Commerce and Conflict from 1087 to 1123

This chapter focuses on the increasingly tenuous relationship between the Zirids and Normans from 1087 until the Zirid victory at the Battle of al-Dimas in the summer of 517H (1123). The fruitful trading partnership between the two dynasties weathered a Pisan-Genoese campaign against Mahdia in 1087 as well as the First Crusade, but it was disrupted when the Ifriqiyan governor of Gabès tried to forge an alliance with the Normans in the early twelfth century to further his own commercial goals. The Zirids subsequently formed an alliance of their own with the Almoravids of Morocco to destabilize Norman power in Sicily, which led to a successful raid on Norman lands. The Normans responded to this aggression by sending an army to Ifriqiya, which the Zirids and their Arab allies dispatched at the Battle of al-Dimas. This was a meaningful victory for the Zirid emir, al-Hasan ibn ʻAli, who sent a letter to his neighbors that highlighted his victory over the tyrannical Normans and extolled the righteous zeal of his allies.