Fraxinet

Fraxinet or Fraxinetum (Arabic: فرخشنيط Farakhshanīt‎‎ or فرخسة Farakhsha, from Latin fraxinus: "ash tree", fraxinetum: "ash forest") was the site of a 10th-century fortress established by Muslims at modern La Garde-Freinet, near Saint-Tropez, in Provence. The modern Massif des Maures ("plateau of Moors") takes its name from the Muslims of Fraxinet.

According to Liudprand of Cremona, in about 889 a ship carrying twenty adventurers from Pechina near Almería in what was then called Al-Andalus anchored in the Gulf of Saint-Tropez in Provence. They were called muwallad, that is, converts to Islam who spoke both Latin and Arabic. They built a tiny stone fortification and protected their outposts by cultivating thorny bushes.

The region around Fraxinet was known in contemporary sources as Djabal al-Qilâl (Arabic: جبل القِلال‎‎, "mountain of the many peaks") and is, strangely enough, depicted on Arab maps of the period as an island. The area controlled by Fraxinet included St-Tropez, its gulf and hinterland, as well as Ramatuelle and its peninsula.Ibn Hawqal recorded that the area was richly cultivated by its Muslim inhabitants, and they have been credited with a number of agricultural and fishing innovations for the region. Ship wrecks in the area indicate that Fraxinet may have been a center of trade as much as of piracy.

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