Hassan ibn Ammar al-Kalbi

Hassan ibn Ammar al-Kalbi ( Arabic الحسن بن عمار الكلبي, DMG al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAmmār al-Kalbī ) was a member of the Arab tribe of the Kalb (Banū Kalb) and an actor in the conquest of Sicily by the Muslims.

Hassan was the son of Ammar ibn Ali al-Kalbi and thus a nephew of Hassan ibn Ali al-Kalbi († 964), who established the rule of his clan in Sicily in 948 as governor of the Fatimid Caliphate . The father had gone down in a storm on September 24, 958 as commander of a fleet during the war against Byzantium .

Fighting at the side of his cousin Ahmad , Hassan participated in the conquest of Taormina on December 25, 962 . On August 24, 963 he took up the siege of Rometta , the last Byzantine bastion in Sicily, which lasted over a year. On October 25, 964 he defeated the Byzantine army and it was not until May 965 that Rometta was able to take Rometta by storm, completing the Muslim conquest of Sicily. Beyond that, there is no further news about Hassan ibn Ammar.

Comment on identity

Hassan ibn Ammar al-Kalbi is often identified as identical to Hassan ibn Ammar al-Kutami († 1000), who lived almost at the same time and was a Kutāma military leader and short-term ruler of the Fatimid caliphate. As a Kutama, however, he was of Berber descent .

literature

• Michael Brett, The Rise of the Fatimids: The World of the Mediterranean and the Middle East in the Fourth Century of the Hijra, Tenth Century CE. Leiden / Boston / Cologne 2001, pp. 240–242.
• Ekkehard Eickhoff , Naval Warfare and Maritime Politics between Islam and the West: The Mediterranean under Byzantine and Arab Hegemony (650-1040). Berlin 1966, pp. 345-350.
• Heinz Halm , The Empire of the Mahdi. The rise of the Fatimids 875–973. CH Beck, Munich 1991, pp. 350, 359.