Saracen invasion of Sardinia.
Sardinia ( sar-DIN-ee-; Italian and Tabarchino: Sardegna [sardea]; Sardinian: Sardigna [sadia], Sassarese: Sardhigna; Gallurese: Saldigna; Algherese and Catalan: Sardenya) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, and one of the 20 regions of Italy. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, north of Tunisia and immediately south of the French island of Corsica.
It is one of the five Italian regions with some degree of domestic autonomy being granted by a special statute. Its official name, Autonomous Region of Sardinia, is bilingual in Italian and Sardinian: Regione Autonoma della Sardegna / Regione Autnoma de Sardigna. It is divided into four provinces and a metropolitan city. The capital of the region of Sardinia and its largest city is Cagliari.
Sardinia's indigenous language and Algherese Catalan are referred to by both the regional and national law as two of Italy's twelve officially recognized linguistic minorities, albeit gravely endangered, while the regional law provides some measures to recognize and protect the aforementioned as well as the island's other minority languages (the Corsican-influenced Sassarese and Gallurese, and finally Tabarchino Ligurian).Owing to the variety of Sardinia's ecosystems, which include mountains, woods, plains, stretches of largely uninhabited territory, streams, rocky coasts, and long sandy beaches, Sardinia has been metaphorically described as a micro-continent. In the modern era, many travelers and writers have extolled the beauty of its long-untouched landscapes, which retain vestiges of the Nuragic civilization.
Saracen () was a term used by Christian writers in Europe during the Middle Ages to refer to Muslims, primarily of Arab origin, but also of Turkic and Persian/Iranic origin. The term's meaning evolved during its history of usage; in the early centuries of the Christian era, Greek and Latin writings used the term to refer to the people who lived in the desert areas in and near the Roman province of Arabia Petraea, as well as in Arabia Deserta. During the Early Middle Ages in Europe, the term came to be associated with the tribes of Arabia. The oldest-known source mentioning "Saracens" in relation to Islam dates back to the 7th century; it was found in Doctrina Jacobi, a Christian Greek-language commentary that discussed, among other things, the Muslim conquest of the Levant that occurred after the establishment of the Rashidun Caliphate following the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.By the 12th century, "Saracen" had become synonymous with "Muslim" in Medieval Latin literature. Such an expansion in the meaning of the term had begun centuries earlier among the Byzantine Greeks, as evidenced in documents from the 8th century. In the Western languages before the 16th century, Saracen was commonly used to refer to Arab Muslims, and the terms "Muslim" and "Islam" were generally not used (with a few isolated exceptions). The term gradually became obsolete following the Age of Discovery.