Medieval Muslim Algeria was a period of Muslim dominance in Algeria during the Middle Ages, spanning the millennium from the 7th century to the 17th century. The new faith, in its various forms, would penetrate nearly all segments of society, bringing with it armies, learned men, and fervent mystics; in large part, it would replace tribal practices and loyalties with new social norms and political idioms.
Ifriqiya, also known as al-Maghrib al-Adna, was a medieval historical region comprising today's Tunisia and eastern Algeria, and Tripolitania. It included all of what had previously been the Byzantine province of Africa Proconsularis and extended beyond it, but did not include the Mauretanias.
The Zirid dynasty, Banu Ziri, was a Sanhaja Berber dynasty from what is now Algeria which ruled the central Maghreb from 972 to 1014 and Ifriqiya from 972 to 1148.
Mahdia is a Tunisian coastal city with 62,189 inhabitants, south of Monastir and southeast of Sousse.
Al-Muʿizz ibn Bādīs was the fourth ruler of the Zirids in Ifriqiya, reigning from 1016 to 1062.
El-Mansuriya or Mansuriya, also known as Sabra or Sabra al-Mansuriyya, near Kairouan, Tunisia, was the capital of the Fatimid Caliphate during the rule of the Ismaili Imams al-Mansur bi-Nasr Allah and al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah.
The Kalbids were a Muslim Arab dynasty in the Emirate of Sicily, which ruled from 948 to 1053. They were formally appointed by the Fatimids, but gained, progressively, de facto autonomous rule.
Tamim ibn al-Mu'izz was the fifth ruler of the Zirids in Ifriqiya (1062–1108).
The Emirate of Sicily or Fatimid Sicily was an Islamic kingdom that ruled the Muslim territories on the island of Sicily between 831 and 1091. Its capital was Palermo, which, during this period, became a major cultural and political center of the Muslim world.
George of Antioch was the first to hold the office of ammiratus ammiratorum in the Norman Kingdom of Sicily. He was a Syrian-born Byzantine Christian of Greek ancestry. He was born in Antioch, whence he moved with his father, Michael, and mother to Tunisia following the First Crusade. He found employment under the Zirid emir, Tamim ibn Muizz, rising to the position of governor of the city of Sousse. George fell out with Tamim's son and successor, Yahya, and secretly left for Christian Sicily by stealing away in disguise aboard a Palermitan ship harbored in Mahdia. Upon arrival in the Sicilian capital, George went immediately to the palace and found service with the Norman count, Roger II.
The Republic of Pisa was an independent state existing from the 11th to the 15th century and centered on the Tuscan city of Pisa. It rose to become an economic powerhouse, a commercial center whose merchants dominated Mediterranean and Italian trade for a century, before being surpassed and superseded by the Republic of Genoa.
The maritime republics, also called merchant republics, were Italian thalassocratic port cities which, starting from the Middle Ages, enjoyed political autonomy and economic prosperity brought about by their maritime activities. The term, coined during the 19th century, generally refers to four Italian cities, whose coats of arms have been shown since 1947 on the flags of the Italian Navy and the Italian Merchant Navy: Amalfi, Genoa, Pisa, and Venice. In addition to the four best known cities, Ancona, Gaeta, Noli, and, in Dalmatia, Ragusa, are also considered maritime republics; in certain historical periods, they had no secondary importance compared to some of the better known cities.
The history of Islam in Sicily and southern Italy began with the first Arab settlement in Sicily, at Mazara, which was captured in 827. The subsequent rule of Sicily and Malta started in the 10th century. The Emirate of Sicily lasted from 831 until 1061, and controlled the whole island by 902. Though Sicily was the primary Muslim stronghold in Italy, some temporary footholds, the most substantial of which was the port city of Bari, were established on the mainland peninsula, especially in mainland southern Italy, though Muslim raids, mainly those of Muhammad I ibn al-Aghlab, reached as far north as Naples, Rome and the northern region of Piedmont. The Arab raids were part of a larger struggle for power in Italy and Europe, with Christian Byzantine, Frankish, Norman and local Italian forces also competing for control. Arabs were sometimes sought as allies by various Christian factions against other factions.
