CHAPTER SIXTEEN

MEDIEVAL TUNISIA THE HUB OF THE MEDITERRANEAN

A Geniza Study

The country known today as Tunisia is named after the city of Tunis, which became its capital in the second half of the twelfth century. Its previous name was Ifriqiya, an Arabicized form of Africa, the name of the ancient Roman province occupying approx­ imately the same territory. Frontiers are made by men. Nowhere was this saying truer than with regard to the country in question. The extent of the territory held by the rulers of Ifriqiya changed incessantly and often included parts or even the whole of present day Algeria and Libya and sometimes even Morocco, or contrary­ wise, was confined to some sections of the coastal strip of Tunisia proper. Because of this constant fluidity of frontiers, these parts of the Muslim world were mostly known by the general designation al-Maghrib, the West, and its inhabitants as Maghribis, or Wester­ ners. At a time when traffic moved slowly, the geographical position of Tunisia proved to be exceptionally favorable. It lies halfway between Morocco and Egypt and thus was the very center of the caravan traffic between western North Africa and the countries south of the Sahara on the one hand and Egypt and its eastern and southern neighbors on the other hand. Sicily, the bridge to Europe, could be reached even in small boats, and Tunisia's central position in the Mediterranean made it the natural entrepot for Eastern and Western goods, as long as it had not yet become habitual for ships to make the long voyage from Spain or France to Egypt or Syria directly. Everyone knows that Carthage, which is situated in the vicinity of present day Tunis, was the mistress of the middle and western Mediterranean in antiquity, before it was vanquished by Rome. Rebuilt by the Roman emperor Augustus, it regained much of its former splendor and economic power, and became again the capital of an independent state when the Vandals occupied the country in the thirties of the fifth century. In a famous war, Africa was re- MEDIEVAL TUNISIA captured by the heir of Rome, Byzantium, around 533 A.D., but was lost to the Arabs by the end of the seventh century. The Arab conquerorshad no use for Carthage as a capital, since it was exposed to the raids of the still powerful Byzantine navy. Instead, they built their capital at the safe distance of a two days march from the coast, calling it Kairouan, a name derived from the same Persian word as the English caravan. However, in the course of time, the new inhabitants of the country took to the sea, and, during the ninth century, the whole of Sicily and much of southern Italy were conquered by the warriors of Islam. This new turn in the fortunes of Tunisia was followed by the transfer of the capital from the interior of the country to its coast. Meanwhile, another great change had taken place. A Muslim sect, the Ismacilis, coming from the East, had succeeded in winning over the Kitama, one of the Berber peoples on which the military strength of Tunisia was based, and, in gog A.D., al-Mahdi of the dynasty of the Fatimids, which represented one branch of the Isma'Ilis, was recognized as ruler of the country. He founded a new capital, a seaport and fortress on the coast east of Kairouan and called it after himself al-Mahdiyya. From their base in Tunisia, the Fatimids expanded over the whole of the Maghrib, includingMorocco, andin 969 succeededin takingEgyptand shortly afterwards parts of Syria. The days of ancient Carthage had reverted or were evensurpassed: before theFatimidsmovedto Egypt, Tunisia had become again the center of a Mediterranean empire. How is this ascendancy of Tunisia during the ninth and tenth centuries A.D. to be explained? Generalizations are hazardous in a region in which civil war was endemic even in periods of glorious expansion and where the political constellation changed every few years. It seems evident, however, that the country owed its efflor­ escence largely to an exceptionally favorable economic constellation. In the whole of Western Europe, particularly in Spain,France an,d Italy, the darkness and misery of the early Middle Ages had given way to a bright and vigorous economic revival. The products of the East were much in demand, On the other hand, big ships, carrying regularly five hundred passengers together with their goods, and sailing straight from Spain to the Levant, as we find them in the Genizadocuments with regard to the eleventh century, were not yet common.! Thus it fell to Tunisia and Sicily (and soon also to the

1 Details in the present writer's forthcoming book A Mediterranean Society, Chapter IV.