Una rilettura letteraria della dimensione mediterranea medievale in Bārī anshūdat Sawdān (Bari, il canto di Sawdān) di Ibrāhīm Aḥmad ʿĪsà

Arabic historical fiction has experienced, over the last decades or thereabouts, a remarkable revival at the hands of increasing numbers of both emerging and established authors. The Arab history viewed in a Mediterranean multicultural perspective is the subject of Ibrāhīm Aḥmad ʿĪsà’s novel Bārī, anshūdat Sawdān (Bari, Sawdān’s song, 2017) in whi- ch he sheds light on a real personality, that of Sawdān al-Mawrī, the only and last Muslim ruler of Apulia. Novelist and history researcher born in Alexandria (Egypt), Ibrāhīm Aḥmad ʿĪsà was awarded the Katara Award for Arabic Fiction in 2018 for his novel. The Emirate of Bari was a short-lived Islamic State from 847 to 871. The third and last emir of Bari was Sawdān who ruled for 14 years. During his emirate Sawdān made an attempt to conquer the city of Naples (858-859), and embarked on a aggressive policy, ravaging the lands of the Lombard principality of Benevento with the intention of pillage and capturing men, women and children for the rich Mediterranean slave market. The adventure of the Muslim emirate of Bari came to an end on 3 February 871 when the troops of Ludovico II and the Lombard prince Adelchi besieged the town and captured Sawdān, who, however, managed to negotiate the surrender, and had his life saved. During his imprisonment, the emir became Adelchi’s counsellor. The image of the bloodthirsty and sacrilegious marauder transmitted to us by the Latin sources is mitigated by other testimonies that describe an experienced and astute prince, endowed with great leadership skills and an almost legendary wisdom, interested in the legitimisation of his power and, like many Muslim leaders, not devoid of cultural interests (Berardo Pio, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 91, 2018). Partially based on al-Balādhurī’s (d. 892) Kitāb futūḥ al-buldān (Liber expugnationis regionum), Ibrāhīm Aḥmad ʿĪsà’s novel explores the territories of Bari and its neighbouring cities, including Naples, emphasising the encounter between two worlds, Muslim and Christian, and the many wars that plagued these territories causing the “death of many people, bodies piled up and mingled flags.” Here the author reads the present re-reading and re-writing the past, and assumes that this extremely bloody period is also a time of great experiences of coexistence, cultural exchange and discovery of the other.