Throughout the twelfth century, a number of Arabic-speaking Muslims produced poetry in the court of the Normans of Sicily. This article examines all of the Arabophone literary figures active under Roger II in the context of their interlocutors, professional colleagues, and other contemporaries around the western Mediterranean. It argues that in this context, the Sicilian Arab literary figures operated within a chancery or other administrative milieu, and continued to assert an undiminished Islamic identity, although living under Christian rule.