Pantelleria is an island in southern Italy, in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, located between Sicily and Tunisia. Muslims entered it in the year 700 AD, and their presence there continued until the year 1091 AD, and they established a civilization whose features still exist today, and it remained a part of the history of Islamic geography for more than 4 centuries before its assignment to the Italians.
Its existence was linked to volcanic interactions, and it was known to different civilizations throughout its history, as it served as a fortress to protect maritime trade and as a station on the way to the island of Sicily.
Although the island is located in the heart of Italy, it is characterized by Arab clothing, and some of its inhabitants speak Arabic due to their Islam and their proximity to Tunisia, and many places have preserved their Arabic names.
the site
"Pantelleri" or "Isola di Pantelleria" is a volcanic island in southern Italy, located in the middle between Italy and Tunisia, it is 100 kilometers from the city of Sicily, and more than 70 kilometers from the Tunisian city of Kelibia (Kalibia), with an area of 83 square kilometers. (32 square miles).
The island was formed about 114,000 years ago, and it is the emanating part of a volcano that rises to 2,743 feet (836 meters) at the "Monta Grande" crater.
The last eruption of this volcano dates back to about 9 thousand years.
Kosra (currently Pantelleria) is the largest offshore island in Sicily, and the fourth largest in Italy. In terms of the Italian administrative division, it represents a municipality belonging to the province of Trapani, with a population of approximately 10,000.
Aerial photo of a beach in the Mediterranean (the island)
The island is characterized by cliffs, inlets and caves along the coast, and consists of acidic rocks rich in sodium, and cliffs of black lava overlooking the sea and vineyards, but it lacks fresh water.
In describing the location of the island, Arab geographers mentioned that “there is a stream between it and Sicily, and figs and cotton are brought from it, and it is a section of good wood.”
Wind girl
The island was called in ancient Greek "Iranim" and then "Kosora" or "Koseros", and became known as "Latin Kocyra", which is a Greek name meaning "small basket" or the awl or the spring. This name was given to it due to the similarity between the island and the shape of the basket.
And its name in the Arabic language became “Qusara”, and the linguist Ibn Al-Qatta’ Al-Saqli confirmed it in a thousand “Qusara”, and Abu Ubaid Al-Bakri documented it in his book “The Tracts and Kingdoms” under the name “Qusara”.
The Arabic dictionaries (Dictionary of Countries, Al-Iqtitab, Tuhfat Al-Arous) suggest that this name has an Arabic origin, which is “a bowl of dates”, meaning a container made of reeds or woven sticks, or a container in which dates are collected.
And it came in a poetic verse by Ali bin Abi Talib:
The most successful is the one who has his own palace and eats dates from it every day.
Perhaps the name was derived from the ancient Phoenician language in North Africa and the islands of the Mediterranean, which is "Caesar".
Landscape of Pantelleria Island in 1920 (Getty Images)
As for the original Arabic name of the island, it was “Daughter of the Wind” or “Bint of the Wind”, which means: the daughter of Al-Arjee’ in the Maltese dialect.
Because the winds surrounded its coasts, especially in its northeastern sides.
The people of Tunisia still call this wind "the wind of Kausari", and the Italians derived its current name "Pantelleri" or "Isola di Pantelleria", from the Arabic term.
It has also been called the "Black Pearl" of the Mediterranean because of the volcanic origin of its lands.
old history
Historical references indicate that the history of Qusara - Pantelleria today - is very old, as the trace of human presence in it dates back to prehistoric times, and a fortified village from the Neolithic period 300 thousand years BC was excavated in it on the western coast.
In the following centuries it was conquered by the Greeks and then the Phoenicians, who made it a strategic trading center in the Mediterranean in the seventh century BC.
After that, the Romans colonized it in 255 BC, and took it as a place of exile.
The finds of the imperial paintings, the three marble heads depicting Julius Caesar, Titus and Antonia the Younger, date back to this historical period.
With the fall of the Roman Empire in 217 BC, the Vandals colonized it and settled in the Scurri Scalo region in 439.
Then it was occupied by the Byzantines, who built a number of forts to protect it from sea raids.
It was settled at that time by a Greek community belonging to the Orthodox faith, and a place of worship called St. Basil's Church was built for it.
Islamic conquest of the island
Qusrah was a strategic naval center for Islamic fleets since the end of the first century AH, and Yaqut al-Hamawi mentioned that it was conquered during the days of Muawiyah bin Abi Sufyan in the year 31 AH / 652 AD, but the rule of Muslims did not last long.
