Trade Relations Between Sicily, Ifrīqiya, and Egypt Under the Fatimids and Zirids of Ifrīqiya (Tenth–Eleventh Centuries)

Bramoullé, David

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-04915-6_6

David Bramoullé⁵

Part of the book series: Mediterranean Perspectives ((MEPERS))

177 Accesses

Abstract

The conquest of Ifrı̄qiya and Sicily by the Fatimid caliphs placed the two territories in a situation of increasing economic and political interdependence. The sources show how much the commercial relations between the Ifrı̄qiyan ports and those of Sicily became more pronounced and how the island played a central ideological role for the Fatimids. Even after the Fatimid departure to Egypt, the role of the island in their strategy did not get weaker. The emergence of quality craftsmanship strengthened the role of the island as an obligatory space for exchanges not only between Egypt and Ifrı̄qiya but also more largely between the Muslim and Christian worlds. The Normans conquest of the island in the second half of the eleventh century did not fundamentally change things.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Chapter: USD 29.95; Price excludes VAT (USA)

eBook: USD 84.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Softcover Book: USD 109.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Hardcover Book: USD 109.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

1.
INA D 55 No 13, recto l. 42, margin ll.1–4. In Moshe Gil, ed. In the Kingdom of Ishmael (Jerusalem: Bialik Institutes, 1997), iv: 35.
2.
On the description of the island by Ibn Ḥawqal, cf. Ibn Ḥawqal, Kitāb ṣūrat al-arḍ, ed. Johannes H. Kramers (Leiden: Brill, 1938), 118–31.
3.
Annliese Nef, “Comment les Aghlabides ont décidé de conquérir la Sicile,” Annales Islamologiques 45 (2011) 191–212.
4.
David Bramoullé, Les Fatimides et la mer (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 126–9.
5.
This study will focus primarily on the Norman period with some references to the twelfth century.
6.
Ibn Ḥawqal, Ṣūrat, 122.
7.
Al-Idrīsī, Nuzhat al-mushtaq fī ikhtiraq al-āfāq (Port Saïd: Maktabat al-thaqāfa al-dinīya, 2001), ii: 592.
8.
Al-Wansharīsī, al-Mi‘yār al-mu‘rib wa-al-jāmi‘ al-mughrib ‘an fatāwī ahl Ifrīqiyya wa-al-Andalus wa-al-Maghrib, ed. Muḥammad Ḥajjī (Beyrouth: Dār al-gharb al-islāmī, 1983), viii: 307; ix: 114, 115, 116, 117. T-S 10 J 15, f. 14, fol. 1b, l. 1; ENA 2805, f. 4B, fol. 1a, l. 12; T-S Ar 30, f. 74, fol. 3, l. 1; T-S 16. 163, fol. 1a, l. 18; T-S 13 J 28, f. 9, fol. 1b, l. 11; T-S NS J 566, fol. 1a, l. 18; T-S 16, f. 13, fol. 1a, ll. 12–13; INA D-55 No. 14, fol. 1a, l. 30; Dropsie College, fol. 1a, ll. 33–34. In Gil, Kingdom, ii: 791; iii: 121,175, 247, 583; iv: 152, 168, 434, 458.
9.
Al-Wansharīsī, Mi‘yār, viii:181, 131, 305; ix: 52.
10.
Al-Idrīsī, Nuzhat, ii: 597.
11.
T-S 12.366, fol.1b, l. 3. In Gil, Kingdom, ii: 743.
12.
Ibn Ḥawqal, Ṣūrat, 122. Mohamed Ouerfelli, Le sucre. Production, commercialisation et usages dans la Méditerranée médiévale (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 25, 151.
13.
Ibn Ḥawqal, Ṣūrat, 122. Al-Mālikī, Kitāb Riyāḍ al-nuf ūs, ed. Bashīr al-Bakkūsh (Beirut: Dār al-gharb al-islāmī, 1983), ii: 294–5.
14.
Ibn Ḥawqal, Ṣūrat, 123. Idrīsī, Nuzhat, ii: 590, 592, 593, 594, 597–8, 599, 600–1.
15.
Bodl. Ms. Heb. c. 27. 82, fol. 1a, upper margin, l. 2; T-S 12.366, fol.1b, l. 3. In Gil, Kingdom, ii: 559, 743.
16.
T-S Ar 54.88, fol. 1a, l. 5; T-S13 J 28, f. 2, fol. 1a, l. 11–12; T-S Misc. 28.37d, fol. 1a, l. 8. In Gil, Kingdom, ii: 69; iii: 750, 922.
17.
T-S 13 J 17, f.11, fol. 1a, l. 21–22. In Gil, Kingdom, ii: 575.
18.
Bodl. Ms. Heb. c. 27. 82, fol. 1a, l. 4–7. T-S 13 J 16, f.23, fol. 1a, l. 8. T-S 20. 69, fol. 1b, l. 7. In Gil, Kingdom, ii: 556, 637; iii: 282.
