ABSTRACT
Divine punishment for the Christians’ sins is the most common explanation in the Italian texts to justify the attacks and victories of the Muslims. A large army of Allah’s followers arrived shortly thereafter and the Taorminians paid for their wrongdoing with the destruction of their city and the loss of their own lives. The Muslim base of Fraxinetum in Provence, explains Liudprand of Cremona, could only have been created and continue to prosper thanks to the ineptitude and factionalism of the Christians in that area. Central Italian rulers, remarks Pope John VIII, were not only passive towards Allah’s followers, but were behaving like caterpillars, eating what survived the ‘Saracen locusts’. The lord of Catania was then defeated by his brother-in-law and therefore asked for Roger’s military help in order to defeat his rival. Profiting from internal division among Sicilian Muslims and of the conflicts among those of northwestern Africa, the Normans were able to take possession of the island.
