pillaging, massacring; but this was soon checked by the Arab governors.
When things had settled down again, the subject populations found
themselves at least no worse off than before, and they shortly began to
perceive that they had benefited by the change of rulers. They were
permitted to retain their own laws and judges; governors of their own
race administered the districts, collected the taxes, and determined
such differences as arose amongst themselves. The citizen classes,
instead of bearing the whole burden of the State expenditure, had only
to pay a poll-tax of no very exacting amount, and they were free of all
obligations; unless they held cultivable land, in which case they paid
the _Kharaj_ or land-tax as well. The poll-tax was graduated according
to the rank of the payer, from twelve to forty-eight _dirhems_ a year,
or from about three to twelve pounds at our present purchasing power of
money; and its collection in twelve monthly instalments made it the
easier to meet. The poll-tax was an impost upon heresy; it was levied
only upon Christians and Jews: the land-tax, on the other hand, which
varied according to the productiveness of the soil, was assessed
equally on Christians, Jews, and Moslems. As a rule the old proprietors
and cities preserved their property as before the conquest. The lands of
the Church, indeed, and of those landowners who had fled to the
mountains of the north, were confiscated, but even then their serfs were
left upon them as cultivators, and were only required to pay a certain
proportion, varying from a third to four-fifths, of the produce, to
their new Moslem lords. Sometimes the cities, such as Merida and
Orihuela, had been able to obtain exceptionally favourable terms from
the conquerors, and were suffered to retain their goods and lands upon
the payment of a fixed tribute. At the worst, beyond the poll-tax, the
Christians were in no way subject to heavier exactions than their Moslem
neighbours. They had even gained a right which had never been permitted
them by the Gothic kings: they could alienate their lands.[7] In
religious toleration they had nothing to regret. Instead of persecuting
them, and forcing upon them a compulsory conversion, as the Goths had
upon the Jews, the Arabs left them free to worship whom or what they
pleased; and so valuable was the poll-tax to the treasury, that the
Sultans of Cordova were much more disposed to discourage than to welcome
any considerable missionary fervour that might deprive the State of so
useful a source of revenue. The result was that the Christians were
satisfied with the new _regime_, and openly admitted that they preferred
the rule of the Moors to that of the Franks or Goths. Even their
priests, who had lost most of all, were at first but little incensed
with the change, as the old chronicle, ascribed to Isidore of Beja,
written at Cordova in 754, shows. The good monk is not even scandalized
at so unholy an alliance as the marriage between Roderick's widow and
the son of M[=u]sa. But the best proof of the satisfaction of the
Christians with their new rulers is the fact that there was not a single
religious revolt during the eighth century.
Above all, the slaves, who had been cruelly ill-used by the Goths and
Romans, had cause to congratulate themselves upon the change. Slavery is
a very mild and humane institution in the hands of a good Mohammedan.
The Arabian Prophet, while unable to do away with an ancient
institution, which was nevertheless repugnant to the socialistic
principles of Islam, did his utmost to soften the rigours of slavery.
"God," said he, "hath ordained that your brothers should be your slaves:
therefore him whom God hath ordained to be the slave of his brother, his
brother must give him of the food which he eateth himself, and of the
clothes wherewith he clotheth himself, and not order him to do anything
beyond his power.... A man who ill-treats his slave will not enter into
Paradise." There is no more commendable action in Mohammedan morals than
to free slaves, and such enfranchisement is enjoined by the Prophet
especially as an atonement for an undeserved blow or other injustice. In
Andalusia, the slaves upon the estates that had passed from the
Christians into the possession of Moslems were almost in the position of
small farmers; their Mohammedan masters, whose trade was war, and who
despised heartily such menial occupations as tilling the soil, left
them free to cultivate the land as they pleased, and only insisted on a
fair return of products. Slaves of Christians, instead of being
hopelessly condemned to servitude for all their lives, were now provided
with the simplest possible road to freedom: they had only to go to the
nearest Mohammedan of repute, and repeat the formula of belief, "There
is no god but God, and Mohammed is His Prophet," and they became
immediately free. Conversion to Islam thus carried with it
enfranchisement, and it is no wonder that we find the Spanish slaves
hastening to profess the new faith and thus to become free men. The
Catholic priests had taken small pains to graft the Christian religion
into their hearts; they had enough to do to look after their estates and
the souls of the nobles without troubling themselves about the spiritual
wants of the ignorant; and the change from semi-pagan, semi-Christian,
vacuity to a perhaps equally unintelligent apprehension of Islam was no
very severe wrench to the servile mind. Nor were the slaves by any means
the only converts to the new religion. Many of the large proprietors and
men of position became Mohammedans, either to avoid the poll-tax, or to
preserve their estates, or because they honestly admired the simple
grandeur of this latest presentment of theism. These converts or
renegades were destined to cause some trouble in the State, as will
presently be seen. While admitted to the equality involved in
conversion, they were not really allowed equal rights and privileges;
they were excluded from the offices of State, and regarded with
suspicion by the Moslems _de la vielle roche_ as interested converts,
people who would sell their souls for pelf. In the end these
distinctions died out, but not before they had produced serious
dissensions and even insurrections.
