At the end of Sicily’s Islamic period, the Maliki juridical school was firmly rooted and documented in the island; but like many as- pects of the cultural life of the island during the Islamic Age, the historical process that led to this...
moreAt the end of Sicily’s Islamic period, the Maliki juridical school was firmly rooted and documented in the island; but like many as- pects of the cultural life of the island during the Islamic Age, the historical process that led to this situation is yet to be clarified. The pres- ent study aims to contribute by providing a historical context for a passage of the Kitab al-mihan, a book of Islamic martyrology writ- ten by Abu l-‘Arab Muhammad al-Tamimi (d. 333/945), which until now has been over- looked by every study – both old and new – on Islamic Sicily. The works relates how a judge living and working in Sicily, Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Ta’i, known as Ibn al-Majjani, was imprisoned and tortured at the behest of Ibrahim II (261-289/875-902), the Aghlabid sovereign who has been of most interest to historians. Other than establishing a plausible date for the event (275/888-889), the article analyses the historical role of places and peo- ple, placing the ‘martyrdom’ of Ibn al-Majjani in the context of the political repression ex- erted by Ibrahim II following the episode of Ibn Talib (d. 275/888-889) and the subsequent religious censorship imposed by the Aghlabid at the expense of the Maliki élites in Ifriqiya and, perhaps also, in the nearby wilaya of Sicily.
