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Saracen Soldiers: Muslim Participation in Norman Military Expeditions

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Norman Kings of Sicily and the Rise of the Anti-Islamic Critique

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Abstract

Birk analyzes the depictions of Sicilian Muslims by eleventh-century Latin authors and challenges the idea that Christianity and Islam were viewed in strict binary opposition at the time. Birk focuses on the integration of Muslims into the armies of Roger I, from his alliance with the Muslim amir Ibn al-Thumna in 1061 to the use of thousands of Muslim soldiers in the late twelfth century, including their integration into the Norman armies of Southern Italy. This chapter illustrates that eleventh-century Latin authors rarely viewed the presence of Muslim soldiers under the command of Christian leaders as controversial. These sources do not show thirteenth-century notions that political or military associations with Muslims were acts that brought the orthodoxy of Sicilian leaders into question.

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  1. Smith College, Northampton, USA

    Joshua C. Birk

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Birk, J.C. (2016). Saracen Soldiers: Muslim Participation in Norman Military Expeditions. In: Norman Kings of Sicily and the Rise of the Anti-Islamic Critique. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47042-9_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47042-9_2

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