THE CONQUEST OF AL-MAGHREB
647–707
General Disorder following the Death of Mohammed--Regulations of
Islam--Progress of the Moslem Arms--Northern Africa, the Land
of the Evening--Its Fertility--Its Population--Expedition of
Abdallah--Defeat of the Greeks--Invasion of Okbah--Foundation
of Kairoan--March of Hassan--Ancient Carthage--Its Influence
on Europe--Its Splendid Civilization--Its Maritime Power,
its Colonies, its Resources--Description of the City--Its
Architectural Grandeur--Its Harbors, Temples, and Public
Edifices--Roman Carthage--Its Luxury and Depravity--Its
Destruction by the Moslems--Wars with the Berbers--Musa
appointed General--His Romantic History--His Character--He
subdues Al-Maghreb--Africa incapable of Permanent Civilization.
The dissensions excited by the fierce hordes of Arabia, whose
intolerance of authority and aversion to tribute had been with
difficulty controlled by the mysterious influence of Mohammed, at his
death broke forth with redoubled violence, and seriously threatened,
for a time, not only the integrity of the Moslem empire, but even the
existence and perpetuity of the recently established faith. With the
exception of a few tribes which the ties of blood or considerations
of personal interest, joined to their intimate commercial relations
with the inhabitants of the Holy Cities, retained in a precarious
allegiance, the whole population of the Peninsula rose at once in arms.
Each petty chieftain, jealous of the central power, and endowed with
an extravagant opinion of his own abilities as ruler and legislator,
arrogated to himself divine authority, and aspired to the title and
the prerogatives of a prophet of God. The populace, half idolatrous
and half infidel at heart, and which had received the injunctions of
the Koran with apparent enthusiasm and inward contempt, welcomed with
joy each new revelation, as affording a prospective state of war and
discord so thoroughly in consonance with its predatory instincts and
turbulent character.
With this condition of affairs, whose gravity might well have appalled
the mind of an experienced statesman, the executive ability and
diplomatic tact of the first Khalif, a man bred to mercantile pursuits,
yet admirably fitted by nature for the arduous duties of his exalted
position, were found fully competent to deal. The insurgent armies were
annihilated; the false prophets killed, driven into exile, or compelled
to renounce their claims; the rebellious tribes were decimated, and
their property seized as the legal spoils of war. With keen insight
into the character of his countrymen, Abu-Bekr employed their fiery and
indomitable spirit in the extension of Islam and the settlement and
consolidation of its hitherto ill-defined and uncertain jurisdiction.
The policy partially developed under his wise management was finally
established and perfected by the iron will and martial genius of Omar.
The latter realized thoroughly the paramount importance of preserving
unimpaired the unity and prestige of his nation, whose victories,
in brilliancy and political effect, had already surpassed those of
any preceding conqueror, and bade fair to make the dominion of Islam
coextensive with the world. In pursuance of this design, the spoils of
conquest, the tribute of subjugated nations, the enormous rental of the
plains of Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, the rich harvests of the Valley
of the Nile, the magnificent gifts of distant sovereigns--hoping to
escape a visitation from the swarthy horsemen of the Desert--were all
placed in a common fund, from which was pensioned every individual
belonging to the Arab race, in regular gradation, the stipend
increasing with years, dignity, and value of military service. No one
was too insignificant to have his name inscribed upon the official
registers at Medina; and even slaves, women, and newly-born infants
were, as well as the most renowned warriors, regularly paid their
stated allowance. In the various countries reduced by the prowess
of the Moslems, the lands, though confiscated to the uses of the
state, remained by special provision inalienable, and, while forming
a part of the public domain, could not be acquired by those who had
conquered them, and continued to be occupied and tilled by their former
proprietors. By these regulations, also, the legal residence of the
Arab was established and made perpetual in the Peninsula. Everywhere
else, no matter what his rank or employment, he was but a sojourner,
liable at any moment, without warning, to be summoned to battle with
the infidel; and even viceroys of the Khalif could not purchase a
foot of ground in the cities which they ruled with all but absolute
power. While in the case of female captives, the most unbounded license
was permitted and encouraged, the believer was particularly enjoined
to select for his wives the daughters of some Arab clan; and his
children, without exception, were early taught to assert their assumed
superiority of birth, and to look down upon all foreigners, however
illustrious they might be by descent, wealth, military distinction, or
literary attainments.
