A Sultan in Palermo

EPILOGUE

IDRISI MET WALID ON his return to Siqilliya and lived on his estate till his death eleven years after that of Rujari. His Medical Formulary was published in Baghdad, but did not contain the remedy for coughs. Uthman and Walid never married. Balkis’s son Nuwas became a wandering poet, leaving Siracusa when he was eighteen and moving from one city to another in al-Andalus. None of his poems have survived. Elinore’s daughter, Mayya, and her three brothers and their children continued to live on the estate where a larger church had to be constructed to accommodate the new flock. The Trusted One, after teaching philosophy and history to Khalid and his children, died peacefully at the age of eighty-four. The village he helped to re-found still exists and venerates his memory — though he is now regarded as a Christian saint.

In the hundred years that elapsed after Idrisi’s death, members of his family fought in every single rebellion. While the Franks were fighting each other for the throne in Palermo, armed bands under the command of Khalid ibn Umar and Afdal ibn Muhammad had liberated large parts of western Siqilliya. The Franks sent expeditions to crush them, but were content to keep them confined to their strongholds. An uprising in Palermo had shaken Frankish self-confidence and severe restrictions had been imposed. The Friday khutba was forbidden and attendance of any mehfil was punished with death.

Khalid died at the age of sixty as church bells were ringing to mark twelve hundred years of the Nazarene religion. His son Muhammad joined Afdal and for many years they harassed and destroyed many legions despatched by Palermo to crush them.

It was Rujari’s grandson, Frederick, who finally destroyed the last remaining strongholds of the rebellion in Siqilliya. His love of Arabic culture and his own palaces and harems had led some Believers to hope that the golden age might return. But they had forgotten that young Frederick was also the grandson of Barbarossa. The two strains in him often led to compromises. He did not wish to massacre the Muslims, but simply to remove them and thus purify the island. In the twelve hundred and twenty-fourth year of the Christian era, those who refused to convert were asked to pack their belongings and were taken to large enclosures in all the key ports of the island. For twelve months, over fifty thousand Siqilliyans who refused to surrender spiritually were transported in ships to the mainland. Among them were Idrisi’s grandchildren, Muhammad ibn Afdal, Muhammad ibn Khalid and their families.

In the region of Apulia, near an ancient Roman town where once Caesar had battled Pompey, there was a tiny village, Lucera, virtually uninhabited. This is where they were transported. Within two years, Lucera had become one of the most prosperous towns of the south. The land surrounding the settlement was cultivated after years of lying fallow, workshops sprang up to produce arms and clothes and skilled craftsmen produced wooden inlays and ceramics that were no longer being made in Noto and Siracusa. Frederick built a castle for himself with its own harem. The settlers built a beautiful mosque with a large library, not far from the castle. The Pope excommunicated Frederick for permitting the construction of buildings where ‘cursed Muhammad is adored’. It is said that when the excommunication was read to him in his palace at Lucera, he was in his cups, surrounded by concubines and listening to music. Extremely annoyed by what the Pope had done, he responded in the time-honoured tradition of the Siqilliyan side of his family. He farted.

Within the settlement, three young men began to organise secret mehfils. They would meet each Friday night and discuss the future of their people. Slowly more and more people, young and old, men and women, began to listen. Ibn Afdal would tell them that Lucera appeared peaceful and they were not persecuted, even though too many young men had been killed fighting Frederick’s war against other Nazarenes.

‘Having forced us to leave Siqilliya, he can be kind, but this same King who permitted us to build the Great Mosque here is destroying all our mosques in Palermo and the rest of the island. We have been discussing our future for many months now. I would suggest that we prepare to leave this place. It will not be safe after Frederick dies. I am not suggesting that we leave at once. They would kill us before we travelled too far. But each month one family should leave.’

‘Where should we go, Ibn Afdal? Is there anywhere left for us?’

Fifteen men rose from the ground and stood on their feet in different parts of the mehfil.

‘Yes. If you wish to go you will speak to one of these men. Look at them carefully. If you know them try and forget their names. Go and talk with them.’

Few wanted to leave and of these most wished to remain as close as possible to Siqilliya. One day, they thought, we will go back. We were born there. We built those cities. Why should we not return? They chose to go to Ifriqiya, to the cities of Mahdia and Bone which, Allah be praised, had been taken back by our people. If these towns could be won back, why not Palermo and Atrabanashi?

When Frederick died in 1250, panic spread in the city, but it was already late. The first massacre took place some months later. By that time Ibn Afdal was dead. And Lucera, too, was about to perish. Not long after Frederick’s death, most of its people were massacred. A few thousand, mainly women, were forcibly converted. The mosque was burnt. Like the bright star that crosses the sky and is watched by all, but quickly disappears, the flourishing city vanished, the few traces buried beneath the ground. Frederick’s castle was left untouched.

On the day that Frederick died, Ibn Afdal’s son Uthman and his cousins Umar and Muhammad decided it was foolish to wait any longer. They had long prepared for this day and they took advantage of the confusion. Their horses were ready for the journey. Umar and Muhammad left Lucera in the afternoon. They were headed for the coast from where they boarded a merchant ship to Ifriqiya.

Uthman did not go with them. As a child his imagination had been fired by the stories his father had told him about the Trusted One and how they had organised different forms of resistance on the island, but the story he had liked the best was far from this world. He loved hearing of how the Franks had been defeated by Salah al-din and driven out of al-Quds and how the Great Mosque had been cleaned and made ready to thank Allah for the victory they had won. For many months Uthman had agonised over his destination. The more he thought, the more he realised he did not wish to die before his eyes had seen the dome on the mosque of al-Aqsa and kissed the earth where his people had triumphed over the barbarians. He took his family to Palestine.

Ragusa-Palermo-Byron Bay-San Felice dei Circe-Lahore

August 2001-August 2004