medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear Taris,
The best documented instances of medieval mosques in Europe will be
from the Iberian peninsula and from eastern Europe (about which I know
almost nothing). What follows is a little bit to get you started on
the medieval mosques of A) Sicily and B) the southern Italian mainland.
A: Sicily
Byzantine Sicily together with its associated islands (including Malta)
was conquered by Muslims during the years 827-965 CE. Most of this
took place in the ninth century: the last Byzantine-held city to fall
was Taormina in 962; the fortress of Rametta -- today's Rometta (ME) --
on the north coast near Messina held out until 965. Existing Christian
places of worship were converted to mosques and as the Islamic
population grew and as local communities became wealthy new mosques
were built. The traveller Ibn Hawqal relates that in Palermo alone
there were over 300 mosques. In the latter half of the eleventh
century the whole area was reconquered by Christians but the population
remained largely Muslim until the late twelfth century and somewhat
Muslim for a while after that. During this period of Christianization
Sicily's mosques were either converted into Christian churches,
replaced by new Christian churches (remember that many of the earliest
mosques were much older structures whose analogues on the Italian
mainland were likewise being replaced during the eleventh and twelfth
centuries), or, in some cases, converted to uses other than that of
places of worship.
All this rebuilding, to say nothing of all the rebuilding that has
taken place in subsequent centuries in earthquake-prone Sicily, has
left us with records of the existence of many mosques but only one
surviving instance of a structure certainly built as a mosque: the
recently discovered mosque of Segesta (TR). Constructed in the twelfth
century (i.e., when Sicily was no longer under Muslim rule), this has
few visible remains but is recognizable for what it is by its
_mihrab_. See:
http://tinyurl.com/a6l2u
and
Alessandra Molinari, _Segesta II. Il castello e la moschea_ (Palermo:
Flaccovio, 1997).
There's a view here:
http://jemolo.com/pic/Imgsi122a.jpg
The so-called 'Sala Araba' of the twelfth-century church of San
Giovanni degli Eremiti at Palermo has long been thought to be a remnant
of a tenth-century mosque; documentary proof for this is lacking.
Another structure thought to have been a mosque converted into a
Christian church is in Corleone (PA); its medieval portal is shown here:
http://www.icvasicorleone.it/La%20storia/exmoschea.htm
http://www.icvasicorleone.it/La%20storia/immagini%20nuove/arabi.JPG
B: the southern Italian mainland
In the ninth century a Muslim emirate was established in Bari; this
lasted from 847 to 871. A great mosque (masgid-i-gami) by its second
emir, Mufarrag ibn Sallam, in or shortly after the year 853. Its
precise location in medieval Bari is unknown. See Giosuč Musca,
_L'emirato di Bari, 847-871_ (Bari: Dedalo, 1964), pp. 47-48; also
Francesco Tateo, ed., _Storia di Bari. Dalla preistoria al Mille_
(Bari: Laterza, 1989, pp. 292, 296, and 359-59. There was an even
shorter-lived emirate at Taranto (840-880): there must have been at
least one mosque here, but our sources are poor and I don't think we
have any details of it.
Both Bari and Taranto are in Apulia: one is on the Adriatic coast, the
other on the Ionian. On the western side of the peninsula, tiny
Agropoli (SA; on the Gulf of Salerno) was in Muslim hands from 882
until 915, long enough for a mosque to have been established. Again,
we have no certain information about such a structure. Another Muslim
settlement (a base of slave raiders) existed at the mouth of the
Garigliano from 881-82 until 916; the well-informed Liutprand of
Cremona tells us that this citadel housed women and children, so the
presence here of a small mosque seems likely enough.
Closer to Sicily, in 952 the emir Ahmad bin Al-Hasan Al-Kalbi built a
mosque with a conspicuous minaret at Reggio di Calabria; this was razed
by the Byzantines when they retook Reggio a few years later. See
Michele Amari, _Storia dei Musulmani di Sicilia_, 2d. ed. (Catania:
Romeo Prampolini, 1935), II, 285ff.; A. A. Vasiliev, _Byzance et les
Arabes_ (Bruxelles: Institut de philologie et d’histoire orientales,
1935), II, ptie. 1, pp. 366-70; Francesca Martorano, "La moschea araba
di Reggio", _Klearchos_ 26 (1984), pp. 29-51.
Starting in 1222 or 1223 and continuing for about twenty years,
Frederick II deported Sicilian Muslims to Lucera (FO) in northern
Apulia, where they formed a community that peformed military and other
services for the crown. In 1300-01 Charles II forcibly Christianized
this settlement, selling most of the inhabitants into slavery. At this
time its mosque (the last until recent times on Italian soil) was
demolished, to be replaced by the city's present "Gothic" cathedral.
See Julie Taylor,_Muslims in Medieval Italy: The Colony at Lucera_
(Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2003), pp. 68, 71, 178, 187, 206.
I hope this helps.
Best wishes,
John Dillon
On Sunday, November 20, 2005, at 7:46 am, Taris Ahmad wrote:
> Dear friends,
> does anybody have reliable documentation of the building of
> Muslim mosques
> in medieval Europe? I am looking for location, dates, back ground
> storiesand architecture.
> Thank you.
> Kind regards
> Taris
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