Arabs in Italy
ethnic group
Arabs in Italy (Italian: Arabi in Italia, Arabic: عرب إيطاليا) are Italian residents of Arab heritage.
According to the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), most Arab non-Italian citizens residing in Italy come from North Africa, most notably from Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria. Other notable countries of origin include Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, Jordan and Palestine.
History
In the 9th century AD, Arabs conquered the island of Sicily and formed the Emirate of Sicily under Islamic rule. During this period, there were several attempts to invade mainland Italy, with the Emirate of Bari being one of the most notable examples.
During the subsequent Swabian rule under the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, who spent most of his life as king of Sicily in his court in Palermo, Moors were progressively eradicated until the massive deportation of the last Muslims of Sicily. As a result of the Arab expulsion, many towns across Sicily were left depopulated. By the 12th century, Swabian kings granted immigrants from northern Italy (particularly Piedmont, Lombardy and Liguria), Latium and Tuscany in central Italy, and French regions of Normandy, Provence and Brittany (all collectively known as Lombards.) settlement into Sicily, re-establishing the Latin element into the island, a legacy which can be seen in the many Gallo-Italic dialects and towns found in the interior and western parts of Sicily, brought by these settlers.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Arabs in Italy” is ethnic group. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Arabs, Italy and ethnic, not as a finished interpretation.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16211435. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Arabs in Italy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.