As far as the vanquished were concerned, we have seen that the conquest
of Andalusia by the Arabs was on the whole a benefit. It did away with
the overgrown estates of the great nobles and churchmen, and converted
them into small proprietorships; it removed the heavy burdens of the
middle classes, and restricted the taxation to the test-tax per poll
levied on unbelievers, and the land-tax levied equally on Moslem and
Christian; and it induced a widespread emancipation of the slaves, and a
radical improvement in the condition of the unemancipated, who now
became almost independent farmers in the service of their
non-agricultural Mohammedan masters.
It was otherwise with the victors. There is no greater mistake than to
imagine that the Arabs, who spread with such astonishing rapidity over
half the civilized world, were in any real sense a united people. So far
was this from being the truth, that it demanded all Mohammed's
diplomatic skill, and all his marvellous personal prestige, to keep up a
semblance of unity even while he was alive. The Arabs were made up of a
number of hostile tribes or clans, many of whom had been engaged in
deadly blood-feuds for several generations, and all of whom were moved
by a spirit of tribal jealousy which was never entirely extinguished.
Had the newly-founded Mohammedan State been restrained within the
borders of Arabia, there can be no doubt that it would speedily have
collapsed in the rivalry of the several clans; as it was, the death of
the Prophet was followed by a general rising of the tribes. Islam became
a permanent and world-wide religion only when it clothed itself with
armour and became a church militant. The career of conquest saved the
faith. The Arabs laid aside for awhile their internecine jealousies, to
join together in a grand chase for booty. There was of course a strong
fanatical element in the enthusiasm of conquest. They fought partly
because they were contending with the enemies of God and His Prophet,
because a martyr's Benjamin's cup of happiness awaited those who fell in
"the path of God," as they termed the religious war; but there is no
denying that the riches of Caesars and Chosroes, the fertile lands and
prosperous cities of the neighbouring kingdoms, formed a very large
element in the Moslems' zeal for the spread of the faith.
As soon as the career of conquest was exchanged for the quiet of settled
possession, the various jealousies and dissensions which the tumult and
profits of invasion had kept to some degree in abeyance broke forth into
dangerous activity. The party spirit of the Arab tribes extended to all
parts of the vast empire they had subdued, and influenced even the
Khalif at Damascus; the nomination of the governors of the most distant
provinces was actuated by mere factious motives. In Spain, where the
"Em[=i]r of Andalus," as he was styled, was appointed either by the
Governor of Africa or by the Khalif of Damascus himself, these party
differences worked havoc with the peace and order of the kingdom during
the first fifty years of Moorish rule. Governors were appointed,
deposed, or murdered, in deference to the mandates of some faction, who
resented the government being entrusted to a man of the Med[=i]na faction,
or would not have a clansman of Kays, or objected to the nomination of a
member of the Yemen party; and, throughout the history of the domination
of the Moors in Spain, these baleful influences continued to work injury
to the State.[8]
In Andalusia, moreover, there was another and very important party to be
reckoned with, besides the various Arab factions. The conquest of the
peninsula had been effected almost entirely by T[=a]rik and his Berbers,
and these Berbers (who are the _Moors_ proper, though the word is
conveniently employed to denote the mixture of Arabs and Berbers) formed
a leading factor in the new state of things. They were not an effete
nation like the Romanized Spaniards; but a people full of life and
martial energy. In their mountain fastnesses, and ranging the plains
from Egypt to the Atlantic, in their numerous and widely distinguished
clans, the Berbers had offered to the Arabs a much more formidable
resistance than the trained soldiers of Persia or Rome. In many ways
they resembled their invaders: they were clansmen like the Arabs; their
political ideas were democratic like theirs, with the same reverence for
noble families, which took away the dangerous qualities of pure
