struggle. Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n had indeed been placed on the throne, but the
feat had been accomplished by a small faction out of the numerous
parties that divided the land. The new Sultan was, however, better able
than most princes to hold his own amidst the striving elements of his
kingdom. Prompt and decisive in action, troubled by few scruples, by
turns terribly severe and perfidiously diplomatic, his policy was always
equal to an emergency; and there were not a few occasions on which it
was put to the test. He had not been long in Andalusia when Ibn-Mugh[=i]th
sailed from Africa to set up the black standards of the Abb[=a]sides in
Spain. He landed in the province of Beja, and soon found supporters
among the disaffected, always ready to join in some new thing.
Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n was besieged for two months in Carmona. The situation was
perilous in the extreme, for every day gave the enemy more opportunity
of increasing their forces. Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n, ever full of resource,
hearing that the enemy had somewhat relaxed their precautions, gathered
together seven hundred of his bravest followers, kindled a great fire,
and, saying that it was now a question of death or victory, flung his
scabbard into the flames. The seven hundred followed his example, in
token of their resolution never to sheathe their swords again till they
were free, and, sallying out after their leader, fell upon the besiegers
tooth and nail. The Abb[=a]side invasion was utterly annihilated.
Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n, with the ferocity that occasionally disfigured him, put
their leaders' heads in a bag, with descriptive labels attached to their
ears, and confided the precious parcel to a pilgrim bound for Mekka, by
whom it was put into the hands of the Abb[=a]side Khalif Mans[=u]r himself.
When the Khalif had seen the contents of the bag, he was very wroth; but
he could not help exclaiming, "Thank God there is a sea between that man
and me!" While cordially detesting the successful Sultan of Cordova, his
Abb[=a]side foe was forced to render homage to his skill and courage. He
called Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n "the hawk of the Koreysh," the falcon of the
Prophet's own tribe. "Wonderful," he would exclaim, "is the daring,
wisdom, and prudence, he has shown! To enter the paths of destruction,
throw himself into a distant land, hard to approach, and well defended;
there to profit by the jealousies of the rival parties, to make them
turn their arms against one another instead of against himself; to win
the homage and obedience of his subjects; and, having overcome every
difficulty, to rule supreme lord of all! Of a truth, no man before him
has done this!"
The defeat of the Abb[=a]side invasion was followed by other successes on
the part of the new Sultan. He induced the people of Toledo, who had
long held out against him, to consent to a peace and deliver up their
chiefs; and the leaders were grossly humiliated and then crucified. The
chief of the Yemenite faction proving dangerous, Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n gave him
a safe-conduct, and thus enticed him into his palace, where he tried to
stab him with his own hand, but finding the Arab too vigorous, called in
the guard and had him assassinated. Almost immediately, a great revolt
of the Berbers of the northern borders occurred. Ten years were occupied
in reducing them to obedience, and meanwhile the Yemenites, burning with
vengeance for the murder of their chief, took advantage of the Sultan's
absence in the north to rise. They had not yet realized the energy or
the astuteness of the man. He had already set the revolted Berbers by
the ears by playing upon their petty jealousies; and he now exerted his
diplomacy to breed discord among the Yemenites. He tampered with the
Berbers who formed a large part of their army, so that they deserted in
the midst of the fray, and Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n's soldiers fell upon the flying
multitude, until thirty thousand bodies lay on the field: their huge
grave long remained a sight to be seen by the curious. Then followed
that formidable coalition between three disaffected Arab chiefs and
Charlemagne, which was so near destroying the fabric that Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n
had painfully built up, but collapsed before Zaragoza and at
Roncesvalles without a single blow from the very person they had
assembled to destroy.