19.
Ibn Ḥawqal, Ṣūrat, 130. Idrīsī, Nuzhat, II, p. 592, 594, 597, 599, 601.
20.
Al-Idrīsī, Nuzhat, II: 597.
21.
Soundès Gragueb et al, “Jarres et amphores de Ṣabra al-Manṣūriya” in La céramique maghrébine du haut Moyen Âge (viii^e–x^esiècle), ed. Patrice Cressier, Elizabeth Fenêtres (Rome: École Française de Rome, 2011), 205–6. David Ramoulé et al. “Le mobilier céramique dans la Méditerranée des x^e–XII^e siècles,” Annales Islamologiques, 51 (2018): 196.
22.
Ibn Ḥawqal, Ṣūrat, 119.
23.
Bramoullé et al., “Le mobilier céramique dans la Méditerranée des x^e–xii^e siècles”, 198–200.
24.
Dropsie College 389, fol. 1a, ll. 36, 42. In Gil, Kingdom, iv: 458–9.
25.
David Bramoullé, “La Sicile dans la Méditerranée fatimide (x^e–xi^e siècle)”, in Les dynamiques de l’islamisation en Méditerranée centrale et en Sicile: nouvelles propositions et découvertes récentes, ed. Annliese Nef, Fabiola Ardizzone (Rome: École Française de Rome-Edipuglia, 2014), 25–6.
26.
Bramoullé, Fatimides, 120–35.
27.
Al-Muqaddasī, Aḥsan al-taqāsīm fī ma‘arifat al-aqālīm, ed. Michael J. De Goeje, 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1967), 232. Al-Idrīsī, Nuzhat, ii: 592–3.
28.
Al-Dawūdī, Kitāb al-Amwāl, ed. Farhat Dachraoui. In Études d’orientalisme dédiées à la mémoire de Levi-Provençal (Paris: Maisoneuve et Larose, 1962), 416–17.
29.
Al-Jawdharī, Sīrat ustādh Jawdhar. Inside the Immaculate Portal, ed. and transl. Husayn Hajjī (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012), 130.
30.
Ibn Ḥawqal, Ṣūrat, 121–2.
31.
Ibn Ḥawqal, Ṣūrat, 121–2.
32.
Al-Idrīsī, Nuzhat, ii: 596. Dropsie College 389, fol. 1a, ll. 36, 42. In Gil, Kingdom, iv: 458–9.
33.
Shelomo D. Goitein, “Sicily and Southern Italy in the Cairo Geniza Documents,” Società di Storia Patria per la Sicilia Orientale, 67 (1972): 14.
34.
T-S 12.250, fol. 1a. l. 4; BM Or 5542, f. 22, fol. 1a, l. 6; AIU VII F 1, fol. 1a, l. 4, right margin, l. 5. In Gil, Kingdom, ii: 447, 492, 827, 829.
35.
About this topic, see the preface by Christophe Picard to the new French reedition of Henri Pirenne’s most famous book. Cf. Henri Pirenne, Mahomet et Charlemagne, rev. ed. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2005), v–xlv.
36.
Christophe Picard, Sea of the Caliphs (Cambridge/London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2018), 236–55.
37.
Al-Mālikī, Riyāḍ, i: 270–1. Muhammad Talbi, L’émirat aglabide, 186–296/800–909 (Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1966), i: 402. Nef, “Comment,” 195.
38.
Saḥnūn quoted by al-Qayrawānī (d. 996), Al-Nawādir wa-al-ziyādāt ‘alā al-Mudawwana min ghayrihā min al-ummahāt, ed. Muḥammad Ḥajjī (Beirut: Dār al-gharb al-islāmī,1999), iii: 132.
39.
Al-Istakhrī, Kitāb masālik al-mamālik, ed. Michael J. De Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1927), 70.
40.
Al-Wansharīsī, Mi‘yār, viii: 310–11.
41.
Michael Brett, “Ifriqiya as a Market for Saharan Trade from the Tenth to the Twelfth Century A.D.,” Journal of African History 10, no. 3 (1969): 347–64. Samuel M. Stern, “Tari. The Quarter Dinar,” Studi Medievali, 11 (1970): 177–207.
42.
Ibn Ḥawqal, Ṣūrat, 119.
43.
Kitāb gharā’ib al-funūn wa mulaḥ al-‘uyūn, A fols. 32B–33A, 138. About the conception of the book and the maps in it, cf. Yossef Rapoport, Emilie Savage-Smith, The Lost maps of the Caliphs (The University of Chicago Press: Chicago-London, 2018), 1–27.
44.
Alessandra Bagnera, “From a small town to a capital: The urban Evolution of Islamic Palermo,” in A Companion to Medieval Palermo, ed. Annliese Nef (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2013), 74–80.
45.
