Every Catholic in Europe would march a crusade against them .
Elaborate on how is this going to happen in the ninth century ?
Every Catholic in Europe would march a crusade against them .
Elaborate on how is this going to happen in the ninth century ?
The conquest of southern Italy, or at least a good part of it, seems plausible. The encampment at the Garigliano was, like Fraxinetum, a mere forward raiding base, but for a time the Muslims made some regionally impressive conquests, taking Taranto, Matera, Oria, and Amantea. This came about only though the weakness and violent disunion of the Lombard south, for just like the Turks coming into Anatolia the Arabs did not merely raid southern Italy but were invited in as mercenaries (a mistake which the Lombard princes would repeat many years later with the Normans). If the Arabs had been more unified (Taranto, for instance, was a major Muslim raiding base for decades but was not apparently under Bari's control) and enjoyed more support from other Muslim polities abroad, they could have done better. That said, the Muslims were by this point operating rather far afield from their centers of power and their manpower was thin, the same fundamental strategic problem they had faced when operating in southern France. Having more Carolingian disunion would also help, insofar as the expedition of Louis II which finally crushed Bari might be avoided.
Ultimately I think that Muslim dominion in southern Italy would not last long. Even if the emirates in southern Italy do quite well, I suspect their relative isolation from the rest of the Muslim world and their proximity to powerful Christian neighbors is going to result in a "Reconquista" in the High Middle Ages which sees the roll-back of Muslim control over the south of the peninsula.
A (lasting) conquest of Rome, or anything north of Latium, is difficult for me to imagine.
I just had a thought: what if the Banu Hilal, instead of being sent to North Africa, were sent to Siciliy and Southern Italy instead? The timeline is a bit late - late 900s/1000. But it could solve the manpower issue...
I just had a thought: what if the Banu Hilal, instead of being sent to North Africa, were sent to Siciliy and Southern Italy instead? The timeline is a bit late - late 900s/1000. But it could solve the manpower issue...
The story about the Banu Hilal going to punish the Zirids is potentially a later extrapolation rather than the entire germ of what happened. In fact, Egypt suffered a massive drought in the 1050s on to 1060 that destabilized the Fatimid regime. The Banu Hilal was huge - some writers described it as the size of a nation in and of itself - saying nothing of the Banu Sulaym also migrating to Cyrenaica around the same time. The Banu Hilal were also Bedouins - that is, nomads. In a major drought situation, they were almost certain to leave in search of water and food. Not that the Banu Hilal is inevitable - but they are highly likely to leave Egypt for somewhere they can actually live.From what I remember, the Banu Hilal were sent west to punish the Zirids, who had renounced Fatimid suzerainty and transferred their political and religious allegiance from the Fatimid Caliph to the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad. I’m not sure why they would go to Sicily instead, let alone southern Italy.