Henceforward the Sultan was allowed to enjoy in comparative peace the
fruits of his victories. He had subdued all the hostile elements in
Spain to his iron will; he had cast down the proud Arab chiefs who had
dared to measure swords with him; he had massacred, or assassinated, the
leaders of rebellion, and had proved himself master of the position. But
tyranny, cruel and perfidious as his, brings its own punishment. The
tyrant may force the submission, but he cannot compel the devotion of
his people, and the empire that is won by the sword must be sustained by
the same weapon. Honest men refused to enter into the service of a lord
who could betray and slay as did this Sultan; his old supporters, those
who had first welcomed him to Spain, now turned coldly away when they
saw the tyrant in his naked cruelty; his own relations, who had flocked
over to his Court, as an asylum from the Abb[=a]sides, found his despotism
so intolerable that they plotted again and again to depose him, with the
inevitable result of losing their heads. Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n was left in
mournful solitude. His old friends had deserted him; his enemies, though
helpless, cursed him none the less; his very kinsmen and servants turned
against him. It was partly that the long war with faction had spoilt a
fine nature; partly that the character was relentless. No longer could
he mingle as before in the crowds that thronged the streets of Cordova;
suspicious of every one, wrapped in gloomy thoughts and distracted by
bloody memories, he rode through the streets surrounded by a strong
guard of foreigners. Forty thousand Africans, whose devotion to their
paymaster was equalled by their hatred of the whole population whom they
repressed, formed the Sultan's protection against the people whom he
ground under his heel. In his desolation he wrote a poem on a palm which
he transplanted from the land of his ancestors--for, like most
Andalusian Arabs, he was something of a poet--in which he compassionated
the tree for its exile: "Like me, thou art separated from relations and
friends; thou didst grow in a different soil, and now thou art far from
the land of thy birth." He had accomplished the object which he had set
before himself in the days of his young ambition, when he came a
stranger and alone to subdue a kingdom: he had brought the Arabs and
Berbers into subjection, and restored order and peace in the land; but
he had done it all at the expense of his subjects' hearts. The handsome
youth who had come like "the young chevalier" to win the homage and
devotion of the Spanish Arabs, after thirty-two years went down to his
grave a detested tyrant, upheld in his blood-stained throne only by the
swords of mercenaries whose loyalty was purchased by gold. He had
inaugurated the sway of the sword in Spain, and his successors would
have to maintain the principle. As the great historian of the Moors has
observed, it is not easy to see by what other means the turbulent
factions of Arabs and Berbers were to be kept in order, or how anarchy
was to be averted without severe measures of repression: neither of
these races was accustomed to monarchy. Nevertheless a tyranny so
sustained formed a melancholy spectacle, despite all the glories and
triumphs that illumined it.
An ancient Arab historian, Ibn-Hayy[=a]n, gives the following portrait of
the first Sultan of Cordova: "Abd-er-Rahman was kind-hearted and well
disposed to mercy. He was eloquent in his speech, and endowed with a
quick perception. He was very slow in his determinations, but constant
and persevering in carrying them into effect. He was active and
stirring; he would never lie in repose, or abandon himself to
indulgence. He never entrusted the affairs of government to any one, but
administered them himself; yet he never failed to consult in cases of
difficulty the men of wisdom and experience. He was a brave and intrepid
warrior, always the first in the battle-field; terrible in his anger,
and intolerant of opposition: his countenance inspired awe in those who
approached him, friends and foes alike. He was wont to follow biers and
pray over the dead, and in the mosque on Fridays he would often enter
the pulpit and address the people. He visited the sick, and mixed with
the people in their rejoicings." This is doubtless the young
Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n, before opposition and conspiracy had made him suspicious
and cruel. Power has often a terrible manner of punishing its
possessors.
[Illustration: THE BRIDGE OF CORDOVA.]
The usual question that is asked, when a despot dies, is, Who will
succeed him? And the common answer is, Revolution and anarchy. A throne
that is set upon steel edges does not readily pass from father to son.
