchical_section_title: Emirate of Sicily / Sicily under Arab rule
caption_attribution_description: English: Aghlabid quarter dinar (ربع دينار), gold, minted (by Ballagh بلاغ, mint official صاحب السكة)in Sicily (prabably in Syracuse?) in 266 AH / 879 AD during the reign of the Aghlabid emir Ibrahim II (261-289 AH / 874-902 AD)
context_page_description: The Emirate of Sicily was an Islamic kingdom that ruled the island of Sicily from 831 to 1091. Its capital was Palermo, which during this period became a major cultural and political center of the Muslim world.
  Sicily was part of the Byzantine Empire when Muslim Moors from North Africa 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.
  Under Muslim rule, the island became prosperous and cosmopolitan. Trade and agriculture flourished, and Palermo became one of the largest and wealthiest cities in Europe. Sicily became multiconfessional and multilingual, developing a distinct Arab-Byzantine culture that combined elements of its Islamic Arab and Berber migrants and the local Greek Orthodox, Latin Catholic, and Jewish communities. Beginning in the early eleventh century, the Emirate began to fracture from internal strife and dynastic disputes.
context_section_description: The new Arab rulers initiated land reforms, which in turn increased productivity and encouraged the growth of smallholdings, a dent to the dominance of the landed estates. The Arabs further improved irrigation systems through Qanats. Introducing oranges, lemons, pistachio and sugarcane to Sicily. A description of Palermo was given by Ibn Hawqal, a Baghdad merchant who visited Sicily in 950. A walled suburb called the Kasr (the palace) is the center of Palermo until today, with the great Friday mosque on the site of the later Roman cathedral. The suburb of Al-Khalisa (Kalsa) contained the Sultan's palace, baths, a mosque, government offices, and a private prison. Ibn Hawqual reckoned 7,000 individual butchers trading in 150 shops. By 1050, Palermo had a population of 350,000, making it one of the largest cities in Europe, but behind Islamic Spain's capital Córdoba and the Byzantine capital of Constantinople, which had populations over 450-500,000. Palermo's population dropped to 150,000 under Norman rule, while there was a greater decline in Córdoba's population as Muslims there weakened; by 1330 Palermo's population had declined to 51,000.
  Arab traveler, geographer, and poet Ibn Jubair visited the area in the end of the 12th century and described Al-Kasr and Al-Khalisa (Kalsa):
  The capital is endowed with two gifts, splendor and wealth. It contains all the real and imagined beauty that anyone could wish. Splendor and grace adorn the piazzas and the countryside; the streets and highways are wide, and the eye is dazzled by the beauty of its situation. It is a city full of marvels, with buildings similar to those of Córdoba [sic], built of limestone. A permanent stream of water from four springs runs through the city. There are so many mosques that they are impossible to count. Most of them also serve as schools. The eye is dazzled by all this splendor.
  Throughout this reign, revolts by Byzantine Sicilians occurred, especially in the east, and part of the lands were even re-occupied before being quashed.
  The local population conquered by the Muslims were Romanized Catholic Sicilians in Western Sicily and Greek speaking Byzantine Catholics mainly in the eastern half of the island, but there were also a significant number of Jews. The two populations were members of one Church until the events of 1054 began to separate them, the sack of 1204 being the last straw as far as the Byzantine "Orthodox" were concerned.
  Christians and Jews were tolerated under Muslim rule as dhimmis, but were subject to some restrictions. The dhimmis were also required to pay the jizya, or poll tax, and the kharaj or land tax, but were exempt from the tax that Muslims had to pay (Zakaat).
  Under Arab rule there were different categories of Jizya payers, but their common denominator was the payment of the Jizya as a mark of subjection to Muslim rule in exchange for protection against foreign and internal aggression. The conquered population could avoid this subservient status by converting to Islam. Whether by honest religious conviction or compulsion large numbers of native Sicilians converted to Islam. About half the population was Muslim at the time of the Norman Conquest. The Fatimids in the mid-10th century adopted a policy of active conversion and increased oppression of Christians. However, even after 100 years of Islamic rule, numerous Greek speaking Christian communities prospered, especially in north-eastern Sicily, as dhimmis. This was largely a result of the Jizya system which allowed co-existence. The co-existence with the conquered population fell apart after the reconquest of Sicily starting in the 1160s and particularly following the death of King William II of Sicily in 1189. The policy of oppression visited upon Christians was applied to Muslims.
caption: Aghlabid quarter dinar minted in Sicily, 879
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