A larger image of this Man in Robe in the Cappella Palatina - The Painted Wooden Ceiling of the Palatine Chapel, Palermo, Sicily. A beardless figure, with feminine side locks, but definitely a man. However, the diwan (chancery) of the Norman Sicilian court was staffed with eunuchs, who had allegedly disavowed Islam for Christianity but were practicing Islam secretly. One of them, Philip of Mahdia, rose to the high post of admiral before being tried and executed for apostasy. |