Europe · The early medieval west
Emirate of Sicily
831–1091
The Emirate of Sicily was the Muslim state that ruled the island of Sicily from the 9th to the 11th century, with its capital at Palermo (renamed al-Madinah, "The City").
- Existed
- 831–1091
- Shown on the map
- AD 850–910, 960–1093 (2 periods)
- Peak area
- 23k km²
- Region
- Europe
Overview
The Emirate of Sicily was the Muslim state that ruled the island of Sicily from the 9th to the 11th century, with its capital at Palermo (renamed al-Madinah, "The City"). The Aghlabid dynasty of Ifriqiya launched the conquest in 827, invited in part by the rebel Byzantine admiral Euphemius; after landing at Mazara del Vallo (16 June 827), they besieged Palermo from August 830 to 12 September 831, when the year-long siege ended in Aghlabid victory (the Arab historian Ibn al-Athir records — with likely exaggeration — the population falling from 70,000 to 3,000 taken as slaves). This is the conventional founding date of the emirate. Syracuse fell in 878 and the last major Byzantine stronghold, Taormina, in 902.
Decline and legacy
Sicily prospered greatly under Muslim rule, becoming a wealthy and cosmopolitan center of agriculture (new crops and irrigation), commerce, and learning, with a mixed population of Muslims, Christians, and Jews. Politically it passed from Aghlabid to Fatimid overlordship (909), and from 948 was governed by the autonomous Kalbid dynasty. After 1044 the emirate fragmented into warring petty statelets (a "taifa" period), which invited Norman intervention. The Normans under Roger I (Roger de Hauteville) and his brother Robert Guiscard conquered the island between 1061 and 1091; Palermo fell after a siege in 1071–1072, and the last Muslim strongholds (Noto and Butera, plus Malta) fell in 1091, ending independent Islamic rule. Roger founded the County of Sicily (1071); Muslims remained a majority of the island's population for over a century under relatively tolerant Norman rule.
Common questions
- What was the Emirate of Sicily?
- The Emirate of Sicily was the Muslim state that ruled the island of Sicily from the 9th to the 11th century, with its capital at Palermo (renamed al-Madinah, "The City").
- When did the Emirate of Sicily exist?
- The Emirate of Sicily existed 831–1091. On this map it is drawn AD 850–910, 960–1093.
- How large was the Emirate of Sicily?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, the Emirate of Sicily covered about 23,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.
- How did the Emirate of Sicily end?
- Sicily prospered greatly under Muslim rule, becoming a wealthy and cosmopolitan center of agriculture (new crops and irrigation), commerce, and learning, with a mixed population of Muslims, Christians, and Jews. Politically it passed from Aghlabid to Fatimid overlordship (909), and from 948 was governed by the autonomous Kalbid dynasty.
Sources
This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia articles for each polity as the primary basis, cross-checked against Encyclopædia Britannica and the World History Encyclopedia, while flagging entries built on thin or contested evidence — Samo's Empire on a single Fredegar passage, Venice's 697 founding date as legendary, the Pacta conventa as a probable forgery. The article this entry is anchored on:
- Wikipedia — Emirate of Sicily en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirate_of_Sicily
This entry was last updated .
This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made
Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.
Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).
See the Emirate of Sicily in its world
Open the atlas at 1027 and every neighbour, rival and successor is on screen with it — then drag the slider and watch what happens next.
Open the map at 1027 →