Introduction

This introductory chapter discusses how the scholarship about medieval North Africa is sparse when compared to works that focus on the histories of Europe, the Middle East, and Iberia. What little has been written about the Zirid dynasty has largely been defined by a tradition of French colonial scholarship dating back to the nineteenth century. It is important to realize that the Zirids were one of a handful of lords in Ifriqiya who tried to leverage the post-Hilalian political landscape to their advantage, both near their base of Mahdia and across the Mediterranean in Sicily. The chapter then considers how scholars have critiqued the nature of tolerant multiculturalism in Norman Sicily. Bringing the histories of these two dynasties into dialogue forces a new narrative of the dynamics of the central Mediterranean during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The Zirid dynasty, so long obfuscated by the shadow cast by colonial interpretations of Ibn Khaldun and the Banu Hilal, deserves a thorough reappraisal as an active player in the medieval Mediterranean. So, too, should Norman Sicily be considered against this backdrop of a reinvigorated Zirid dynasty, whose proximity to and interactions with the court of Palermo makes its presence crucial to the understanding of the Normans.