Malta [The encyclopaedia of Islam three]

Abstract

Malta is a European island country in the central Mediterranean. Muslim raiders were active in the central Mediterranean from the second half of the first/ seventh century; due to its strategic position, Malta came under increasing pressure, but no surviving historical record refers to raids on Malta before the third/ ninth century. The fact that such a relatively small island did not fall to the Arabs until 257–8/871 suggests that Malta was of some strategic importance in the defence system of the Byzantine Empire. Before the arrival of the Arabs, the whole island had been Christian for several centuries, as its numerous Christian tomb complexes—or catacombs—indicate.