The comprehensive and exacting laws of Omar, which arbitrarily
determined questions of legislation and finance, the marshalling of
armies, the adjustment of territorial disputes, the arrangement of
the household, and the offices of religion, laid the foundation for
the future greatness of Islam. By his edict the date of the Hegira
was fixed. His inflexible sense of justice inflicted the humiliating
punishment of the lash, prescribed by law for drunkenness, upon beggar
and noble alike. The Code which bears his name is remarkable, even in
an age of fanaticism, for the severe restrictions it imposed on the
personal liberty of Jews and Christians, the only sectaries to whom
Moslem clemency permitted the practice of their rites and customs.
The assassination of Omar in the prime of manhood, and before his great
designs had been fully matured, was the signal for feuds, conspiracies,
and every form of domestic convulsion, fomented by tribal jealousy,
ancient prejudice, and disappointed ambition; disturbances which the
weak and vacillating spirit of his successor was unable to repress.
Yet, despite the disadvantages arising from the intellectual impotence
of Othman, the constitution of the Mussulman theocracy possessed
sufficient vitality to retard dissolution for a considerable time.
The glorious traditions of a decade of uninterrupted victory were not
easily forgotten. The trophies wrested from the despised and hated foe
were displayed in every city and village; his banners drooped in the
courts of every mosque; the harem, the street, the bazaar, swarmed with
captives from the most distant climes; while the annual distribution
from the public treasury evidenced at once the wealth and weakness of
the infidel and the paternal generosity of the conqueror. The Persian
monarchy which had successfully withstood the attacks of consul,
dictator, and emperor, supported by the discipline and inexhaustible
resources of Roman power, had fallen, after two great battles, before
the impetuous valor of the Moslem hosts. Palestine, with its hallowed
associations, its memories of all that is most sacred in the annals of
Christianity, its scenes of divine miracle and mystery, of privation,
suffering, and triumphant glory, was in the hands of the Mussulman,
whose sacrilegious footsteps daily defiled the precincts of Gethsemane
and Golgotha, and whose call to prayer arose from a magnificent
shrine erected upon the site of the ruined temple of Solomon. The
Greek Emperor, after a reign of extraordinary vicissitudes which had,
in some degree, retrieved the vanished prestige of the Roman arms
deprived in rapid succession of the choicest realms of his empire,
was now virtually a prisoner, protected only by the Bosphorus and the
impregnable walls of his capital. Egypt, the depository of traditions
of incalculable antiquity, had submitted, after a brief and determined
struggle, to the common fate of nations, and the banners of Islam
floated in triumph from the towers of Alexandria and Memphis. It was
with a feeling of awe and wonder that the fierce, untutored Arab gazed
upon the monuments of this strange and, to him, enchanted land. Before
him were the Pyramids, rising in massive grandeur upon the borders
of the Desert; the stupendous temples; the mural paintings, whose
brilliant coloring was unimpaired after the lapse of fifty centuries;
the groups of ponderous sphinxes, imposing even in their mutilation;
the speaking statues, which, facing the East, with the first ray of
light saluted the coming day; the obelisks, sculptured upon shaft and
pedestal with the eternal records of long extinguished dynasties;
the vast subterranean tombs, whose every sarcophagus was a gigantic
monolith; and the effigies of the old Egyptian kings, personifications
of dignity and power, holding in their hands the symbols of time
and eternity, or grasping, in lieu of the sceptre, that emblematic
staff, which, more potent than the wand of the mightiest magician,
has controlled the destinies of millions of men, and which became in
turn the wand of the Grecian hierophant in the mysteries of Eleusis,
the lituus of the Roman augur, and the crosier of the Catholic
archbishop. At his feet rolled the turbid flood of the mysterious
river, to whose periodical inundation was due the civilization of that
venerable country. The anticipation of this phenomenon had necessitated
the study of astronomy; its overflow had developed a perfect system
of irrigation, and a complicated body of laws, which regulated the
distribution of its fertilizing waters; its subsidence had required a
thorough acquaintance with the rules of geometry and mensuration; and
the noxious vapors arising from its steaming deposits demanded the
speedy disinfection and embalming of all putrescent animal matter, a
precaution which was rigidly enforced by established custom and the
inexorable precepts of religion. The initiations of the priesthood, the
jealously treasured maxims of its occult knowledge, the attributes of
its innumerable deities, all bore an intimate relation to the waters
of the Nile, whose recurring and invariable changes also indicated the
seasons of the Egyptian year, which were measured by the harvests.
