Editing History of Malta (section)

===Arab period ===
{{see also|History of Islam in southern Italy|Islam in Malta|Arabs in Malta}}
[[File:Maymūnah Stone, Gozo Museum of Archaeology, Victoria, Gozo 001.jpg|thumb|The [[Maymūnah Stone]], a 12th-century marble tombstone believed to have been found in [[Gozo]]]]

In 870 AD, Malta was occupied by Muslims from [[North Africa]]. According to [[Al-Himyarī]], [[Aghlabids]] led by Halaf al-Hādim [[Siege of Melite (870)|besieged the Byzantine city of Melite]], which was ruled by governor Amros (probably Ambrosios). Al-Hādim was killed in the fighting, and Sawāda Ibn Muḥammad was sent from [[Sicily]] to continue the siege following his death. The duration of the siege is unknown, but it probably lasted for some weeks or months. After Melite fell to the invaders, the inhabitants were massacred, the city was destroyed and its churches were looted. Marble from Melite's churches was used to build the castle of [[Sousse]].<ref name=al-himayri>{{cite web |last1=Brincat |first1=Joseph M. |title=New Light on the Darkest Age in Malta's History |url=http://melitensiawth.com/incoming/Index/The%20Arabs%20in%20Malta/1995proc%20Malta%20870-1054%20by%20J.M.%20Brincat.pdf |website=melitensiawth.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304095600/http://melitensiawth.com/incoming/Index/The%20Arabs%20in%20Malta/1995proc%20Malta%20870-1054%20by%20J.M.%20Brincat.pdf |archive-date=4 March 2016 |url-status=dead  }}</ref>
According to Al-Himyarī, Malta remained almost uninhabited until it was resettled in around 1048 or 1049 by a Muslim community and their slaves, who rebuilt the city of Melite as Medina, making it "a finer place than it was before". However, archaeological evidence suggests that Melite/Medina was already a thriving Muslim settlement by the beginning of the 11th century, so Al-Himyarī's account might be unreliable.<ref>{{harvnb|Blouet|2007|p=41}}</ref>
In 1053–54, the Byzantines [[Siege of Medina (1053–54)|besieged Medina]] but they were repelled by its defenders.<ref name=al-himayri/>
Although their rule was relatively short, the Arabs left a significant impact on Malta. In addition to their language, [[Siculo-Arabic]], [[cotton]], [[Orange (fruit)|oranges]] and [[lemon]]s and many new techniques in irrigation were introduced. Some of these, like the ''noria'' (waterwheel), are still used, unchanged, today. Many place names in Malta date to this period.

A long historiographic controversy loomed over Medieval Muslim Malta. According to the "Christian continuity thesis", spearheaded by [[Giovanni Francesco Abela]] and still most present in popular narratives, the Maltese population continuously inhabited the islands from the early Christian Era up to today, and a Christian community persisted even during Muslim times. This was contested in the 1970s by the medieval historian [[Godfrey Wettinger]], who claimed that nothing indicated the continuity of Christianity from the late 9th to the 11th century on the Maltese Islands – the Maltese must have integrated into the new Arab Islamic society. The Christian continuity thesis had a revival in 2010 following the publication of ''Tristia ex Melitogaudo'' by [[Stanley Fiorini]], Horatio Vella and Joseph Brincat, who challenged Wettinger's interpretation based on a line of a Byzantine poem (which later appeared to have been mistranslated). Wettinger subsequently reaffirmed his thesis, based on sources from the Arab historians and geographers Al Baqri, [[Al-Himyarī]], Ibn Hauqal, Qazwini, who all seemed to be in agreement that "the island of Malta remained after that a ruin without inhabitants" – thus ruling out any continuity whatsoever between the Maltese prior to 870 and after. This is also consistent with [[Joseph Brincat]]’s finding of no further substrata beyond Arabic in the [[Maltese language]], a very rare occurrence which may only be explained by a drastic lapse between one period and the following. To the contrary, the few Byzantine words in Maltese language can be traced to the 400 [[Rhodes|Rhodians]] coming with the knights in 1530, as well as to the influx of Greek rite Christians from Sicily.<ref>Yosanne Vella, [http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/comment/blogs/54769/wettinger_has_been_vindicated_but_why_do_historians_still_disagree#.WKt8GVPhDIX  Wettinger has been vindicated, but why do historians still disagree?], ''Malta Today'', 7 July 2015</ref>