Ibrahim II of Ifriqiya - Sicily Under Ibrahim II

Sicily Under Ibrahim II

See also: History of Islam in southern Italy

At the time of Ibrahim's ascension in 875, most of Sicily was already in Aghlabid hands. During Ibrahim's emirate, there was little stability in the provincial government of Aghlabid Sicily, governors were appointed and switched almost yearly.

In 877, Ibrahim II's deputy in Sicily, Jafar ibn Muhammad al-Tamini overran the Byzantine-held eastern part of the island. After a lengthy siege the important citadel of Syracuse fell in May 878, bringing the Muslim conquest of Sicily to near completion. Only Taormina, Catania and a couple of other outposts remained in Byzantine hands.

The fall of Syracuse seemed to clear the way for an Aghlabid invasion of the Italian mainland, on which the Aghlabids already had a foothold. But the Aghlabid navy, which had plied the Mediterranean practically unopposed for much of the century, soon faced its first serious disaster. In 880, a Byzantine fleet assembled by Emperor Basil I, under the command of the droungarios Nasar, trapped and destroyed the Aghlabid fleet at the naval Battle of Methone (off Methone in southern Greece). With the sea cleared, the Byzantines went on the offensive on the south Italian mainland and captured the Muslim holdings in Apulia and Calabria, notably seizing the citadel of Taranto, which had been captured by the Aghlabids forty years earlier. Streams of Muslim refugees fled the Greek onslaught towards the western Campania coast, where they were received by Bishop-Duke Athanasius of Naples and resettled in pockets at Vesuvius, Agropoli and Garigliano, and even as far inland as Sepiano (near Bojano).

The loss of the fleet dulled any prospect of a reaction by the Aghlabids. Small fleets from Sicily would continue to support the remaining Muslim colonies on the Italian mainland, but the prospect of more concerted action was postponed.

A rising internal conflict in Sicily itself soon took up most of the attention of Ibrahim's Sicilian governors. Since the beginning of the Ifriqiyan conquest of the island in the 820s, Arab and Berber colonists had been at odds with each other. Arab colonists, concentrated in the northern part of the island, had come with the first wave of conquest and Arab lords staked out vast tracts in the center for regimental fiefs. But Berber immigration, concentrated in the south, was more numerous post-conquest. Population pressure prompted Berber colonists to begin encroaching on the Arab regimental lands, provoking internal clashes. Ibrahim II's Sicilian governors, reflecting their master's prejudices, tended to find in favor of the Berbers and against the Arab lords.

Aghlabid governors of Sicily routinely led sai'fa (religiously mandated raids for booty and prisoners) on the mainland, and the prospect of raking in war plunder abroad usually helped defuse the internal political tensions over land. But the Greek offensive in Calabria in 885-86, led by Nikephoros Phokas, threw back the raids led by Ibrahim II's governor, Sawada ibn Khafaja. With the Aghlabid army of Sicily weakened, in December 886, the Arab lords of Palermo revolted, expelled Sawada, and elected one of their own as governor. However, the uprising was short-lived, and the Aghlabid governor returned the next year.

In 888, with the Aghlabid fleet reconstituted, Ibrahim II ordered a massive raid on the coast of Calabria. The Byzantine fleet was dispatched by Emperor Leo VI to confront them, but it was destroyed by the Aghlabids in the Battle of Milazzo in September 888. The internal tensions in Sicily, however, prevented the Aghlabids from capitalizing on their recovery of naval supremacy. In March 890, the Palerman Arab nobility returned to rebellion. The Berbers of Agrigento declared themselves loyalists for Ibrahim II and took up arms against the Arabs, throwing Sicily into the throes of a civil war. In 892, Ibrahim dispatched a new governor, Muhammad ibn Fadhl, at the head of a large Aghlabid army, who managed to force his way into Palermo and briefly re-impose Ifriqiyan authority. But things descended into chaos again shortly after.

The 893-94 nobles' revolt in Ifriqiya absorbed Ibrahim's attentions, and left the Sicilians to fight it out among themselves for the next few years. A forty-month truce was negotiated with the Byzantines in 895-6. In the summer of 900, Ibrahim was finally ready. A strong Ifriqiyan expeditionary army, under his son Abu al-Abbas Abdallah, was dispatched to recover Sicily. Landing in Mazara in early August, 900, the Aghlabid force proceeded to lay siege to rebel-held Trapani.

It is reported by Ibn Khaldoun (but not other sources) that the Arabs of Palermo and the Berbers of Agrigento patched up their differences just in time to present a united Sicilian front to negotiate with the Aghlabids. Others report the two parties tried to negotiate separately with Abu al-Abbas Abdallah. In either case, the negotiations failed, and the Arabs of Palermo assembled an army, under the command of a certain Rakamuweih (an Arabized Persian) to march against the Aghlabid expeditionary force. Sicilians and Aghlabids clashed at the terrible Battle of Trapani, without a clear victor. The Sicilian Arabs retreated to Palermo, hoping to regroup and gather reinforcements there. Abu al-Abbas Abdallah gathered up his army and gave chase. In September 900, the Aghlabids caught up with and defeated the Sicilian army before Palermo. The Sicilian rebel remnant withdrew into the fortified citadel (qasr) of Palermo (the old center now known as Cassaro), leaving the town and suburbs open to the sack of the Ifriqiyan army. After about a week, on September 18, 900, the Sicilian rebels surrendered, yielding up the Qasr to Abdallah in return for safe-passage of the rebel leaders into exile. Streams of Palerman refugees made their way east to take shelter in the Byzantine holdings.

The next year (901), Abu al-Abbas Abdallah led the Aghlabid army against the remaining Byzantine enclaves in Sicily. While laying siege to Demona (in the northeast), Abu Abbas Abdallah heard rumors of the assembly of a Byzantine army in Calabria. Breaking off the siege, he rushed the Aghlabid army up to Messina, and ferried it across the straits, soon appearing before the walls of Reggio Calabria in June 901. Unprepared, the Byzantine garrison abandoned the city. The Aghlabids seized Reggio and put the wealthy city through a thorough sack.