Few documents better illustrate the topsy-turvy world of Norman Sicily than an Arabic contract now in the Archivio di Stato in Palermo. In it, we see a family of Arab nobles reduced to the status of feudal villeins, a Benedictine abbot accepting an oath sworn upon the Qurʾān, and Muslims agreeing to pay to their Christian lord the ǧizya, a religious tax that Islamic law imposed exclusively upon Christians and Jews.
http://krc.orient.ox.ac.uk/documult/index.php/research/12-sample-content/
