Sicily is the largest and most populous island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 20 regions of Italy. It is one of the five Italian autonomous regions and is officially referred to as Regione Siciliana. The island has 4.8 million inhabitants. Its capital city is Palermo. It is named after the Sicels, who inhabited the eastern part of the island during the Iron Age.
The term Moor is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim populations of the Maghreb, al-Andalus, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a single, distinct or self-defined people. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica observed that the term had "no real ethnological value." Europeans of the Middle Ages and the early modern period variously applied the name to Arabs, Berbers, and Muslim Europeans.
Mazara del Vallo is a town and comune in the province of Trapani, southwestern Sicily, Italy. It lies mainly on the left bank at the mouth of the Mazaro river.
Roger I, nicknamed “Roger Bosso” and “Grand Count Roger”, was a Norman nobleman who became the first Grand Count of Sicily from 1071 to 1101.
Noto is a city and comune in the Province of Syracuse, Sicily, Italy. It is 32 kilometres (20 mi) southwest of the city of Syracuse at the foot of the Iblean Mountains. It lends its name to the surrounding area Val di Noto. In 2002 Noto and its church were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Kingdom of Sicily was a state that existed in the south of the Italian Peninsula and, for a time, in Northern Africa from its founding by Roger II of Sicily in 1130 until 1816. It was a successor state of the County of Sicily, which had been founded in 1071 during the Norman conquest of the southern peninsula. The island was divided into three regions: Val di Mazara, Val Demone and Val di Noto.
Butera is an Italian town and a commune in the province of Caltanissetta, in the southern part of the island of Sicily. It is bounded by the comuni of Gela, Licata, Mazzarino, Ravanusa and Riesi. It has a population of 4,653 (2017) and is 49 km (30 mi) from Caltanissetta, the province's capital.
The province of Catania was a province in the autonomous island region of Sicily, Italy. Its capital was the city of Catania. It had an area of 3,552 square kilometres (1,371 sq mi) and a total population of about 1,116,917 as of 31 December 2014.
Val di Noto is a historical and geographical area encompassing the south-eastern third of Sicily; it is dominated by the limestone Hyblaean plateau. Historically, it was one of the three valli of Sicily.
Modica is a city and comune of 54,456 inhabitants in the Province of Ragusa, Sicily, southern Italy. The city is situated in the Hyblaean Mountains.
The Emirate of Sicily or Fatimid Sicily was an Islamic kingdom that ruled the Muslim territories on the island of Sicily between 831 and 1091. Its capital was Palermo, which, during this period, became a major cultural and political center of the Muslim world.
Roccella Valdemone is a comune (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Messina in the Italian region Sicily, located about 150 kilometres (93 mi) east of Palermo and about 50 kilometres (31 mi) southwest of Messina.
Siculo-Arabic or Sicilian Arabic is the term used for varieties of Arabic that were spoken in the Emirate of Sicily from the 9th century, persisting under the subsequent Norman rule until the 13th century. It was derived from Arabic following the Abbasid conquest of Sicily in the 9th century and gradually marginalized following the Norman conquest in the 11th century.
Islam in Malṭa has had a historically profound influence upon the country—especially its language and agriculture—as a consequence of several centuries of control and presence on the islands. Today, the main Muslim organizations represented in Malta are the Libyan World Islamic Call Society.
The history of Islam in Sicily and southern Italy began with the first Arab settlement in Sicily, at Mazara, which was captured in 827. The subsequent rule of Sicily and Malta started in the 10th century. The Emirate of Sicily lasted from 831 until 1061, and controlled the whole island by 902. Though Sicily was the primary Muslim stronghold in Italy, some temporary footholds, the most substantial of which was the port city of Bari, were established on the mainland peninsula, especially in mainland southern Italy, though Muslim raids, mainly those of Muhammad I ibn al-Aghlab, reached as far north as Naples, Rome and the northern region of Piedmont. The Arab raids were part of a larger struggle for power in Italy and Europe, with Christian Byzantine, Frankish, Norman and local Italian forces also competing for control. Arabs were sometimes sought as allies by various Christian factions against other factions.
The Muslim conquest of Sicily began in June 827 and lasted until 902, when the last major Byzantine stronghold on the island, Taormina, fell. Isolated fortresses remained in Byzantine hands until 965, but the island was henceforth under Muslim rule until conquered in turn by the Normans in the 11th century.
The term Norman–Arab–Byzantine culture, Norman–Sicilian culture or, less inclusively, Norman–Arab culture, refers to the interaction of the Norman, Byzantine Greek, Latin, and Arab cultures following the Norman conquest of the former Emirate of Sicily and North Africa from 1061 to around 1250. The civilization resulted from numerous exchanges in the cultural and scientific fields, based on the tolerance shown by the Normans towards the Latin- and Greek-speaking Christian populations and the former Arab Muslim settlers. As a result, Sicily under the Normans became a crossroad for the interaction between the Norman and Latin Catholic, Byzantine–Orthodox, and Arab–Islamic cultures.
The Battle of the Straits was fought in early 965 between the fleets of the Byzantine Empire and the Fatimid Caliphate in the Straits of Messina. It resulted in a major Fatimid victory, and the final collapse of the attempt of Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas to recover Sicily from the Fatimids.
Al-Hasan ibn Ali ibn Abi al-Husayn al-Kalbi, known in Byzantine sources as Boulchasenes and Aboulchare (Ἀβουλχαρέ), was the first Kalbid Emir of Sicily. A member of an aristocratic family within the ruling circle of the Fatimid Caliphate, he helped suppress the great revolt of Abu Yazid in 943–947 and was sent as governor of Sicily from 948 until 953, when he returned to Ifriqiya. He was succeeded in Sicily by his son Ahmad ibn al-Hasan al-Kalbi, but led several campaigns in Sicily and southern Italy against the Byzantines in 955–958, as well as the raid against Almeria that sparked a brief conflict with the Caliphate of Córdoba in 955. He died at Palermo in 964, during another campaign against the Byzantines.
Val Demone or Val di Demona is a historical and geographical region encompassing the north-eastern third of Sicily. Historically, it was one of the three valli of Sicily.
