A new Latin-Arabic document from Norman Sicily (November 595H/1198CE)

Of all the remains of the twelfth-century Norman kingdom of Sicily, none is more fascinating to the historian of Islamic culture and society than the documents issued by the dīwān al‐maʿmūr, the Arabic administration of the Norman kings. In all, less than fifty Arabic and bilingual – Arabic with Greek or Latin – documents are known, counting not only those that survive in their original form, but also the translations of lost originals into Greek and Latin, and the deperdita that are merely mentioned in other documents. Most were published at the end of the nineteenth century, and since then eight further original documents have come to light, including one presumed forgery, and the privilege that is the subject of this study. The appearance of a new bilingual document from Sicily would therefore be quite sufficient to justify its inclusion among the hadāyā wa­l-tuḥaf offered here to our colleague and friend. But this gift is truly a rarity – the only Arabic document issued by the Empress Constance to survive; the latest original document to survive from her reign, the earliest surviving original document for the islands of Malta and Gozo; the only surviving Arabic document from Sicily to be written in the elevated chancery genre known as inshāʾ; the first compelling evidence that the Norman dīwān borrowed from the Almohad chancery; and an eloquent witness to the last days of Islamic culture in Christian Sicily