democracy among an ignorant people. Their very manner of warfare was
almost Arab. For seventy years the two races of nomads fought together,
and when at last the Arabs obtained the upper hand, it was rather by
the acquiescence of their foes than by any distinct submission. The
Berbers permitted the Arab governor to hold his court near the coast,
but insisted on preserving their own tribal government among themselves,
and demanded to be treated as brothers, not as servants, by their
antagonists. This fraternal system worked fairly well for a time. The
Berbers, always a marvellously credulous people, were quick to accept
any new faith, and embraced Islam with a fervour far exceeding anything
the more sceptical mind of the Arab could evoke. Very soon Barbary
became the hotbed of religious nonconformity; the arid doctrines of
Islam were supplemented by those more mystical and emotional elements
which imaginative minds soon engraft upon any creed soever; and the
Mohammedan dissenter, expelled from the more rigid regions of orthodoxy,
found a singularly productive soil for his doctrines in the simple minds
of the Berbers. The same susceptibility to religious emotion, which had
produced so general a conversion that the conquest of Spain was effected
by a Berber general and twelve thousand Berber troops, soon led to
further movements. The _Marabout_--saint, missionary, or priest--came to
exercise a more potent influence over this credulous people than tribal
chief or Arab governor could ever acquire. It needed but a few mock
miracles to bring a host of gaping devotees about the shrine of the
_marabout_, and so clearly had an Arab general realized this condition
of popularity that, when he perceived the influence which a priestess
exercised over the people by her jugglery, the subtle Moslem set to
work in the same manner, and soon became an adept at legerdemain or
whatever corresponded to spirit-rapping in those days, with the very
best results. But a people so easily influenced by such means, a
priest-ridden nation, is always liable to sudden and violent
revolutions, which its priests can stimulate by a single word. The
_marabouts_ among the Berbers were responsible for most of the later
changes that took place in North Africa: they set up the Fatimites, sent
the Almoravides victorious through Barbary and Spain, and then put them
down by the Almohades. They began very early to work against the Arab
governors, and when one of these had indulged his passion for luxury at
the expense of a cruel oppression of his subjects, the priests set the
Berbers in revolt, and in a moment the whole of the western half of the
Mediterranean coast was up in arms, and the Arabs were terribly
defeated. Thirty thousand fresh troops were sent from Syria to recover
the provinces, but these, joined to the Arabs that still remained in
Africa, were repulsed with great slaughter, and the remnant were cooped
up in Ceuta, where they daily awaited famine and massacre.
The Berbers in Andalusia, always in intimate touch with their kinsmen
over the water, were quick to feel the influence of such a revolution as
was then (741) going forward in Africa. They had cause to grudge the
Arabs their lion's share of the spoils of Spain, which had been the
trophies of the Berbers' bow and spear. While the Arabs, who had only
arrived in time to reap the advantages of the conquest, had
appropriated all the most smiling provinces of the peninsula, the
Berbers found themselves relegated to the most unlovely parts, to the
dusty plains of Estremadura, or to the icy mountains of Leon, where they
had to contend with a climate which severely tried natures brought up in
African heats, and where, too, they had the doubtful privilege of
forming a buffer between their Arab allies and the Christians of the
North. Already there had been signs of disaffection. One of T[=a]rik's
Berber generals, Monousa, who had married a daughter of Eudes, Duke of
Aquitaine, raised the standard of revolt when he heard of the oppression
of his countrymen in Africa; and now, when the Berber cause was
triumphant across the Straits, a general rising took place among the
northern provinces; the Berbers of the borders, of Galicia, of Merida,
Coria, and all the region round about, took up arms, and began to march
south upon Toledo, Cordova, and Algeciras, whence they intended to take
ship and go to join their compatriots in Barbary.
