The Malta Independent on Sunday | 3 January 2016 2322 The Malta Independent on Sunday | 3 January 2016
Debate & Analysis
Christians in Arab Malta (3)
Therefore, if one isgoing to uphold AlAthir’s version andsupport the fact thatMalta was not left de-
serted as affirmed by some ofthe Arabic chroniclers, the logi-cal question would be: Whathappened to the island in the fol-lowing decades? In my opinion,the answer is to be found in AlAthir’s text.
Al Athir has more references toMalta in his historical narrative.However, some of them are notassociated with Malta. Duringmy undergraduate years at theUniversity of Malta, I still re-member Professor Godfrey Wet-tinger referring to one inparticular but which accordingto Professor Wettinger, was notabout the island of Malta but re-ferred to a town in Sicily. Wet-tinger was following the mainhistorical narrative, starting withMichele Amari and continuingtill recently that this localitycalled “Malta” by Al Athirshould not be confused with theisland of Malta.
The main reason for this argu-ment is the way Al Athir de-scribed this town Malta, withoutspecifying that it is an island andalso in the way he spelt thename. Malta is written withoutthe “alif”. In one particular in-stance, Malta is written in Ara-bic as [ ] and not [ ] asour island is normally written byArab chroniclers both past andpresent. Thus, various ideaswere formulated about this par-ticular place. There were thosewho opined that this ‘Malta’stands for the town of Mileto inCalabria. The idea that Maltastands for the name of a tribewas also suggested. It shouldalso be noted that there is a townin Asia Minor, or modern-dayTurkey and a village in Yemen,with this particular name.
According to the 19th centuryArabic scholar Faris Al Shidyaq,Al Sihah mentions ‘Maltiya’ asbeing one of the Armenian landswhich were part of the Ottomankingdom. But even this cannotbe the place referred to by AlAthir, as he contextualised hisstory with the Arabic conquestof Sicily.
At the same time, the possibil-ity that this place is Malta andthis is just a spelling variation re-sulting from a calligraphic errorby Al Athir or another way theArabs wrote Malta in the 13th
century has not been explored.In Arabic, the variation lies onlyin a vowel. Malta is written herewith the short vowel “a” insteadof the normal long one, calledÁlif. Therefore, in Arabic, thiscan be read in various modessuch as Malta (to be read in Mal-tese like habta, sabta, gabra)Malata, meleta, and in other pro-
nunciations. It should be re-membered that in Arabic, theshort vowels are normally notwritten down. In the case ofMalta, Al Athir did not write theshort vowels and this accountsfor the confusion that has arisenaround the identification of thisplace.
Al Athir mentions this placecalled Malta when he comes todiscuss the killing of the Emir ofSicily, Abu Al Qâsim, whichtook place in AD 982. He waskilled in battle following the lossof Malta to the Byzantines earlieron. Once again, I would like tothank Frans X. Cassar for pro-viding a faithful, literal transla-tion of Al Athir’s text. The text ofAl Athir is as per table on theright.
This text is self-explanatory.The fort of Malta was part of awider campaign that the Byzan-tines and the Franks waged to-gether against Sicily from 891 to892. The loss of Malta was fol-lowed by intensive battles onboth sides at the end of which,the Emir of Sicily, Abu Al Qâsimwas killed in battle. But accord-ing to Al Athir, the Arabs stillsucceeded in vanquishing theFranks and the Byzantine armyreturned to Constantinople.
It should be pointed out that AlAthir used the term Franks andRum intermittently when refer-ring to Christians, without mak-ing any distinction between theChristians of the West and thoseof the East or as they are nor-mally defined between the Latinand the Byzantines. It was afterAl Athir’s time, that the termFranks started to be associatedmostly with the Latin West andthe nomenclature Rum with theByzantines. Even if Arab schol-ars continued to use these termsintermittently up till the 18th cen-tury.
Al Athir described this Chris-tian conquest as having beenconducted by Barduwil or Bald-win whom he describes as one ofthe kings of the Franks. But be-fore getting to the identity ofBaldwin, one needs to rememberthe context of this text. Al Athiris writing at the time of theChristian crusades and theArabs started using the nameBaldwin or Barduwil randomlyfor any one of the rulers of theFranks, past or present. Such aname became infamous with theArabs because Baldwin was avery common or popular Latinname with the Western Chris-tians of this period. Further-more, the first king of Jerusalemwas Baldwin I who was a Frank.The popularity of Baldwin madea number of Arab scholars iden-tify earlier Latin kings or gener-als, as well as ByzantineEmperors by this name.
