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Advances in the Study of Islam

Muslim SicilyEncounters and Legacy

Edited by Nuha Alshaar

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£100.00

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About this book

Showcases the importance of cultural exchange through an exploration of Sicily’s Arabo-Islamic past
  • Discusses Sicily as a key Mediterranean political, trade and intellectual centre, and its interaction with the rest of the Muslim world, especially the Fāṭimids of Ifrīqiya, a process that resulted in knowledge exchange and mutual influences
  • Produces a better understanding of Sicily’s role as a cultural hub that competed with major intellectual centres of the time, including Qayrawān and al-Andalus, in the transmission of knowledge from East to West
  • Studies the rich intellectual and artistic legacy of Muslim Sicily in its own right
  • Explores Muslim-Jewish-Christian interactions in Sicily and highlights the island’s legacy as a place of dialogue and encounter between people from different communities and faith-traditions

The period of Arabo-Islamic domination of parts of Sicily, and the consequent large Muslim presence on the island from 800 to the mid-13th century constitutes a crucial epoch whose influence remains an integral part of the island’s architectural and cultural landscape. This volume builds on existing scholarship and goes beyond the ‘Arabo-Norman’ construct to afford greater recognition to the island’s Arabic and Islamic history. Using a multidisciplinary approach, the chapters examine Sicily’s mercantile, artistic and architectural links to the Muslim world, including the subjects of the Fāṭimids of Ifrīqiya and their Kalbid allies in Sicily. It also reflects upon the Arabo-Islamic philosophical legacy at the court of Frederick II, Muslim accounts of medieval Sicily, Fāṭimid influence on the arts, women’s textile production, discussions of linguistics and literature, and various other aspects of Sicily’s diverse cultural and religious life during this period.

Reviews

Muslim Sicily: Encounters and Legacy represents an important contribution to the growing body of scholarship on Islamic Sicily. While previous studies have primarily focused on political and economic history, this collection innovatively expands the field to include literature, philosophy, and the decorative arts. Moreover, by situating Sicily within the broader Mediterranean and Ifrīqiyan contexts, the volume transcends local historiography to illuminate the island’s role as a cultural mediator between East and West.
Table of contents

1. Sicily’s Islamic Heritage: A Pervasive Culture - Nuha Alshaar

Part One: Sicily and North Africa: Sociocultural and Political links

2. Sociocultural links between Sicily and Ifrīqiya in the Middle Ages - Mohamed Hassan

3. The Kalbids of Sicily: Stalwarts of Fāṭimid Ifrīqiya - Shainool Jiwa

Part Two: Arabo-Islamic Philosophical and Intellectual Traditions of Sicily

4. From Averroes to Dante: A Mediterranean Encounter Between Philosophy and Religion - Massimo Campanini

5. Two Examples of Arabic Texts in Sicily: Between Linguistics and Philosophy -Patrizia Spallino

6. Psychological and Epistemological Concepts in Ibn Sabʿīn’s al-Masāʾil al-Ṣiqilliyya (The Sicilian Questions) - Beate Ulrike La Sala

Part 3: Sicily and its Textile and Artistic Traditions

7. Common Threads: Women and the Making of Fāṭimid and Norman Textiles - Delia Cortese

8. Architectural and Numismatic Traces of Arabic Cultural Exchange between Sicily and Greater Syria - Ammar Abdulrahman and Alaa Aldin, al Chomari

9. On the Artistic Culture of Medieval Sicily - William Tronzo

Part 4: Sicily, Literature, Language, and Identity

10. Intellectual and Poetic Traditions of Sicily during the Fāṭimid and Kalbid Rules - Nuha Alshaar

11. Arabic-Muslim Accounts of Medieval Sicily and the Qur’an: An Intertextual Reading - Nesma Mohamed Taher Mostafa Elsakaan

12. Consequences of the Reconquista in Greater Sicily for the Core Vocabulary of Maltese - Geoffrey Hull

13. Three Worlds in one Island (Muslims, Jews, and Christians) - Giovanna Summerfield

Appendix of Arabic PoetryNotes

About the author

Nuha Alshaar

Nuha Alshaar is Associate Professor at the University of Lisbon and Institute of Ismaili Studies, London. Her publications include On God and the World: An Arabic Critical Edition and English Translation of Epistles 49-51(with Madelung, W., Baffioni, C., & Uy, Oxford University Press, 2019) and Ethics in Islam: Friendship in the Political Thought of al-Tawḥīdī and his Contemporaries (Routledge, 2015). She is also the volume editor of The Qur’an and Adab: The Shaping of Literary Traditions in Classical Islam (Oxford University Press, 2017) and Sources and Approaches across Disciplines in Near Eastern Studies: Proceedings of the 24th Congress of the L Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants (with Verena Klemm, Peeters, 2013). She has also contributed several book chapters and articles to prestigious publications.

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