Yet the dynasty of Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n did not collapse with the death of its
despotic founder. It was to be expected that the many hostile forces
which he had with difficulty restrained, when released by his death,
would have sprung into redoubled activity. Such, however, was not the
case. Partly because he had too thoroughly terrified the people for
them easily to recover their courage, and partly because in his
successor they recognized the very antithesis of his father--a prince to
be loved and honoured--the people remained quiet for some years. Hish[=a]m,
who in 788 succeeded his father, at the age of thirty, was a model of
all the virtues; and, as if to make sure that he should practise them
with assiduity during his brief reign, an astrologer predicted that he
had but eight years to live. The Sultan naturally devoted this short
space to preparing for the next world. In his youth his palace had been
filled with men of science, poets, and sages; and the boy was father of
the man. His acts of piety were numberless, and in him the indigent and
the persecuted had a sure refuge. He would send trusty emissaries into
all parts of his dominions to seek out wrong-doing and repress it, and
to further the cause of righteousness. He had the streets patrolled at
night to prevent riotous and vicious conduct; and the fines they levied
on the evildoers were distributed among those good souls whom rain and
cold could not deter from attending the mosques at night-time. The
Sultan himself visited the sick, and would often go forth on stormy
nights to carry food to some pious invalid and to watch beside his
bedside. With all this he was no poltroon. He would lead his armies
against the Christians of the North, like the thoroughbred Arab he was;
and, though the people affectionately dubbed him "The Amiable" and "The
Just," he could show sufficient firmness when his reign was menaced by
the conspiracies of his uncles. He increased the number of his maml[=u]ks,
or body-guard, and a thousand of them were always on duty day and night
on both sides of the river to protect his palace. He was a huntsman; yet
so scrupulous was he that when he rebuilt the bridge of Cordova, which
still stands to this day, hearing that his subjects murmured that he
only built this great work to make his hunting parties more convenient,
he vowed he would never cross it again; and he never did. Before the
eight years had quite expired, this exemplary prince was gathered to his
well-earned paradise; and then it became apparent that his very goodness
had but served to stir up a new factor of rebellion in the State.
This new danger was the power of the Mohammedan priests. The term is
hardly an accurate one, for in Islam there is no priesthood in the
strict sense of Catholic Christianity. The men who recite the prayers
and preach the weekly sermons in the mosques are laymen taken from their
shops or other occupations, and appointed for the time to lead the
congregations. There is no distinction between laic and cleric in Islam.
Nevertheless, there is something which tallies more or less with what we
mean by a priesthood. There is always in Mohammedan countries a body of
men whose lives are specially devoted to religion; they may be dervishes
with peculiar rites, or they may be merely theological students, pupils
of some renowned teacher, whose doctrine fills them with unwonted zeal
and enthusiasm; they may be reciters of the Koran, or school-masters.
Such a body is found throughout the Moslem world, and it has to be
reckoned with in every Mohammedan country. The students of the Azhar
mosque at Cairo, the Softas of Constantinople, the Mullas of many an
Eastern city, have shown what the force of fanaticism can avail in times
of excitement. In Andalusia this power was now about to be displayed.
The first rebellion after Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n's death came from the least
expected quarter; not from the Christians, nor from any special
political party of Arabs or of Berbers, but from the devout sons of
Islam, the theological students of Cordova.
These students were largely composed of renegades, or the sons of
renegades. It has already been seen that the Spaniards cheerfully
adopted Islam, and, like most converts, became more Moslem than the
Moslems themselves. Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n was far too wise, and also far too
worldly, to permit the theologians--especially those of Spanish
blood--any preponderating influence in his kingdom; but the pious Hish[=a]m
neither saw the danger, nor, had he perceived it, would have regarded it
as a danger at all. He loved to place his confidence in holy men, whose
conduct was dictated by the strict observance of their religion, and in
whom he failed to detect the germs of common worldly ambition and love
of power. It happened, too, that at this time the theologians were
headed by a singularly gifted and active mind, a favourite pupil of one
of the lights of the Holy City Medina, where the Arabian Prophet was
buried, and a man whose soul was devoured by that mixture of religious
fervour and political ambition which has so often made havoc of nations.