There should be no doubt that
Al Athir is not mixing the Bald-win of 982 with the other Bald-win of the time of the Crusades.This can be confirmed from anextensive reading of Al Athir ashe refers to the Frankish king,Baldwin I of Jerusalem in an-other part of his chronicle wherehe describes the kinship of Bald-win I with King Roger II ofSicily.
On the other hand, it should bepointed out that the date in thisArab text is correct, as is that ofthe Emir of Sicily, Al Qasim.This correlates with what AlexMetcalfe states regarding thedeath of Emir Al Qasim in 982.
At this time, the king of theFranks was the Holy RomanEmperor Otto II. He was wagingwar in Southern Italy and thisbrought him in direct conflictwith the Byzantines and the Fa-timid Caliphate. At first, he wassuccessful. He started the cam-paign in 980 and by the follow-
ing year his armies had suc-ceeded in reaching SouthernItaly and were carrying out in-cursions on Arab Sicily. There-fore, this account by Al Athirfalls exactly during the timewhen Otto II’s armies were at-tacking Sicily and in that year,his forces had the upper hand. Itwas only in the following year,in 982, that Otto’s forces suffereda heavy defeat and had to retreatto the north of Italy.
Otto had more than one gen-eral called Baldwin in his armyand many of these Baldwinswere Flemish. Al Athir seems toexclude that Baldwin was an ad-miral, even though Barduwilhad to rely on a fleet to besiegethe fortress of Malta. Admiralsare known in Arabic as Emir ilbaħir.
The nearest Baldwin king onecan find to 982 was Baldwin IVof Flanders. He was son of Ar-nulf II of Flanders (c.960-988)
Simon Mercieca
In my previousarticle, I discussedAl Athir’s accounton how, two yearsafter Malta fell intoArab hands, astrong Byzantinearmy returned toconquer the island.After thedevastation that theconquest of 868provoked, the Arabsproceeded to fortifythe main city of theisland. Within twoyears, the newstructure was strongenough to hold outagainst an invadingByzantine Armyuntil a relief forcearrived from NorthAfrica which, in AlAthir’s words,forced theByzantines to flee.
and Rozela of Ivrea (955-c1003)but was born in 980! Baldwin IVis recognized as having been agood warrior and is mostly re-membered for his military cam-paigns in the Low Countries.However, due to his age, he can-not be the Baldwin to whom AlAthir refers in this text.
Al Athir adds another impor-tant detail. He defines Barduwilas the king of the Byzantines.While in this period, the Byzan-tine Empire was considered on apar with the Latin Emperor ofthe West, the Crusades had cre-ated the perception amongArabs that the Christian kingswere one and the same familyand the Byzantine Emperor wasa vassal of the Latin Emperor.This is due to the fact that at thetime of Al Athir, the ByzantineEmperors had lost much of theirpower after Constantinople wassacked by the Venetians in 1204during the fourth crusade, withthe result that the Byzantine Em-perors started to appear as vas-sals to the Latin Emperor in theeyes of the Arabs. This explainswhy Al Athir defines the Byzan-tine Emperor as one of the Kingsof the Franks.
In 982, the Byzantine Emperorwas Basil II, who lived from 958to 1025. Like Otto II, Basil toowas engaged in a war againstthe Fatimid of Sicily. He had aformidable navy with which hesucceeded in dominating boththe Eastern and the Central
Mediterranean. More impor-tantly, in Greek, the name of theEmperor is Basileos, which onemay rightly conclude to havebeen transliterated as Barduwilin Arabic.
According to Al Athir, the fleetof Basil II reached Sicily and con-quered the fortress of Malta.Thus, the Arabs in Sicily foundthemselves besieged on twofronts. They were attacked bythe forces of Otto II From thenorth, and from the East theywere harassed by Basil II’s fleet.
From a geopolitical point ofview, it is very difficult to be-lieve that in this warring sce-nario the island of Malta was leftdeserted, as was claimed byHimyari. With the Byzantinesdesperate to establish a basefrom where to launch their at-tacks on Sicily, they would havemarched and occupied a de-serted island with formidableharbours. Malta’s good harbourswould have served the Byzan-tine navy well. As a historian, itis very difficult for me to acceptthat between 870 and 1054,which are the two dates duringwhich we know that Malta wasattacked by the Byzantines, noother attacks took place. It iseven more difficult to believethat Malta was left deserted andwas not occupied and used as abase by the formidable Byzan-tine navy during the seabornecampaigns of 982.
Therefore, if Al Athir’s ‘Malta’
or [ ] stands for our island,this proves that the Fatimids cre-ated and fortified Mdina and theisland was never deserted orbetter still unpopulated. TheArab city had gone through asiege in 982. This time, the returnof the Byzantine army was suc-cessful and gave them control ofthe island.