Ibn Ḥawqal, Ṣūrat, 118. Kitāb gharā’ib al-funūn wa-mulaḥ al-‘uyūn, ed. Yossef Rapoport, Emilie Savage-Smith (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2014), fol. 34A, 130–1. TS-12. 270, fol. 1b, upper margin, l. 4. In Gil, Kingdom, iv: 483.
46.
About Nahray family links see Jessica L. Goldberg, Trade and Institutions in the Medieval Mediterranean (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 33–45. For examples of length of such journeys see T-S 13 J 19, f. 20, f. 1a, l. 8–9; T-8 J 20, f. 2, f. 1b, l. 6; T-S 13 J 15, f. 9, f. 1a, ll. 9–10. In Gil, Kingdom, iii: 30, 653, 815.
47.
Annliese Nef, “La Sicile dans la documentation de la Geniza cairote (fin xe–xiiie siècle): les réseaux attestés et leur nature,” in Espaces et réseaux en Méditerranée, vie–xvie siècles. La configuration des reseaux, ed. Damien Coulon, Christophe Picard, and Dominique Valérian (Paris: Bouchène, 2007), 273–92.
48.
Nāṣir-ī Khusraw, Book of travels, ed. Wheeler M. Thackston (Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, 2001), 55.
49.
T-S 10 J 20, f. 12, fol. 1a, ll. 14–15. In Gil, Kingdom, iii: 640.
50.
Al-Wansharīsī, Mi‘yār, viii: 310, 299–300.
51.
Kitāb gharā’ib al-funūn wa mulaḥ al-‘uyūn fol. 34A, 130–1.
52.
Bramoullé, David, Les Fatimides et la mer, 459–61.
53.
David Bramoullé, “L’émirat de Barqa et les Fatimides: les enjeux de la navigation en Méditerranée centrale au XIe siècle,” Revue des Mondes Musulmans et de la Méditerranée, 139 (2016): 51–2.
54.
Kitāb gharā’ib al-funūn wa-mulaḥ al-‘uyūn, fol. 34A, 130–1.
55.
Al-Wansharīsī, Mi‘yār, ix: 545. ENA NS 18, f. 24, fol. 1a, ll. 2–3; BM Or. 5542, f. 9, fol. 1a, l. 10; T-S J20, f. 12, fol. 1b, ll. 12–14. In Gil, Kingdom, ii: 124; iii: 629, 642.
56.
ENA 4009, f. 4, fol. 1a, ll. 17–18. In Moshe Gil, ed., Palestine during the First Muslim Period (634–1099) (Tel-Aviv: University of Tel-Aviv), ii: 76.
57.
TS-12. 270, fol. 1b, upper margin, ll. 4–11. In Gil, Kingdom, iv: 483.
58.
DK 230d, fol. 1a, l. 29, fol. 1b, ll. 3–4. In Gil, Kingdom, iii: 858, 860.
59.
Wilhelm Heyd, Histoire du commerce du Levant au Moyen-Âge (Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz, 1885), i: 121–2.
60.
ENA NS 18, f. 24, fol. 1b, l. 13. In Gil, Kingdom, iii: 130.
61.
Dropsie College 389, fol. 1b, ll. 5–7. In Gil, Kingdom, iv: 466.
62.
Goldberg, Trade, 319.
63.
T-S 16.163, fol. 1a, l. 36, right margin, ll. 1–12, 13–15, fol. 1b, ll. 3, 6, 9, 20. In Gil, Kingdom, iii: 249–52.
64.
BM Or. 5542, f. 9, fol. 1a, l. 9; ENA 2727, f. 38, fol. 1a, ll. 4–5. In Gil, Kingdom, iii: 629, 636.
65.
Bramoullé, Les Fatimides et la mer, 670–5.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

University of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès, Toulouse, France
David Bramoullé

Authors

David Bramoullé
View author publications
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to David Bramoullé .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Department of History, Queensborough Community College, CUNY, Bayside, NY, USA
Emily Sohmer Tai
Department of History, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
Kathryn L. Reyerson

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Bramoullé, D. (2022). Trade Relations Between Sicily, Ifrīqiya, and Egypt Under the Fatimids and Zirids of Ifrīqiya (Tenth–Eleventh Centuries). In: Sohmer Tai, E., Reyerson, K.L. (eds) Mapping Pre-Modern Sicily. Mediterranean Perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04915-6_6

Download citation

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04915-6_6
Published: 09 September 2022
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-04914-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-04915-6
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics