The siege of Taormina in 902 ended the conquest of the Byzantine city of Taormina, in northeastern Sicily, by the Aghlabids. The campaign was led by the deposed Aghlabid emir, Ibrahim II, as a form of armed pilgrimage and holy war. Ibrahim's forces defeated the Byzantine garrison in a hard-fought battle in front of the city walls, and laid siege to the city. Left unsupported by the Byzantine government, Taormina capitulated on 1 August. The population was massacred or sold into slavery. The fall of this last major Byzantine stronghold signalled the completion of the Muslim conquest of Sicily, which had been ongoing since the 820s, although some minor Byzantine outposts survived until the 960s.
Background
Following the fall of Syracuse to the Aghlabids of Ifriqiya in 878, Byzantine presence in Sicily had been limited to the northeastern third of the island (the "Val Demone"). In the aftermath of their capture of Syracuse, the Aghlabids launched repeated raids against the Val Demone in the 880s, but made little headway. As the main stronghold remaining in Byzantine hands, the city of Taormina and its environs was one of the chief targets of the Aghlabid attacks during this period, being attacked in 879/80, 881/82, 883, 885, and 889. From on, the raids ceased, chiefly due to the outbreak of internal quarrels among the Muslims of Sicily, which even resulted in full civil war between the Arab and Berber factions of the Aghlabid army in 898.
The civil war in Sicily prompted the dispatch of Abu'l-Abbas Abdallah, son of the Aghlabid emir Ibrahim II, as the island's governor in 900. When Abu'l-Abbas landed at Sicily, factional strife had mutated to a quarrel between the cities of Palermo and Agrigento, the precise nature of which is unknown. After negotiations failed, Abu'l-Abbas Abdallah marched on Palermo, which he captured on 18 September 900. A great number of the rebels fled the city to the Byzantines in Taormina, with some reaching even Constantinople itself. The Byzantines tried to take advantage of the revolt, and began assembling forces at Messina and Reggio, while a fleet was dispatched from Constantinople under a commander named Michael. Abu'l-Abbas, however, did not tarry and as soon as he had suppressed the rebellion, marched against the Byzantines, ravaging the environs of Taormina and launching an unsuccessful siege of Catania before returning to winter in Palermo. In the next spring, he resumed his attack and assaulted . To disrupt the Byzantine preparations, his forces then crossed over to the Italian mainland, sacking Reggio. On his return to Sicily, Abu'l-Abbas defeated a Byzantine fleet and captured thirty of its ships.
Ibrahim II's arrival and the fall of Taormina
In early 902, Emir Ibrahim II was forced into abdication by his subjects, through the intervention of the Abbasid caliph al-Mu'tadid. Abu'l-Abbas was named as his successor, and left Sicily for Ifriqiya, leaving his army under the command of his two sons. Ibrahim, in turn, resolved to make an armed pilgrimage, and took up the mantle of the holy war, aiming to go to Mecca after first conquering Byzantine fortresses in Italy. Donning the simple dress of an ascetic, he went to Sousse, where he declared his intention and started gathering volunteers to join him.
Ibrahim and his followers arrived at Trapani on 8 July, and immediately set their sights on Taormina, the last major Byzantine stronghold on Sicily. The Byzantines had gathered significant forces there, commanded by the droungarios of the Fleet Eustathios, Michael Charaktos (apparently the same as the naval commander who arrived in 901, and now served as strategos of Calabria), and the commandant of Taormina, the patrikios Constantine Karamallos, who was likely also the strategos of Sicily. Rather than waiting to be besieged, the Byzantine commanders led their forces out to meet the Muslims in open combat. According to the Muslim sources, the battle that followed was fiercely contested, and the Byzantines were beginning to gain the upper hand, when Ibrahim ordered the recitation of a line from the al-Hajj sura of the Quran. Crying for help from God, he entered the fray in person, whereupon the Byzantines were defeated with heavy losses. Most of the remaining Byzantine troops either withdrew to the fortress (modern ) or embarked on their ships.