The medieval era of Tunisia began with what would eventually return Ifriqiya to local Berber rule. The Shia Islamic Fatimid Caliphate departed to their newly conquered territories in Egypt leaving the Zirid dynasty to govern in their stead. The Zirids would eventually break all ties to the Fatimids and formally embrace Sunni Islamic doctrines.
In 1015 and again in 1016, the forces of Mujāhid al-ʿĀmirī from the taifa of Denia and the Balearics, in the east of Muslim Spain (al-Andalus), attacked Sardinia and attempted to establish control over it. In both these years joint expeditions from the maritime republics of Pisa and Genoa repelled the invaders. These Pisan–Genoese expeditions to Sardinia were approved and supported by the Papacy in aid of the sovereign Sardinian medieval kingdoms, known as Judicates, which resisted autonomously after the collapse of the Byzantine rule on the island. and modern historians often see them as proto-Crusades. After their victory, the Italian cities turned on each other. For this reason, the Christian sources for the expedition are primarily from Pisa, which celebrated its double victory over the Muslims and the Genoese with an inscription on the walls of its Duomo.
The Kingdom of Africa was an extension of the frontier zone of the Kingdom of Sicily in the former Roman province of Africa, corresponding to Tunisia and parts of Algeria and Libya today. The main primary sources for the kingdom are Arabic (Muslim); the Latin (Christian) sources are scanter.
The Carmen in victoriam Pisanorum is a poem celebrating the victory of the Italian maritime republics in the Mahdia campaign of 1087. It was probably written by a Pisan cleric within months of the campaign. G. H. Pertz was the first to note the historical value of the text in 1839. It is an important source for the development of Christian ideas about holy war on the eve of the First Crusade (1095–99), and may have been influenced by the contemporary theology of Anselm of Lucca and his circle. It seems to have influenced the Gesta Francorum, an account of the First Crusade composed by someone in the south Italian contingent. All of the later Pisan sources for the Mahdia campaign rely mainly on it: the Chronicon Pisanum only adds details about the memorial church, the Annales Pisani of Bernardo Maragone only rewords the former, and the Cronaca di Pisa of Ranieri Sardo and the Breviarium Pisanae historiae add only legendary material to the account.
The Banu Khurasan or Khurasanid dynasty was a Sunni Muslim dynasty that ruled an independent principality centered on Tunis, in present-day Tunisia, between approximately 1058 and 1159. They rose to power following the political vacuum left behind by the Zirids when they abandoned Kairouan for Mahdia in 1157, in the face of pressure from the Banu Hilal. While de facto independent, they continued to recognize the suzerainty of either Zirids or the Hammadids for much of this period. Their rule was interrupted by Hammadid annexation from 1128 and 1148, and their authority came to a final end with the Almohad conquest in 1159.
Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Omar ibn Muhammad al-Tamimi al-Maziri, simply known as Al-Maziri or as Imam al-Maziri and Imam al-Mazari, was an important Arab Muslim jurist in the Maliki school of Sunni Islamic Law. He was one of the most important figures in the school and his opinions are well known and respected to this day. Al-Maziri was one of four jurists whose positions were held as authoritative by Khalil ibn Ishaq in his Mukhtassar, which is the most important of the later texts in the relied upon positions of the school. It is for this reason that he is referred to simply as al-Imam within the Maliki school.
The navy of the Fatimid Caliphate was one of the most developed early Muslim navies and a major force in the central and eastern Mediterranean in the 10th–12th centuries. As with the dynasty it served, its history is in two phases. The first was c. 909 to 969, when the Fatimids were based in Ifriqiya ; the second lasted until the end of the dynasty in 1171, when they were based in Egypt. During the first period, the navy was employed mainly against the Byzantine Empire in Sicily and southern Italy, where it enjoyed mixed success. It was also in the initially unsuccessful attempts to conquer Egypt from the Abbasids and brief clashes with the Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba.
Pisa and Genoa