Ibrahim II of Ifriqiya - Aftermath

Aftermath

Ibrahim II's reign proved to be the beginning of the end of Aghlabid emirate. There was probably little he could have done to prevent the loss of the Aghlabid toehold on the Italian mainland. Although the conquest of Sicily had been completed under him – Syracuse in 878, Taormina in 902 – Ibrahim II's erratic and heavy-handed rule had provoked civil war and separatism among the island's Muslim communities.

Perhaps of greater consequence was Ibrahim II's murderous destruction of the Arab aristocracy. It left the Ifriqiyan regiments broken at the top and demoralized. Shortly after the departure of the bulk of the Ifriqiyan army for Ibrahim's last mad campaign in Italy in 902, the Kutama, a Berber tribe of the Petite Kabylie, fired up and organized by the Ismaili preacher Abu 'Abdullah al-Shi'i, burst out of their highland strongholds and began capturing the Aghlabid fortresses that had hitherto kept them contained. The crippled junds proved hardly an obstacle, and the Kutama would end up capturing all of Ifriqiya by 909 with relative ease, bringing the Aghlabid dynasty to an end, and inaugurating the Fatimid dynasty.

The reputation of Ibrahim II's feared Sudanese regiments was such that, during the campaigns of 902–09, the Fatimids mercilessly executed any black African that fell into their hands.