The influence produced by the sight of these marvels upon the destiny
of the simple Arab, whose horizon had hitherto been defined by the
shifting sands and quivering vapors of the Desert, by whom the grandeur
and symmetry of architectural design were undreamt of, and whose ideas
of decoration were limited to the barbaric tracery of an earthen jar or
the coarse patterns of the primitive loom, was incalculable. As every
civilization is but an adaptation to new conditions of elements more
or less perceptible in those which have preceded it, so it was with
that of the Arabs. Their architecture, mainly indebted for its beauty
to the selection of designs from the vegetable world and the skilful
combination of geometrical forms, may in this respect justly lay claim
to originality. Nevertheless, in the groundwork of its finest edifices,
the practised eye can easily detect the foreign influence by which the
efforts of its artisans have been inspired; and the characteristics of
Persian, Egyptian, Carthaginian, and Byzantine are prominent in the
solid walls, the graceful curves, and the sparkling mosaics of the
builders’ masterpieces which adorn the widely-separated provinces of
the Mohammedan empire.
It was during the reign of Othman that the attention of the Moslems
was first seriously directed to the northern coast of Africa, a
region which, extending from the Nile to the Atlantic, comprised a
territory of one thousand miles in length by five hundred in breadth
in its largest diameter. In its approaches, which were made over
burning sands, it exhibited the familiar phenomena of the Desert. The
greater portion of its vast area was susceptible of cultivation, and
contiguous plantations and gardens marked, with an unbroken line of
verdure, the possessions of the once magnificent and still important
cities which in the days of her glory acknowledged the authority and
claimed the protection of the imperial metropolis of Carthage. Here the
most abundant harvests, the most luscious fruits, rewarded, with but
trifling exertion, the industry of the husbandman. Luxuriant pastures,
through which meandered sparkling brooks fed by perennial springs,
sustained large numbers of cattle and sheep. The date flourished in
such variety that it was only by its shape and stone that its species
could be determined. The soil was favorable to the olive, and oil
formed an important article of export. It was indeed a land of promise,
renowned in history, celebrated in myth and legend; the Ophir of Holy
Writ; the scene of the sufferings of Marius, Regulus, and Cato; where
originated many of the most charming fictions of classic mythology; the
home of Danaus, Antæus, and Atlas; for centuries the abode of Tyrian
civilization; the seat successively of Punic splendor, Roman luxury,
Vandal license, and Christian faith. In its capital Hamilcar had
prepared for the descent upon Sicily which had secured the mastery of
the Mediterranean, and Hannibal had planned the campaign which humbled
the pride of the Eternal City; the land which had received in its
bosom refugees from Palestine and Arabia, the founders and supporters
of a new and glorious empire; the see of St. Augustine; the enchanted
Garden, where dwelt the beautiful daughters of Erebus and Night; where
the gigantic portal marked by the two famous columns pointed out to the
Phœnician mariner the way to the Cassiterides--
“Abyla atque Calpe.”
Carthaginian enterprise for ages bartered its manufactures for the
tin of Britain and the luxuries of Syria; under the Romans, for four
centuries, its agricultural products maintained in profligate idleness
the degenerate inhabitants of Italy.
