Epilogue

This epilogue highlights how the historical memory of the intertwining histories of the Zirids and Normans has been uneven. While exchanges between the two dynasties were forgotten in the realm of Latin Christendom, they became part of a larger narrative told by Muslim authors about Frankish aggression against the lands of Islam, which persisted through the end of the Middle Ages. In modern discourse, however, the emphasis has shifted to a Norman-centric approach that has largely sidelined the Zirids as an object of foreign conquest. This approach has done a disservice to the understanding of both dynasties. The integrated history of the Zirids and Normans has shown the degree of connectivity between them and, moreover, the meaningful power that the Zirids wielded in the Mediterranean even after their lands were reduced in size during the mid-eleventh century. As the study of the Middle Ages emerges from centuries of Eurocentric scholarship, it is likewise fitting for the Zirids and other Ifriqiyan dynasties to emerge from the colonial shadow of the Banu Hilal and into larger conversations about their role in shaping the medieval world.