This doctor, Yahya, profited by the devotion and piety of Hish[=a]m to
raise the theologians of Cordova to a height of influence and power that
might have made his shrewd father, Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n, turn in his grave. So
long, indeed, as they had their own way, all went well. But in 796, when
the good Hish[=a]m departed in the odour of sanctity, a complete change
came over the Court. The new Sultan, Hakam, was not indifferent to
religion or in any way a reprobate; but he was gay and sociable, and
enjoyed life as it came to him, without the slightest leaning towards
asceticism. Such a character was wholly objectionable to the bigoted
doctors of theology. They spoke of the Sultan with pious horror,
publicly prayed for his conversion, and even reviled and insulted him to
his face. Finding him incurable in his levity, they plotted to set up
another member of his family on the throne. The conspiracy failed, and
many of the leading nobles, who had joined in the plot, together with a
number of fanatical doctors, were crucified. Undeterred by this, in 806
the people, stirred up by the bigots, rose again, only to be as
summarily repressed as before. Even the terrible fate of the nobles of
Toledo,--who had rebelled, as was their wont, and were at this time
treacherously inveigled into the hands of the Crown Prince and massacred
to a man,--did not deter the Cordovans from another revolt.
For seven years, indeed, the memory of the "Day of the Foss," as the
massacre at Toledo was called, kept the fanatics of Cordova within
bounds; but as the recollection of that fearful hole into which the
murdered bodies of all the nobility of Toledo had been cast, grew
fainter, there were symptoms of a fresh insurrection at the capital.
Popular feeling ran very high, not only against the Sultan, because he
would not wear sackcloth and ashes or pretend to be an ascetic, but
still more against his large body-guard of "Mutes," so called because,
being negroes and the like, they could not speak Arabic. The Mutes dared
not venture in the streets of Cordova except in numbers; a single
soldier was sure to be mobbed, and might be murdered. One day a wanton
blow struck by a member of the guard roused the whole people. They
rushed with one accord to the palace, led by the thousands of
theological students who inhabited the southern suburb of the city, and
seemed bent on carrying it by assault in spite of its fortifications and
garrison. The Sultan Hakam looked forth over the sea of faces, and
watched with consternation the devoted mob repulsing the charge of his
tried cavalry; but even in this hour of desperate peril he did not lose
the _sang-froid_ which is the birthright of great men. Retiring to his
hall, he told his page Hyacinth to bring him a bottle of civet, with
which he proceeded calmly to perfume his hair and beard. The page could
not repress his astonishment at such an occupation, when the cruel mob
was even then battering at the gates; but Hakam, who was fully aware of
his danger, replied: "Silence, rascal! How do you suppose the rebels
would be able to find out my head among the rest, if it were not
distinguished by its sweet odour?" He then summoned his officers, and
took his measures for the defence. These were simple enough; but they
proved effectual. He despatched his cousin with a force of cavalry, by a
roundabout way, to the southern suburb, which he set in flames, and when
the people turned back in terror from the besieged palace to rescue
their wives and children from their burning homes, Hakam and the rest of
the garrison fell on them in the rear. Attacked on both hands, the
unfortunate rebels were cut to pieces; the grim Mutes rode through them,
slashing them down by the hundred, and disregarding, if they understood,
their prayers for mercy. Hakam's manoeuvre saved the palace and the
dynasty; and the insurrection was converted into a wholesale
massacre.[12]
Yet in the moment of his triumph the Sultan stayed his hand; he did not
press his victory to the last limits, but was content with ordering the
destruction of the rebellious suburb and the exile of its inhabitants,
who were forced to fly, some to Alexandria, to the number of fifteen
thousand, besides women and children, whence they eventually crossed to
Crete; others, eight thousand in all, to Fez, in Africa. The majority of
the exiles were descendants of the old Spanish population, who had
embraced Islam, but were glad of a pretext to assert their racial
antipathy for the Arab rule. The chief offenders, the _fakis_, or
theological students, however, were left unpunished, partly, no doubt,
because many of them were Arabs, and partly in deference to their
profession of orthodoxy. To one of their leaders, who was dragged before
Hakam, and who told the Sultan, in the heat of his fanatical rage, that
in hating his king he was obeying the voice of God, Hakam made the
memorable reply: "He who commanded thee, as thou dost pretend, to hate
me, commands me to pardon thee. Go and live, in God's protection!"