The further extremity of this region, which the poetic nomenclature
of the Oriental had designated by the name of Al-Maghreb, “The
Land of the Evening,” was the wealthier and more productive; but
its storm-swept coast had subordinated its trade to the superior
commercial advantages of the eastern half, now Tunis and Tripoli,
which was known as Ifrikiyah. A prefect appointed by the court of
Constantinople administered the government of these colonies, in the
name of the Emperor, but his jurisdiction was confined to a narrow
belt of territory, beyond which roamed at will bands of ferocious
and hardy barbarians, some of whom had no settled habitation; while
a considerable number dwelt in the slopes and defiles of the Atlas
Mountains, eking out a miserable subsistence by a superficial
cultivation of the soil and a precarious traffic with their scarcely
less civilized neighbors. The population of this province was, owing
to repeated immigration and invasion, and the consequent admixture
of races, of the most heterogeneous character. Along the coast, the
elegance of the Grecian type, occasionally modified by the dignified
features and martial bearing of the Roman, whose physical traits had
been partially preserved by the frequent renewal of garrisons and
the importation of colonists from Italy and Constantinople, largely
predominated. Further inland appeared, in the swarthy complexions,
blue eyes, and auburn locks, the cross between Vandal and Mauritanian,
side by side with the unmistakable lineaments of the Syrian and the
Jew. But most numerous of all, the most formidable in war, the most
perfidious in peace, were the Berbers, whose origin tradition has
variously assigned to Europe, Assyria, Arabia, Ethiopia, and Palestine.
Whatever may have been the home of this undoubtedly Semitic race, their
affinity with the Arabs was most conspicuous and remarkable. Generous,
brave, patient of suffering, prodigal of hospitality, reverential to
the aged, loyal to their kindred, impatient of restraint, merciless in
revenge, their character was an epitome of the rugged virtues and cruel
vices of the roving barbarian. The fighting qualities of this people,
joined to the inaccessible nature of their haunts, and, in no small
degree, aided by their poverty, had always secured for them immunity
from conquest. Political reverses had never been able to efface their
national peculiarities. Under persecution, while apparently conforming
to the public faith, they remained, in reality, fetich worshippers. The
long dominations of Phœnician, Roman, Byzantine, Teuton had effected no
alteration in their language--the Arabic alone has been able to engross
about a third of the terms of their guttural idiom. Their polity
resembled a republic, where each village was independent and governed
by a chieftain elected by the people. Time and again they had mustered
for service against the Emperor armies of thirty and forty thousand
men; but the first defeat dissolved their confederacy; and the rival
chiefs returned with increased avidity to the plunder and massacre of
their allies and friends. Their perfidy, which excited the unwilling
admiration of nations long practised in the arts of deceit, and which
was experienced to their cost by the Romans in the war with Jugurtha,
was, without doubt, in a measure responsible for the proverbial
reputation for duplicity--the “Punica fides”--of Carthage. Originally
idolaters, believers in sorcery and divination, and adorers of the Sun
and of Fire, their intercourse with their neighbors, considering its
irregular and transitory character, had been singularly productive
of changes in religious belief. The emissaries of Christianity had,
with but indifferent success, disseminated among them the mysteries
of their faith; but to the doctrines of the Pentateuch and the Talmud
they lent a willing ear, and the tenets of Judaism, although not a
little tinctured with the traditions of Pagan mythology, nominally
received the assent of the entire Berber nation. The peculiar type of
the Hebrew, insensibly diversified elsewhere by the associations of
commercial intercourse, and by the influence of soil, climate, and the
operation of laws more or less favorable to the fusion of races, had,
in the wilds of Northern Africa, found a congenial locality for its
preservation. The exiles who had escaped the persecutions of Titus and
Hadrian had settled there and prospered. Laying aside their proverbial
reserve, they had joined to their hereditary inclination for traffic
an unwonted disposition to acquire proselytes; and their opinions had
infected, to a greater or less extent, the population of the coast as
well as that of the interior, from the Greater Syrtis to the Pillars
of Hercules. Their relations and acquaintance extended not only to the
extreme Orient, but were sustained with the semi-barbarous courts of
Europe; and their sympathies with their brethren of Semitic origin,
assisted by the community of ideas, habits, and mode of life of the
Berber tribes, contributed, in a degree which cannot be overestimated,
to the establishment and preservation of the Western empire of Islam.
In the year 647, the covetous glances of the government at Medina
were turned towards the rich plantations and populous settlements
of Al-Maghreb; and the predatory inroads which had hitherto vexed
its borders were, for the first time, superseded by a systematic
and determined attempt at conquest. The weakness and partiality of
Othman, with whom the aggrandizement of his family was a paramount
consideration, had removed the famous Amru from the viceroyalty of
Egypt, and invested with its administration Abdallah-Ibn-Sa’d, the
foster-brother of the Khalif, a warrior of experience and courage and
the finest horseman of his nation, but a man whose renown had been
sullied by the crime of apostasy, and who had used an employment of
confidence to ridicule and revile the inspired teachings and sacred
character of the Prophet.
