Palermo

Palermo is a city on the island of Sicily. Ibn Jubayr's Rihla calls it "the seat of Sicily" and describes it as the seat of the island's king in his time. ¹

Ibn Khaldun, in his account of the conquest of Sicily, says that the Muslim army "besieged Balarm", and then that "the Muslims opened the city of Balarm". The lines read here do not state the year of that conquest. ²

Ibn Jubayr describes the city's building as resembling Cordoba's, says that its open squares and plains are all orchards, and mentions the palaces the king adorned there. ¹

Ibn Jubayr reports that the Muslims had quarters of their own, apart from the Christians, and that most of their mosques were kept in use for prayer with the call to prayer sounded aloud. They had a qadi to whom they referred their cases, and a congregational mosque, and most of their mosques were used for teaching the Qur'an. They had no Friday prayer, because the sermon was forbidden to them, so they prayed the feasts with a sermon in which the Abbasid caliph was prayed for. ³