In the previous chapter, we saw that the Dar al-Islam suffered from major episodes of violence from the mid-tenth to the end of the eleventh centuries. But worse was yet to come. As the eleventh century waned, the Dar al-Islam began shrinking for the first time due to attacks from non-Muslims. Prior to that time, the Byzantine resurgence of the tenth century, the Norman conquest of port cities in Ifriqiya (1034–1060) and of Sicily (1061–1090), and the Castilian conquest of Toledo (1085) were rationalized as temporary defeats in the great ebb and flow of warfare to which everyone had become accustomed in frontier areas.