In the year 1061 AD, Sicily was still a semi-Arab island, but it was divided into five principalities divided among itself. In addition to that, the conflict between the princes, and competition between Arabs and Berbers in the island located in southern Italy, caused the Norman King Roger I to submit most of the island to his rule. By 1072, the Sicilian capital of Palermo was completely under the control of the Romans.

However, the decline of the Arab political star from Sicily did not absent the Arab culture from the Mediterranean island, and the Arab presence remained strong in it under the rule of the Norman kings during this period, and the court of the Norman kings remained throughout the 12th century replete with many Arab poets, scholars and craftsmen, who also held high administrative positions.

After the death of Roger I in 1101 AD, he was succeeded by his son, Roger II, whose court was filled with Arab intellectuals, and the Sicilian king refused to participate in the Crusades despite the Pope's insistence, and the Arabic language was used in his financial management and lavish ceremonies and in literary and poetic councils and even in palace inscriptions, and is considered an academic specialized in literature The Arab and Middle Eastern studies at Cambridge University Nathaniel Miller said that this was not just a continuation of the remains of Islamic Sicily, but rather a conscious tradition of bureaucratic registration and blogging practices adapted from the Fatimid state in Egypt at that era.

George Antioch
Miller notes in his recent study on Arabic literature during the reign of the Roman king, that the biographies of many administrators of that era reveal that they spoke in the Arabic language despite being of non-Arab origin, and among them were George Antioch who was a Christian from Antioch, and Antioch was fluent in Arabic and was walking In his administrative work, he obtained the rank of "Emir of the Princes" during the reign of Roger II.

Unlike Antioch, there were official figures who spoke Arabic and embraced Islam, such as Peter al-Jarbi, who traced his origins to Tunisian Djerba, but in the case of Arab poets, the six largest Arab Sicilian writers at Roger II's court were Muslims openly and well known, according to Miller's study published in the Journal of Sea Studies Mediterranean.

Roger II’s doctors were Arabs, and his writers spoke a mix of Arabic and Greek, and the influence of Muslims remained present in the palace even after their rulers ’departure from the island. The majority of the island’s residents, especially in the West and the Middle, remained Muslims and spoke Arabic throughout the 12th century, but that coexistence was not free Of bloody tensions, especially in the times of the revolts against Roger II.

In his book "Civilization of the Arabs" by Gustave Le Bon, the French orientalist said that Roger's successors marched his way in bringing Arab writers closer to their court, including King Glium II who studied the language of Arabs, and was referring to Arab advisors in his court.

"The Imamate of the Arabs in the arts, industries, and sciences explains why the Norman kings protected them," Lubbon continued, "and the monks admired the Arab wit, even if they attributed their discoveries to magic."

Yet he was from the successors of Roger II, Frederick II who was king of Sicily from 1198 to 1250 CE, and the Holy Roman Emperor from 1220 to 1250 AD, and he led the sixth Crusade in 1228 to crown himself as king over Jerusalem in the following year despite the blessedness of the Pope, yet it was Sicily During his reign a center for the transmission of Islamic civilization to Europe, and his admiration for Arab culture and his encouragement to translate it led to the wrath of Christian clergy who accused him of heresy despite his leadership of the Crusade.

The Sicilian poem
In his study of the Arab poem on the island of Sicily, the American academic Nicolas Carpenter believes that the Canine princes and the Normans alike benefited from the Arab poem to enhance their royal ambitions, and the diverse and heterogeneous social scene on the island, and their falling on the edge of the Islamic and Christian Empires, forced them to employ the Arab culture and the poem Poetry in their court to enhance social cohesion and coexistence values ​​in a land divided by deep sectarian, ethnic, and political differences.

During a hundred years of Arab Canadians' rule, Muslim Sicily achieved a high degree of autonomy, a period of rare political stability, and unparalleled cultural prosperity including patronage of literature and poets, and these achievements are reflected in the narratives of Arab historians of the Middle Ages, according to Carpinterry in his study "Literature as a social currency in Sicily."

The Canals attracted to their court in Palermo the finest minds from all parts of Sicily and North Africa, and it appears from the remnants of Arab poetry dating back to this era that their court speaks a mixture of dialects of Kairouan and Baghdad.

The poems were written by Sicilian Arab poets, who clung to the characteristics of the traditional poem. The American academic cited the book of the Sicilian Ibn Sect, in which he collected a collection of poems and called it "the dangerous jewel in the poets of the people of the island."

Although thinking about Sicilian Arabic literature leads directly to the travel literature of travelers Ibn Jubayr and maps of the Idrisi geographer who lived in Sicily during the Norman era of rule after the fall of the Arab emirate, the history of Arab poets and writers in the Norman court does not receive that much attention.

Arabic literature flourished on the Mediterranean island, both at the time of the princes of Bani Kalb and the Normans after it. The Arab Bani Kalb princes were keen to revive poetry and poems to enhance cohesion in their court, which is threatened by social, sectarian and ethnic rivalries. Later, Arab poets competed again at the court of the Norman king, Roger II, which included Christian and Muslim writers as well.