AGHLABID DYNASTY

also called Banu al-Aghlab Arab Muslim dynasty that ruled Ifriqiyah (Tunisia and eastern Algeria) from AD 800 to 909. The Aghlabids were nominally subject to the 'Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad but were in fact independent. Their capital city was Kairouan (al-Qayrawan), in Tunisia. The most interesting of the 11 Aghlabid emirs were the energetic and cultured Ibrahim ibn al-Aghlab (reigned 800812), founder of al-Abbasiyya (2 miles south of Kairouan); Ziyadat Allah I (817838), who broke the rebellion of the Arab soldiery and sent it to conquer Sicily (which remained in Arab hands for two centuries); and Abu Ibrahim Ahmad (856863), who commissioned many public works. During the 9th century the brilliant Kairouan civilization evolved under their rule. The Aghlabid emirs maintained a splendid court, though at the cost of oppressive taxes; their public works for the conservation and distribution of water, however, contributed to the prosperity of a country that was on the whole peaceful. Their fleet was supreme in the central Mediterranean.