Hi, just wanted to point out that Muslim and Arab are not interchangeable terms, and that 1) many Arabs are not Muslim and 2) the vast majority of Muslims are not Arab.

In Medieval Italy, there is records of a small Muslim presence in certain territories, some more than others. The most notable example that comes to mind:

-Medieval Sicily traded heavily with the Middle East and North Africa. Starting the 13th century, Muslims began arriving in the island. Most of them came as slaves but from time to time merchants would appear as well. Under the reign of Frederick II of Sicily some Muslim came to positions of decent influence. Among them is a record for a man known as Giovanni Moro. At his highest point he served as a magistrate for the Emperor. His ethnic origins are somewhat debated but he is generally described as "un nero o un berbero musulmano." (a Black or a Berber Muslim) The Muslim presence mostly culminated in the Sicilian Muslim rebellion. Muslims, backed by French merchants looking to control the island, rallied up extremists and kicked off the rebellion. The rebellion never amounted to much and it led to several French merchants to be killed. This led to the creation of the colony of Lucera in the province of Apulia in mainland Italy. Here, Muslims were given a certain amount of autonomy and were allowed to run a society by themselves. The tactic here was to concentrate the Muslims into a single town in which they could be easily looked over (as opposed to running at different levels of society).

As records are limited, so are books. For further reading tho, I recommend the following:

• Muslims in Medieval Italy: The Colony at Lucera by Julie Anne Taylor. It includes a detailed account of the events that I just described. It comes with mentions of just about every primary source of the event.