The situation was full of peril, and the Arab Em[=i]r of Andalusia,
Abd-el-Melik, who had sternly refused to lend any assistance to the
Syrian Arabs shut up in Ceuta, now found himself in this dilemma, that
either he must submit to his own rebellious Berbers, or he must invite
the co-operation of the very Syrians whom he had persistently refused to
succour, and who, when they arrived, might possibly turn out to be a
worse plague than that they came to remove. In grave apprehension, he
sent ships and brought over the Syrians, after first making them promise
to go back when their work was done. Thus reinforced, the Arabs of
Andalusia put the Berbers to utter rout, hunted them like wild beasts
through the country to their mountain fastnesses, and gratified their
vengeance to the full. And then the event which Abd-el-Melik had
endeavoured to guard against came to pass. The Syrian auxiliaries
refused to exchange the rich lands of Andalusia for the deserts of
Africa and the spears of triumphant Berbers; they defied and murdered
Abd-el-Melik, and set up their own chief in his stead. The result was a
long and obstinate struggle between the old Arab party and the
new-comers, accompanied by much bloodshed and devastation. The struggle
was only decided when the Khalif of Damascus sent over a new and able
governor, who divided the hostile factions by giving them settlements in
cities far apart from each other, and banished the more turbulent of
their leaders. Thus the Egyptian contingent of the Syrian army was
settled in Murcia, which they re-christened "Misr" or Egypt; the men of
Palestine at Sidonia and Algeciras; the people of the Jordan at Regio
(Malaga), those of Damascus in Elvira (Granada), and the battalion of
Kinnesrin at Jaen.[9] From this time one of the causes of faction in
Andalusia was removed, but party spirit still ran high, and government
was often changed to anarchy, until a ruler armed with peculiar
prestige, carrying in his person the authority and blood of the Khalifs
of Damascus, came to take into his hands the sceptre of the disturbed
country and to unite for awhile all factions under the standard of the
Sultan of Cordova. This young man was the new ruler whom Charlemagne had
so unsuccessfully come to expel, and his name was Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n the
Omeyyad.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
IV.
A YOUNG PRETENDER.
For six hundred years the greater part of the Mohammedan Empire was
nominally under the authority of a central ruler called a Khalif, a
title which signifies a "successor" or "substitute." At first this
authority was real and powerful: the Khalif appointed the governors of
all the provinces, from Spain to the borders of the Hindu Kush, and
removed any of them at his pleasure. But the empire was too large to
hold together round a central pivot for any length of time, and
gradually various local governors made themselves virtually independent,
although they generally professed the utmost devotion to the Khalif and
paid him every honour except obedience. By degrees even this show of
respect was thrown off, and dynasties arose which espoused heretical
tenets, repudiated the spiritual supremacy of the Khalif, and denounced
him and all his line as usurpers. Finally the time came when the Khalifs
were as weak in temporal authority as the Pope of Rome, and were even
kept prisoners in their palace by the mercenary body-guard they had
hired to protect them against their rebellious nobles. This took place
about three hundred years after the foundation of the Khalifate; and
for the second half of their existence the Khalifs were little more than
ciphers to be played with by the great princes of the empire and to
contribute a little pomp to their coronations. Finally the Khalifate was
abolished in Asia by the Mongol invasion in the thirteenth century, and
though the title is still claimed by the Sultan of Turkey, there is no
Khalif now in the old comprehensive sense of the word.[10]
The earliest province to shake off the authority of the Khalif was
Andalusia. To understand how this happened, we must remember that the
Khalifs did not succeed one another in one unbroken line of family
inheritance. After the first four (or "orthodox") Khalifs, Abu-Bekr,
Omar, Othm[=a]n, and Aly, who were elected more or less by popular vote,
the Syrian party set up Mo[=a]wia as Khalif at Damascus, and from him
sprang the family of the Omeyyad Khalifs, so called from their ancestor
Omeyya. There were fourteen Omeyyad Khalifs, who reigned from 661 to
750, when they were deposed by Es-Seff[=a]h, "the Butcher," who was the
first of the second dynasty of Khalifs, called Abb[=a]side, after their
ancestor Abb[=a]s, an uncle of the Prophet Mohammed. The Abb[=a]side Khalifs
transferred the seat of government from Damascus to Baghdad, and held
the Khalifate until its destruction by the Mongols in 1258. Among the
members of the deposed family of the Omeyyads was Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n, a name
which means "Servant of the Merciful God." Most of his relations were
exterminated by the ruthless Abb[=a]side; they were hunted down in all
parts of the world and slain without mercy. Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n fled like the
rest, but with better fortune, for he reached the banks of the Euphrates
in safety. One day, as he sat in his tent watching his little boy
playing outside, the child ran to him in affright, and, going out to
discover the cause, Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n saw the village in confusion, and the
black standards of the Abb[=a]sides on the horizon. Hastily seizing up his
child, the young prince rushed out of the village, and reached the
river. Here the enemy almost came up with them, and called out that they
need have no fear, for no injury would be done to them. A young brother,
who had accompanied him, and who was exhausted with swimming, turned
back and his head was immediately severed from his body; but
Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n held on till he reached the other side, bearing his child,
and followed by his servant Bedr. Once more on firm earth, they
journeyed night and day till they came to Africa, where the rest of his
family joined them, and the sole survivor of the Omeyyad princes had
leisure to think of his future.