But the main reason why AlAlthir’s “Malta” is not consid-ered to be the island of Malta isnot in the spelling but more inthe way that Al Athir describedthe action leading to the fall ofthe fort, when he wrote that“one of the kings of the Frankscalled Barduwil, went out with alarge gathering of Franks onSicily and besieged the fortressof Malta”. As Al Athir did notspecify the geographical posi-tion of Malta, this fortress is nor-mally taken to be in mainlandSicily. However, a study of themedieval Arab texts yields noreference to a town in Sicily bythe name of Malta or . Eachtime that a medieval Arabchronicler spoke about Malta, he always referred to our islandas [ ]. Indirectly, Al Athirhinted that the fortress of Maltawas not in Sicily as he recountedhow the Arabs had to engagetheir fleet for its recovery butdue to the intervention of theByzantine navy, the missionproved a failure.
Secondly, it was normal amongArab chroniclers to discuss
Malta together with Sicily andthey never questioned that theplace being described is our is-land. A case in point is AlMaqrizi, who wrote about thesiege of Malta in 1429 and linkedit with an attack on the island ofSicily. This passage is going tobe a subject of a separate study,which will appear soon in abook about the Great Siege,which is being edited byMaroma Camilleri. It would beextremely strange and vergingon the incredible that in Sicilythere was a very important towncalled Malta, which was subjectto a siege and the nomenclature[����] is only mentioned oncein the Arabic narratives of theMiddle Ages, that is, in this par-ticular story.
The third indication that thisfort was in Malta is to be foundin the historical narrative itself.The fortress of Malta fell before1st Dhi Al Qagħda of AH 372,which corresponds to Tuesday17th April 982. On that date, AbuAl Qâsim called a jihad for its re-covery. Most probably, the fortof Malta was conquered in theprevious summer and it tookover a year for the Emir, Abu AlQâsim to declare a jihad to re-gain it. According to Al Athir, AlQâsim declared war on the 1st
Dhu Al Qagħda of AH 372, thatis, at the start of the sailing sea-son. The main campaign wasfought in Sicily on 1st MuharramAH 372 or 26th June 982, during
which, Abu Al Qâsim waskilled. The fact that the Emir hadto wait for winter to pass beforestarting the campaign indicatesthat he had to engage his fleet towage war. In simple words, thefortress was an island in Sicilianwaters. It should be remem-bered that in winter the fleet wasrarely engaged in battle. Thenavigation season in the centralMediterranean started in Apriland ended towards the end ofOctober. If Malta was in Sicily,as has been claimed, then AbuAl Qâsim did not have to waitfor winter to pass before launch-ing his attack.
Fourth. The Byzantines had thetime to replenish their fort withtroops, as they sent two armiesof foot soldiers to oppose thelanding of Abu Al Qâsim’sforces.
Fifth. It should be pointed outthat Al Athir uses the verb����� (malakaha), which liter-ally means that the Byzantineshave possessed the fortress ofMalta. Thus, by using such averb he is implying that it was apermanent takeover.
Sixth. Al Athir avoids dis-cussing what happened to Maltaand at no point, does he speakabout its re-conquest by theArabs. His text shows that thisfortress was held in high esteemby the Arabs in Sicily. Theproper reading of this textwould be that Malta was at-tacked together with Sicily in acoordinated attacked made bythe Byzantines and the Frankson the Fatimid of Sicily. TheArab forces tried to regain Maltabut as already stated, they wererepelled by the Byzantine fleet.The Byzantine army followedthe Arabs to mainland Sicily,where they were joined by thearmies of Otto II and a big battlewas fought during which AlQâsim was killed but the Arabsstill were victorious. This ex-plains Al Athir’s euphoric de-scription of the Arab victoryover the Franks and the Byzan-tine forces without referring toMalta’s destiny, as this wouldhave demeaned his narrative. Infact, it is known that Otto II hadto withdraw his armies fromSicily. Instead, Al Athir says thatAl Qâsim’s son, Jâber, did notwant to continue fighting, whichmeans that the Arabs lifted theirsiege and did not cross the chan-nel and fight the Byzantines whowere occupying the fort ofMalta.
With the help of Frans X. Cassar,who is patiently researching me-dieval Muslim accounts for refer-ences about Malta, I will bepresenting more Arabic texts thatcan help us know better what re-ally happened in the dark years ofthe 10th and 11th centuries.
The Re-conquest of ‘Malta’ by the Byzantines in AD 982