Calling into requisition all the resources of his government, this
Moslem general marched into the Desert with twenty thousand soldiers,
among them many of the companions of Mohammed and representatives of
the most noble tribes of Arabia. After a few unimportant skirmishes,
and a short but bloody engagement in which a division of the Greeks was
entirely destroyed, the Arab army advanced to Tripoli, and, investing
its walls, pushed forward the operations of the siege with an energy
hardly to be expected from a people whose experience had been confined
to marauding expeditions and the stratagems of partisan warfare. Under
the dominion of the Byzantine emperors, the office of prefect had been
substituted for that of the ancient proconsul; and this employment was
not only charged with the execution of the laws relating to civil and
military affairs, but also claimed jurisdiction over matters pertaining
to the welfare of the church, the appointment of its ministers, and the
enforcement of the canons of ecclesiastical discipline. The prefect
Gregory, whose talents had been exercised, and whose prowess had been
approved, in many negotiations and conflicts with the Berbers, at
the head of a tumultuous and undisciplined force of one hundred and
twenty thousand men, moved forward to the relief of Tripoli. Abandoning
the siege, the Arabs accepted the challenge, and a series of battles
ensued without decided advantage upon either side, until the prefect,
mortified that the numerical superiority of his troops should be
neutralized by the desperate courage of his adversaries, offered the
hand of his beautiful daughter--who, completely armed, was each day
conspicuous in the ranks of the vanguard--and a purse of one hundred
thousand pieces of gold to any one who would bring him the head of
the Moslem general. The courage of Abdallah, although he had faced
death in a hundred forms, was not proof against this effort of his
wily antagonist, and, remaining idly in his tent, he left the conduct
of operations to the care of his lieutenants. In the mean time there
arrived at the Arab camp a small detachment headed by Ibn-al-Zobeir, a
warrior of distinction, who heard with contempt of the pusillanimous
conduct of the general. Seeking him, he denounced his cowardice,
suggesting that he should retaliate by the offer of a similar sum, and
the prefect’s daughter as a slave, to whoever should cast at his feet
the head of the Greek commander. The advice was taken; the tempting
reward was published throughout the camp; the Arab youth were fired
by emulation to redoubled efforts; and Abdallah himself, shamed into
action, again appeared in the front of battle. But the overwhelming
numbers of the Greeks, inspired by the example of a few legions which
yet retained the traditions of Roman steadiness and discipline, and
supported by the rapid evolutions of the Numidian cavalry, famous
from the days of Jugurtha, still rendered the issue doubtful, and by
repeated engagements the ranks of the Arabs were being constantly
diminished. Again the talents of Ibn-al-Zobeir were called into
requisition; the battle was renewed as usual at daybreak; and when the
blazing sun had exhausted the strength of the combatants, both armies
retired to the shelter of their tents. But the Moslems had not all been
engaged, and a division composed of troops, selected for their bravery
and commanded by the intrepid Ibn-al-Zobeir, burst suddenly like a
thunderbolt upon the hostile camp.
Seized with a panic, as they were reposing after the arduous struggle
of the day, the ranks of the enemy were broken, the prefect was killed,
and the camp given over to pillage. A rich booty and innumerable
captives compensated the victors for their trials; the beauteous
Amazon became the slave of Ibn-al-Zobeir; and, after the capture of
the important city of Sufetela, the entire district acknowledged the
authority of the Khalif. The ravages of disease, the losses resulting
from a series of engagements lasting for months, and the lack of
reinforcements, made it impossible for Abdallah to garrison the towns,
or to retain in subjection the restless tribes of the interior; and he
consented, with alacrity, to accept a bribe of two million five hundred
thousand dinars and abandon the conquest. The spoil was sent to Medina,
and Othman further incurred the charges of injustice and nepotism by
presenting Abdallah with the royal fifth, and by permitting his cousin
Merwan to purchase the remainder at the low valuation of three hundred
talents of gold.
