The Moors at Cordoba
At Cordoba we come upon the full splendour of the Moors, a whole world
of chivalry, _jonglerie_, magic, and song, from the old East, their
home. What noble devotion to their race! What unalterable faith! What
generous courage in life, and silent constancy in death! What knowledge,
could we but grasp it!
We know but what is left to us of their outward life in Andalusia and
Granada. Their exquisite sense of proportion and colour, in palaces
vermilion walled and vocal with many waters; the massive grandeur of
barbicans of defence, the sensuous charm of lace-covered chambers and
gigantic leap of arch, tower, and minaret, destined to live as their
mark for ever.
Their whole existence in Spain is a romance anomalous but dazzling; a
nation within a nation, never amalgamated; a people without a country; a
wave of the great Moslem invasion cast into Europe; a brilliant
phantasmagoria, various and rare!
The Moors took no solid root in Spain as the
[Illustration: PANTEON DE LOS REYES, THE BURIAL PLACE OF THE ANCIENT
KINGS OF LEON.]
Saxons in England or the Arabs in Sicily, but lived as an exotic race,
divided from the Christians and from the Jews by impassable barriers of
religious customs and laws; their occupation but a long chivalric
struggle for a foothold in the land they had _gained_ but never
conquered.
Not all the fiery valour of the African was proof against the obstinate
resistance of the Goths. Never was defence more complete! In the midst
of apparent victory loomed defeat!
A new era opens in Cordoba, with its million inhabitants and three
hundred mosques, in the reign of the Caliph Abdurraman, of the race of
the Ummaÿa, who overthrew the rival princes sent by the Sultan of
Damascus.
After him from A.D. 756 to A.D. 1000, ten independent sultans reigned in
Cordoba, their wealth and luxury like the record of a tale.
Most notable among these were three other Abdurramans, Hakin, surnamed
“the bookworm,” Hisham, and Hazin, not to forget the great Sultan and
statesman Almanzor, a Moorish Lorenzo de’ Medici, collecting books all
over the world, and drawing learned men to his court even from remote
Britain.
While the north, in perpetual warfare, was plunged in the darkness of
the Middle Ages, solid learning, poetry, and elegant literature charmed
the minds of the enlightened Moors, the pioneers of civilisation in
Europe.
At Cordoba Averroës, the great Grecian scholar, translated and
expounded Aristotle. Ben Zaid and Abdulmander wrote histories of the
people at Malaga. Ibn el Baal searched the mountains and plains to
perfect a knowledge of botany; the Jew Tudela was the successor of Galen
and Hippocrates; Albucaris is remembered as a notable surgeon, some of
whose operations coincide with modern practice; and Al Rasi and his
school studied chemistry and rhetoric.
Not only at Cordoba, but at Seville, and later at Granada, colleges and
schools were endowed, and libraries founded in which the higher sciences
were taught, which drew the erudite of the Moslem world from all parts
of the globe, and became the resort of Christian students anxious to
instruct themselves in superior knowledge.
And Christian knights came also to perfect themselves in chivalric
fashions and martial exercises, as well as to master the graceful
evolutions of the “tilt of reeds” in the tourneys of the Moors.
From the court of the first Abdurraman came _la gaya ciencia_, poetic
discussions of love and chivalry transplanted later to the Court of
Provence.
In architecture no building that ever was erected can compare to the
elegance of his Mesquita (come down to us almost entire) as a monument
of the taste and culture of the age. The most mystic and astounding of
temples, with innumerable aisles of double horseshoe arches, suspended
like ribbons in mid-air, resting on pillars of jasper, _pavonazzo_,
porphyry, and verd antique crossing and re-crossing each other in a
giddy maze of immeasurable distances, red, yellow, green, and white
dazzling the eye in a very rainbow of colour!
No windows are visible, and the light, weird and grim, comes as from a
cave peopled by demons; no central space at all, but vistas of endless
arcades, which for a time the eye follows assiduously, then turns
confused, and the brain reels.
Deep hidden in the heart of the temple is the throne or _macsurah_, a
marvel of embroidered stone, where the Sultan takes his seat. Here the
Koran is read in the pale light of scented tapers and torches, and those
ecstatic visions evoked by the Faithful of a sensual paradise of
dark-haired houris.
Opposite is the Zeca, or holiest of holies, turned towards Mecca, where
the gorgeous decorations of the East blend with Byzantine mosaics of
vivid colours on a gold ground; a most lovely shrine, a great marble
conch-shell for the roof, the sides dazzling with burnished gold, and
round and round, deep in the pavement, the footprints of centuries of
pilgrims.
Such is the Mesquita of Cordoba in our day, the desecrated shelter of an
old faith, a sanctuary rifled, a mystery revealed!
* * * * *
But how glorious in the time of the great Abdurraman when the blaze of a
thousand coloured lanterns, fed with perfumed oil, played like gems
upon jewelled surfaces, vases, and censers filled with musk and attar,
making the air heavy with fragrance, golden candelabra blazing among
mosaics, crescent banners floating beside the _almimbar_ or pulpit,
where green-turbaned Almuedans mount to intone the Selan, as the Sultan
emerges from a subterranean passage leading from the Alcazar, treading
on Persian carpets sown with jewels, to take his place on a golden
throne within the _macsurah_, surrounded by swarthy Africans, bare-armed
Berbers, helmeted knights bristling with scimitars, Numidians with
fringed head-bands and golden armlets, superb Emirs, wandering
Kalenders, who live by magic, the dervish of the desert, and hoary
Imaums in full gathered robes.
Then the talismanic words are heard from the open galleries of the
Giralda from which the Muezzin calls to daily prayer: “There is no God
but Allah, and Mahomet is his prophet.” To which the prostrate multitude
echoes: “God is great,” each one striking the pavement with his
forehead, and the sonorous chant answers, “Amen.”
* * * * *
When Abdurraman reigned, the lonely quarter beyond the Mesquita swarmed
with Alcazars, Bazars, Cuartos, Zacatines, Baños, and Alamedas.
Three miles to the north, sheltered under the green heights of the
Sierra Morena, rose the plaisance of Medina-a-Zehra, created by him, a
_congerie_ of kiosks and pavilions entered by gates of blue and yellow
porcelain, overtopping woods of exotic shrubs, choice plants, and rare
fruit-trees--here the Safary peach (nectarine) was first ripened in
Europe--divided by the fountains, canals, and fish-ponds so dear to the
Arab fancy; twelve statues in pure gold set with precious stones
spouting perfumed water within a _patio_ girt in by crystal pillars.
Hither came emirs, ambassadors, merchants, and pilgrims, all agreed that
nothing could be compared to these matchless gardens. And besides
Ez-Zahra there were other monuments, which have all disappeared under
the mantle of green turf that lines the banks of the Guadalquivir. Not a
stone left of the pavilion of Flowers, of Lovers, and of Content, the
palace of the Diadem, evidently destined for the royal jewels, and
another called after the city of Damascus.
About were many noble streets and plazas with baths and mosques, for
next to the mosque stood the bath in credit among the Moslem, and as
such despised by the Christians to that point, that after Ferdinand and
Isabella drove the Moors out of Spain, their grandson, Philip II.,
ordered the destruction of all public baths as relics of Mohammedanism.