Tarik and his twelve thousand Berbers,[A] or Moors, had at one stroke
won the Spanish Peninsula. The banner of the Prophet waved over every
one of the ancient and famous cities in Andalusia, and the turbaned
army had marched through the stubborn north as far as the Spanish
border. As Musa, intoxicated with success, stood at last upon the
Pyrenees, he saw before him a vision of a subjugated Europe. The
banner of the Prophet should wave from the Pyrenees to the Baltic! A
mosque should stand where St. Peter's now stands in Rome! So, step
by step, the Moslems pressed up into Gaul, and in 732 their army had
reached Tours.
It was a moment of supreme peril for Christendom. But, happily,
the Franks had what the Goths had not--a great leader. Charles
Martel,--then _Maire du Palais_, and virtually King of France, instead
of the feeble Lothair,--led his Franks into what was to be one of the
most decisive of the world's battles; a battle which would determine
whether Europe should be Christian or Mahommedan.
The tide of infidel invasion had reached its limits. The strong right
arm of Charles dealt such ponderous blows that the Moslems broke in
confusion, and this savior of Christendom was thenceforth known as
Charles Martel: "Karl of the Hammer."
After this crushing disaster at Tours the Moors realized that they
were not invincible. Their vaulting ambition did not again try to
overleap the Pyrenees; and they addressed themselves to settling
affairs in their new territory.
It has been wisely said that if the Mahommedan state had been confined
within the borders of Arabia, it would speedily have collapsed. Islam
became a world-wide religion when it clothed itself with armor, and
became a church militant. It was _conquest_ which saved the faith of
the Prophet. In its home in Asia the Empire of Mahommed was composed
of hostile tribes and clans, and as it moved westward it gathered up
Syrians, Egyptians, and the Berbers on the African coast, who, when
Morocco was reached, were known as Moors. This strange, heterogeneous
mass of humanity, all nourished from Arabia, was held together by two
things: the _Koran_ and the _sword_.
When conquest was exchanged for peaceful possession, all the
internecine jealousies, the tribal feuds, and old hatreds burst forth,
and the first fifty years of Moorish rule in Spain was a period of
internal strife and disorder--Arabs and Moors were jealously trying to
undermine each other; while the Arabs themselves were torn by factions
representing rival clans in Damascus.
But a singular clemency was shown toward the conquered Spaniards.
They were permitted to retain their own law and judges, and their own
governors administered the affairs of the districts and collected the
taxes. The rule of the conquering race bore upon the people actually
less heavily than had the old Gothic rule. Jews and Christians alike
were free to worship whom or what they pleased; but, at the same time,
great benefits were bestowed upon those who would accept the religion
of the Prophet. The slave class, which was very large and had suffered
terrible cruelties under its old masters, was treated with especial
mildness and humanity. There was a simple road to freedom opened to
every man. He had only to say, "There is one God, and Mahommed is his
Prophet," and on the instant he became a freeman!
Such gentle proselytizing as this speedily won converts, not alone
among slaves but from all classes. The pacification of Spain by the
Romans had required centuries; while only a few years sufficed to make
of the vanquished in the southern provinces, a contented and almost
happy people; not only reconciled, but even glad of the change of
masters. Never was Andalusia so mildly, justly, and wisely governed as
by her Arab conquerors.
The most delicate of all problems is that of dealing with a conquered
race in its own land. That this should have been so wisely and so
skillfully handled would be incomprehensible if this had been really,
what it is always called, a Moorish conquest. But to be accurate, it
was a Moorish invasion and a Saracen conquest!
The fierce Berber Moor contributed the brute force, which was wielded
by Saracen intelligence.
The Saracens were the leaven which penetrated the whole sodden mass
of Mahommedanism. With a civilization which had been ripening for
centuries under Oriental skies,--rich in wisdom, learning, culture,
science, and in art,--they had come into Europe, infidels though they
were, to build up and not to destroy.
The Roman conquest of Spain had civilized a barbarous race. The Gothic
conquest of Romanized Spain had converted an effete civilization into
a strong semi-barbarism. Now again the Saracen had come from the East
to convert a semi-barbarism into a civilization richer than any Spain
had yet known, and, more than that, to hold up a torch of learning
and enlightenment which should illumine Europe in the days of darkness
which were at hand. Although this difference between Arab and Moor
primarily existed, they became fused, and we shall speak of them only
as Moors. But we should not lose sight of the fact that the superior
intelligence which made the Moorish kingdom magnificent was from the
land of the Prophet.
The Saracen dealt gently with the conquered Spaniard, not because his
heart was tender and kind, but because he was crafty and wise, and
knew when not to use force, in order to accomplish his ends. For
the same reason he refrained from trying to break the spirit of the
independent northern provinces, where the descendants of the old
Visigoths--the Hidalgos ("sons-of-somebody")--proudly intrenched
themselves in an attitude of defiance, making in time a clearly
defined Christian north and Moslem south, with a mountain range (the
Sierra Guadarrama) and a river (the Ebro) as the natural boundary
line of the two territories. The Moor was a child of the sun. If the
stubborn Goth chose to sulk, up among the chilly heights and on the
bleak plains of the north, he might do so, and it was little matter
if one Alfonso called himself "King of the Asturians," in that
mountain-defended and sea-girt province. The fertile plains of
Andalusia, and the banks of the Tagus and Guadalquivir, were all of
Spain the Moor wanted for the wonderful kingdom which was to be the
marvel of the Middle Ages.
[Footnote A: The old Phenician name for the North African tribes,
derived from the word Iberi.]