It is one of the first islands that the Islamic State conquered in 80 AH / 700 AD.
The military operations consisted of rapid raids followed by withdrawal, so the conquerors did not settle in them at the time.
Then it became a bridge between the African shores (currently Tunisia) and the island of Sicily, as the military necessity called for its opening to secure the Islamic conquests.
This is due to the importance of its location in defending the Maghreb and monitoring the movements of the Byzantine fleet.
It is most likely that the first person to invade it was Abdullah bin Qattan al-Fihri, during the mandate of Musa bin Naseer over Ifriqiya, in the year 88 AH - 707 AD, and he went out to it from the Maritime Industry House, which was founded by Hassan bin al-Nu`man al-Ghassani in Tunisia.
And the Arab commander took the island as a forward base for his fleet in repelling the attacks of the Byzantine Romans, and at that time he was able to annex it to the province of Ifriqiya.
Base for Tunisia's maritime activity
In the year 118 AH - 736 AD, it was conquered by the military commander Habib bin Abi Ubaidah al-Fihri during the mandate of Ubayd Allah bin al-Habab over Ifriqiya, during the reign of the Umayyad caliph Hisham bin Abd al-Malik.
Then Abd al-Rahman bin Habib al-Fihri, the grandson of Uqba bin Nafi, conquered it at the end of the Umayyad dynasty in the East in the year 130 AH - 748 AD, and he was able to fully control the island and make it a base for the Islamic fleet in the western Mediterranean.
From this base, the ships of the Islamic fleet came out and raided Sicily and destroyed the Roman fleet anchored in its ports.
In the year 135 AH - 752 AD, Abd al-Rahman undertook a second naval campaign after taking over Ifriqiya to seize Sicily.
Many historical sources and books limited themselves to mentioning this first conquest, and considered it a final conquest, while they do not mention any conquest of the island during the era of the Aghlabid state that established in Tunisia in the year 184 AH.
The second conquest of the island was in the year 212 AH - 827 AD, led by Asad bin Al-Furat during the reign of Ziyadat Allah bin Ibrahim Al-Aghlab, according to the text of Ibn Khaldun and the narration of the American historian Archald Lewis.
The Aghlabids took the island closest to the Tunisian coast as a base to achieve their policy of seizing Sicily and sparked a rich maritime activity in the central and western Mediterranean.
The Islamic army consisted mainly of Arabs and Berbers from North Africa and Andalusia.
Islam prevailed in the island, and Arabic spread in it, and it became part of Ifriqiya, and the Kairouan authority took it as a military center and a permanent fortified base, as its location in the middle helped to take refuge in its castle and fortify in its impenetrable port.
The Banu al-Aghlab took care of the Mediterranean island, so they reconfigured the port, so that it would be a link with the Islamic possessions in southern Italy, and they set up a center for the message pigeons (carrier pigeons) in the rapid communication.
And they took care of its architecture, so they transferred many Christians from Sicily to it, and a number of Arab and African farmers from the Tunisian coast immigrated to it, so they mixed and spread Islamic customs and the Arabic language, and cotton cultivation spread during their era, and it was not known before, and it was one of the most important yields of African countries.
In the Fatimid era, the island became a destination for some minorities fleeing persecution.
A gift for the Italians
The Arab Islamic sovereignty over Qusura / Pantelleria extended to the year 484 AH - 1091 AD, and Christian raids continued to target it until it finally submitted to the rule of the Normans in 517 AH - 1123 AD, as they invaded, looted and killed its inhabitants.
In its vicinity, the fleet of Al-Muizz bin Badis, Prince of Morocco, consisting of 400 ships, which he equipped to help the Muslims of Sicily in their fight with the Normans in 1026 AD, sank.
After that, the German "Hohenstofen" family inherited the rule of the island, so its king, Frederick II, emperor of the Roman state, concluded a political treaty with Abi Zakaria Al-Hafsi in 628 AH - 1231 AD, according to which he ceded to him Qusra / Pantelleria in return for half of its annual crops returning to Tunisia.
Some sources indicate that the island remained under Tunisian rule until it was abandoned by one of the beys of Tunisia in the 18th century to Italy, and it is rumored that he gave it up in exchange for an Italian slave girl who bore him a male child after a long wait, and her dowry was this Tunisian land.
After independence, this issue was not raised.
View from the Italian island of Pantelleria (Shutterstock)
Forced Christianization
The Arab presence remained on the island and the influence of Muslims continued there after the departure of their rule.
