11
184–296/800–909
Ifrīqiya, Algeria, Sicily
|
⊘ 184/800 |
Ibrāhīm I b. al-Aghlab |
|
⊘ 197/812 |
‘Abdallāh I b. Ibrāhīm I, Abu ’l-‘Abbās |
|
⊘ 201/817 |
Ziyādat Allāh I b. Ibrāhīm I, Abū Muḥammad |
|
⊘ 223/838 |
al-Aghlab b. Ibrāhīm I, Abū ‘Iqāl |
|
⊘ 226/841 |
Muḥammad I b. al-Aghlab, Abu ’l-‘Abbās |
|
⊘ 242/856 |
Aḥmad b. Muḥammad I, Abū Ibrāhīm |
|
⊘ 249/863 |
Ziyādat Allāh II b. Muḥammad I |
|
⊘ 250/863 |
Muḥammad II b. Aḥmad, Abū ‘Abdallāh Abu ’1-Gharānīq |
|
⊘ 261/875 |
Ibrāhīm II b. Aḥmad, Abū Ishāq |
|
⊘ 289/902 |
‘Abdallāh II b. Ibrāhīm II, Abu ’l-‘Abbās |
|
⊘ 290–6/903–9 |
Ziyādat Allāh III b. ‘Abdallāh II, Abū Mudar, died in exile |
|
290/909 |
Fāṭimid conquest |
Ibrāhīm b. al-Aghlab’s father was a Khurāsānian Arab commander in the ‘Abbāsid army, and in 184/800 the son was granted the province of Ifrīqiya by Hārūn al-Rashīd in return for an annual tribute of 40,000 dīnārs. The grant involved considerable rights of autonomy, and the great distance of North Africa from Baghdad ensured that none of the Aghlabids was much disturbed by the caliphal government, itself increasingly racked by succession disputes and internal strife after the mid-ninth century. Nevertheless, the Aghlabids always remained theoretical vassals of the caliphs, retaining the caliphs’ names in the khutba or Friday sermon though never on Aghlabid coins after the time of Ibrāhīm I. The first Aghlabids suppressed outbreaks of Berber Khārijism in their territories; and then, under Ziyādat Allāh I, one of the most capable and energetic members of the family, the great project of the conquest of Sicily from the Byzantines was begun in 217/827. An extensive corsair fleet was launched, making the Aghlabids masters of the central Mediterranean and enabling them to harry the coasts of southern Italy, Sardinia, Corsica and even that of the Maritime Alps. Malta was captured before 256/870 and occupied by the Muslims for over two centuries until the Norman reconquest. It is probable that the conquest of Sicily was begun in order to divert religious bellicosity into jihād against the infidels, for the early Aghlabid amīrs had to cope with strong internal opposition in Ifrīqiya from the Mālikī fuqahā’ or religious lawyers in Kairouan. By the opening of the tenth century the conquest of Sicily was virtually complete, and the island remained under Muslim rule, at first under governors appointed by the Aghlabids and then under those of the Fāṭimids, including the Kalbids (see below, no. 12), until the Norman reconquest of the later eleventh century, forming an important centre for the diffusion of Islamic culture to Christian Europe.
However, the Aghlabids’ hold on Ifrīqiya became loosened towards the end of the ninth century. The Shī‘ī propaganda of the dā‘ī Abū ‘Abdallāh had a powerful effect among the Kutāma Berbers of the mountainous region of what is now north-eastern Algeria. Kutāma forces inflicted several defeats on the Aghlabid army, and the last of the line, Ziyādat Allāh III, was compelled in 296/909 to abandon the capital al-Raqqāda, founded by his grandfather Ibrāhīm II, and fled to Egypt after fruitless attempts to secure help from the ‘Abbāsids, subsequently dying in the East. Ifrīqiya now became the nucleus of the Fāṭimids’ North African possessions, where they constructed their capital al-Mahdiyya, which then replaced al-Raqqāda.
Lane-Poole, 36–8; Zambaur, 67–8; Album, 15–16.
EI2 ‘Aghlabids’ (G. Marçais).
M. Vonderheyden, La Berbérie orientale sous la dynastie des Benoû Aṛlab 800–909, Paris 1927, with genealogical table at p. 332.
O. Grabar, The Coinage of the Ṭūlūnids,ANS Numismatic Notes and Monographs, no. 139, New York 1957, 51–4.
M. Talbi, L’émirat aghlabide, Paris 1966.