He was but twenty years of age, and full of hope and ambition. His
mental powers were considerable, and to these he added the advantages of
a noble stature and great physical energy and courage. The Arab
historians, however, add the unfavourable details that he was blind of
one eye and devoid of the sense of smell. In his childhood wise men had
predicted great things of his future, and in spite of the ruin of his
family he was not yet daunted. His first thoughts turned to Africa; for
he clearly perceived that the success of the Abb[=a]sides had left him no
chance in the East. But after five years of wandering about the Barbary
coast he realized that the Arab governor was not easily to be
overturned, and that the already revolted Berbers in the West would not
willingly surrender their newly-won independence for the empty glory of
being ruled by an Omeyyad. His glance, therefore, was now directed
towards Andalusia, where the various factions, in their perpetual
strife, offered an opening to any clever pretender, and much more to one
who could bring such hereditary claims as Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n. He therefore
sent his servant Bedr to the chiefs of the Syrian party in Spain, among
whom many were freedmen of the Omeyyads and were thus bound by the Arab
code of honour to succour any relation of their former patrons. Bedr
found these chiefs willing to receive the young prince, and, after some
negotiation with the hostile factions, the support of the men from the
Yemen was also promised. Upon this Bedr returned to Africa.
Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n was saying his prayers on the seashore when he saw the
vessel approaching which brought him the good news; and, prone as all
Easterns are to draw omens from insignificant circumstances, the name of
the first envoy from Andalusia who was presented to him, Abu-Gh[=a]lib
Temm[=a]m (which means Father of Conquest Attainment) suggested a happy
fate: "We shall _attain_ our object," cried the prince, "and _conquer_
the land!" Without delay he stepped on board, and they sailed for Spain
in September, 755. The coming of the survivor of the Omeyyads to
Andalusia was like a page of romance, like the arrival of the Young
Pretender in Scotland in 1745. The news spread like a conflagration
through the land; the old adherents of the royal family hurried to pay
him homage; the descendants of the Omeyyad freedmen put themselves under
his orders. Even the Yemen clans, though they could not be expected to
feel any peculiar sentiment for the young prince, were sufficiently
infected by the zeal of his adherents to keep to their promise and band
together for his support. The Governor of Andalusia found himself
deserted by most of his troops and forced to wait for a new army; and
meanwhile the winter rains made a campaign impossible, and left
Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n leisure to recruit and organize his forces.
In the spring of the following year the struggle began in earnest.
Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n was received with enthusiasm at Archidona and Seville, and
thence prepared to march on Cordova. Y[=u]suf, the governor, advanced to
resist him, but the Guadalquivir was swollen with rains, and the two
armies, on opposite banks, raced with each other who should first arrive
at Cordova. At length Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n, by means of a deceitful stratagem,
unworthy of a prince of romance, induced Y[=u]suf to let him cross the now
falling river under pretext of peace; and once on the other side, he
fell upon the unsuspecting enemy. Victory declared itself for the
prince, and he entered Cordova in triumph. He had the grace to exert
himself to arrest the plundering passions of his troops, and to place
the har[=i]m or women-folk of the ex-governor in safety. Before the year
was out he was master of all the Mohammedan part of Spain, and the
dynasty of the Omeyyads of Cordova, destined to endure for nearly three
centuries, was established.[11]