The Norman palace in that era remained full of a number of Arab poets, scholars, and artisans who also held high administrative positions, and most of the Muslim population remained Arabic-speaking throughout the 12th century.
After the island came under the rule of the German family, then the French family of "Charles Alengo", many Muslims immigrated to Ifriqiya.
Those who were forced to stay were subject to oppression and torture, and many of them were victorious.
After that, the island was associated for two centuries with the Spanish Kingdom of Aragon, and its population remained for a long time Muslims.
In the early 19th century, Muslims and Christians were living together on the island of Qusra / Pantelleria, and the Spanish Christians called the word "domesticated" the Muslims who resided under their rule.
And when the island moved to unified Spanish rule, it was handed over to a crusader group called the "Knights of Saint John", so they forcibly committed the remaining Muslims to Christianity.
Then the Muslims were deported from it and settled in the settlement of "Logara" in southern Italy, and those who chose to stay on the island were enslaved, and in the year 1249 AD Christianity was imposed and the Muslims were expelled from it permanently.
In the year 960 AH-1552 AD, the Turkish leader Turgut Pasha conquered the island, and made it a stronghold for his warships, then the Hospitallers, known as the Knights of Malta, took it back, and it remained under their rule until the British annexed it to their empire in 1315 AH-1800 AD.
A scene from the beaches of the Italian island of Pantelleria (Shutterstock)
regime
Historical sources did not find out what the governing body and administration system was like in Pantelleria during the Arab presence there.
Historians believe that the island had an independent judge who looked into its administrative affairs and its military and social interests, and a legal judge who judged between its Muslim population in matters of their world and personal status, appointed by the government of Kairouan or Mahdia.
And when it was separated from the rule of Islam, the Muslims living in it had a judge whom they elected from among themselves, who looked into their religious affairs, and was approved by the Christian government and whose legal rulings were implemented.
Their commercial links continued with the Tunisian mainland, especially the ports of Hammamet, Sousse, Mahdia and Djerba, and this system lasted until the ninth or tenth century AH.
Italian influence
In 1860 Pantelleria became part of the Kingdom of Italy, and remained so until the founding of the Republic of Italy in 1946, becoming a municipality belonging to the province of Trapani on the island of Sicily.
The island became a safe anchorage, taken by the Italian government during World War II, and a major center for military aviation, and used as a naval and air military base to supply its forces in Libya.
During that period, the island witnessed a sea landing by the American forces, who besieged it for 35 days, then occupied it on May 8, 1943.
Following the filming of an American propaganda tape to market this occupation, most of the "Pantelleria" buildings were dynamited, and this led to the erasure of most of its cultural and civilizational heritage.
Since the fifties, restoration attempts were launched, but they did not succeed in eliminating the repercussions of the bombing, so the rest of the restored buildings were used for tourism activities since the seventies, despite the difficulties of its remote location and the scarcity of fresh water.
From the coast of the Italian island of Pantelleria (Shutterstock)
Arab legacy
There are rare Islamic manuscripts on the island of Pantelleria, and antiquities that include some gold coins from the Aghlabids and Fatimids, and a number of tombstones and inscriptions.
The Islamic era left its names for some places in Pantelleria, and the heritage of the Arabic language is still evident in a number of Arabic names and vocabulary by 80%.
Couscous with fish is still the main dish in Pantelleria kitchens, and the "shakshuka" dish has preserved its Tunisian name, in addition to the long Tunisian cakes.
Archaeological sites
Pantelleria knew different civilizations that left their traces in terms of culture and architecture, and several archaeological sites attest to this, including:
The ancient village of Murcia (or Al-Marsa in Arabic) overlooking the sea, and it is the oldest inhabited area on the island, dating back to 1900 BC.
It was built by the Phoenicians, then the Arabs restored it after many centuries, due to its fortified maritime strategic location.
Castello Castle, built of lava, dates back to the Middle Ages.
It was a prison until 1975, and it is located near the old port, and inside it there is also a museum with a number of archaeological discoveries.
The small anchorage, "Cala Jadir", is located in the eastern part of Pantelleria, and a number of amphoras (ceramic jars) were found in it, forming part of two ruins dating back to the third and second centuries BC.
Mirror Lake, a natural water basin formed by the huge crater of a centuries-old dormant volcano.
The Elephant Arch, a huge lava rock shaped like an elephant.
Balata Bay, from which water lava flows, is surrounded by steep cliffs that reach a height of 300 meters.