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
V.
THE CHRISTIAN MARTYRS.
[Illustration: MOORISH IVORY CASKET OF THE 11TH CENTURY IN THE CATHEDRAL
OF PAMPLONA.]
The Sultan Hakam died in 822, after a reign of twenty-six years. He left
a comparatively tranquil inheritance to his son Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n II.; the
renegades of Cordova had been subdued and exiled, the bigots had been
given a lesson that they were not likely to forget, and there only
remained the chronic disturbances on the Christian borders to be
occasionally repressed. Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n II. inherited his father's talent
for enjoyment, but not that strength of character by which
self-indulgence was preserved from degenerating into weakness. The new
Sultan converted Cordova into a second Baghdad, and imitated the
prodigalities of the great Har[=u]n-er-Rash[=i]d, who had recently left the
scene of his fantastic amusements for, let us hope, a better world.
Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n built palaces, laid out gardens, and beautified his
capital with mosques, mansions, and bridges. Like all cultivated Moslem
sovereigns, he was a lover of poetry, and claimed to be no mean poet
himself, though his verses were sometimes written by other pens whom he
paid to compose for him. His tastes were refined, and his nature was
gentle and easily led. Four people ruled him throughout his career:
one was a singer, the second a theologian, the third a woman, and the
fourth a black slave. The most influential of these was the theologian
Yahya, the same who had before stirred up the students against Hakam,
and who now acquired an absolute ascendency over the mind of the new
Sultan. The Queen Tar[=u]b and the slave Nasr, however, exercised no light
authority in political matters; but the singer Ziry[=a]b confined his
interest to matters of taste and culture, and refused to meddle in the
vulgar strife of politics. He was a Persian, and had been a pupil of the
famous musician of Baghdad, Isaac the Mosilite, until one day he had the
misfortune to excel his master in a performance before the Khalif Har[=u]n,
and had immediately afterwards been offered by the jealous Mosilite the
choice of death or banishment. He accepted the latter; and, arriving in
Spain, was received with effusion by the cultivated Sultan, who assigned
him a handsome pension, supplies of food, houses, and other privileges
and allowances, so that the fortunate singer counted an immense income.
So delighted was the Sultan with Ziry[=a]b's talents that he would seat him
beside him, and share his meals with him, and would listen for hours to
his songs and to the wonderful tales he could tell of bygone times, and
the wise sayings he could relate from his boundless stores of reading.
He knew more than a thousand songs by heart, each with its separate
tune, which he said the spirits of the air taught him; he added a fifth
string to the lute, and his style of playing was quite unlike any one
else's, so that people who had heard him would listen to none other
afterwards. He had a curious way with his musical pupils. He used to
make the would-be singer sit down and try to sing his loudest. If the
voice was weak, he told him to tie a band round his waist to increase
the volume of sound; if he stammered or had any defect in his speech,
Ziry[=a]b made him keep a piece of wood in his mouth till his jaws were
properly stretched. After this, if the novice could shout _Ah_ at the
top of his voice, and keep the sound sustained, he took him as a pupil
and trained him carefully; if not, he dismissed him.[13] Never was any
one so polished, so witty, so entertaining as Ziry[=a]b; he soon became the
most popular man in Andalusia, and held the position of arbiter of
fashion, like Petronius or Beau Brummell. He made the people change
their manner of wearing their hair. He introduced asparagus and
force-meat balls to Andalusia, and a dish was long afterwards known as
"Ziry[=a]b's fricassee." He set the example of drinking out of glass
vessels instead of metal, of sleeping on leather beds, dining off
leather mats, and a host of other refinements; while he insisted on a
careful gradation of clothes, diminishing by slow degrees from the thick
of winter to the thin of summer, instead of the abrupt change which the
people had hitherto made. Whatever he prescribed, the fashionable world
followed; there was nothing that this delightful epicure could not
persuade them to think both necessary and charming.