Origin from 1189
The Aghlabid conquest, beginning with a landing at Mazara del Vallo in 827, brought Muslim rule to Sicily over the following century, and under the Kalbid dynasty from 948 the island flourished as a multiconfessional Mediterranean power with roughly half its population Muslim by the time Norman conquest began around 1060. Norman rule initially tolerated the Muslim community, but protection collapsed after King William II's death in 1189, and Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, after military campaigns from 1221, deported the remaining Muslim population to Lucera in Apulia through the 1240s, many enslaved there; by the close of that decade organised Islam in Sicily had ceased to exist.
Facts
Dates
Start YearSourced to the subject's own account1189, the year royal protection of Sicily's Muslim community lifted after King William II's death, marking the start of the community's final decline toward extinction. End YearSourced to the subject's own accountA representative year within "the late 1240s," when Frederick II's deportations of Sicily's remaining Muslim population to Lucera in Apulia had run their course; the article does not give one single precise final year. StatusSourced to the subject's own account Learn More
How Islam Was Extinguished in Sicily After the Norman and Hohenstaufen Conquest
This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
The Aghlabid conquest of Sicily began with a landing at Mazara del Vallo in 827 and brought Muslim rule to the island over the following century. Under the Kalbid dynasty from 948 onward, Sicily flourished as a multiconfessional Mediterranean power, and roughly half its population was Muslim by the time Norman conquest of the island began around 1060, ending more than two centuries of Muslim political control.
Norman rule initially tolerated the Muslim community it inherited, but that protection collapsed after King William II's death in 1189, and Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, following military campaigns he launched from 1221, deported Sicily's remaining Muslim population to Lucera in Apulia through the 1240s, many of them enslaved once resettled there. By the close of that decade organised Islam in Sicily had ceased to exist.
What this changed for Islam's spread was the complete removal, over roughly six decades, of a Muslim population and religious community that had shaped Sicilian life for more than three centuries. Deportation to Lucera rather than gradual assimilation ended organised Islamic practice on the island outright, closing a chapter of Mediterranean Islam that the Aghlabid landing at Mazara del Vallo had opened four hundred years earlier.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Occurred In
Sicily, no dedicated Sicily entity exists in this catalog; anchored to Italy, the nearest real place entity, an approximation named rather than silently rounded.
Spread Event Of
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