Arab-Muslim Accounts of Medieval Sicily and the Qur’an: An Intertextual Reading

كانت صقلية واحدة من أهم الوجهات التي جذبت الرحالة العرب المسلمين في العصور الوسطى، إذ كتب العديد من المؤرخين والجغرافيين والشعراء المسلمين عن هذه الجزيرة التي حكمها العرب لأكثر من قرنين من الزمان. تمثل الكتابات العربية الإسلامية عن صقلية موضوعًا غنيًا للدراسة من وجهات نظر متعددة. يقارن هذا الفصل بين كتابات المسلمين عن صقلية في العصور الوسطى وبين القرآن والسنة النبوية، إذ يركز على أوجه التشابه بينها، وذلك محاولةً لإثبات أن الرحالة المسلمين قد تأثروا في وصفهم لطبيعة الجزيرة وناسها تأثرا واضحا بالدين، الذي شكّل هويتهم ووعيهم الثقافي. يعتمد الفصل التناص منهجا للكشف عن أوجه التشابه بين نصوص الرحالة الأدبية والتاريخية وبين تلك الدينية.

Sicily was one of the most important destinations that attracted travellers in medieval times. Many Muslim historians, geographers and poets wrote about this Mediterranean island that had been ruled by Arabs for more than two centuries. Arab-Muslim accounts of Sicily have been a rich subject to study from a range of points of view. This chapter compares Muslim accounts of medieval Sicily with texts from the Qur’an and prophetic narrations. The major focus is to trace the similar themes and semantics within these texts. The objective of this comparative study is to demonstrate that Muslim travellers’ descriptions of the Sicilian landscape and people were influenced by their religion, which had shaped their culture and identity. In order to address the intersection between religious and historical texts, I will read these sources intertextually. I claim that the Sicilian landscape evoked Qur’anic imagery and themes in the minds of Muslim travellers. My objective is to demonstrate how this led them to adopt Qur’anic language and themes in the description of various aspects of the island. The connection that Muslim travellers’ made between Sicily and the Qur’an reveals that, for them, the value of this island was almost holy. Nevertheless, the concern of this study is not to investigate the religious behaviours of the Muslim travellers that I examine here. Rather, it is to explore how the religious nuance enriches literary and historical writings.