For nearly a quarter of a century, the civil wars provoked by the
conflicting claims of the various aspirants to the throne of the
khalifate and the succeeding political establishments left in security
the Greek possessions of the West. The Byzantine court learned with
amazement of the enormous ransom with which the inhabitants of Africa
had purchased the withdrawal of the invaders; and its avarice was
excited when it considered the resources of a country which could
collect so large a sum after having, for generations, been subject
to the rapacious inquisition of the imperial tax-gatherers. Without
delay, the Emperor demanded a contribution of the same amount as unpaid
tribute; and all the mechanism of extortion was employed, to complete
the ruin of his already impoverished subjects. Oppressed beyond
endurance, the Africans sent an embassy headed by the Patriarch himself
to Damascus, and reciting their grievances, described in glowing terms
to Muavia the wealth of their country and the advantages which must
accrue to the Moslems from its possession. The Khalif, deeply impressed
by their representations, ordered Ibn-Hajij, governor of Egypt, to
undertake the conquest; but the enterprise was not carried out with
the customary vigor of the Saracens, and resulted only in the partial
occupancy of the coast and the subjection of a few unimportant cities.
The permanent establishment of Mussulman rule dates, however, from
this expedition, and henceforth the standard of Islam, although often
furled before the intrepid spirit of the Berbers, was advanced, foot
by foot, to the far distant shores of the Western Ocean. The most
successful commander, and the one who alone, excepting Musa, made the
most enduring impression upon the valiant and treacherous barbarians of
Al-Maghreb, was Okbah-Ibn-Nafi, who was next invested with the command.
Entering the hostile region at the head of ten thousand veteran
cavalry, he made war with the same resolution and uncompromising spirit
which marked the careers of the daring Amru and Khalid, “The Sword of
God.” The Christians who refused, by either submission or conversion,
to acknowledge the divine origin of Islam were ruthlessly slaughtered;
but the orders of the Khalif explicitly prohibited the equipment or use
of naval armaments, and the seaports of the Greeks escaped, for the
time, the fate which was inevitable. The Berbers, beholding with wonder
the apparently invincible character of their enemy, equally fortunate
in plain and mountain fastness, defeating with ease their bravest
squadrons, and scaling, despite all obstacles, the all-but impregnable
defences of their strongholds, clothed him with the attributes of
divinity, and, submitting to his dominion, recognized the power of the
Khalif, while at the same time, abjuring their idolatry, they confessed
the unity and majesty of God. The advance of Okbah was the triumphant
progress of a conqueror. Almost unresisted, he traversed the regions
peopled by hordes of fierce barbarians, until, having penetrated to the
Atlantic, he rode his horse into its seething waters, and, drawing his
sword, cried out, “God is great! Were I not hindered by this sea, I
would go forward to the unknown kingdoms of the West, proclaiming the
greatness of Thy Holy Name and subduing those nations who worship other
gods than Thee!”
The moral effect of the expedition of Okbah, which familiarized the
nations of the north of Africa with the doctrines of Islam, was
of far more importance than the spoil collected by the victorious
army, which was, in itself, not inconsiderable. The wealth of the
Berbers, ignorant as they were of the mechanical arts and the elegant
appliances of luxury, was confined to flocks and herds; but the
beauty and fascinations of their women aroused the passions of the
conquerors, and many of them subsequently commanded in the markets
of Alexandria and Damascus the extraordinary price of a thousand
mithcals of gold. The inconstant character of the tribes of Mauritania
and the Atlas, amenable only to the restraints of military power,
and to whom conversion and apostasy were mere matters of temporary
expediency, suggested to the sagacious mind of Okbah the necessity for
the establishment of a fortified post in the territory of this active
and formidable enemy. An inland position was selected, to avoid the
attacks of the naval forces of Constantinople, and, despite the serious
physical disadvantages of barrenness, drought, and excessive heat, a
city was built, to which was given the name of Kairoan; a metropolis
destined in after times to attain to an important rank in the annals
of the dynasties of Africa. The walls were of brick, with flanking
towers, and embraced six miles in circuit. The foundations of a mosque,
an edifice measuring two hundred and twenty by one hundred and fifty
cubits, were laid; its seventeen naves were adorned with the plundered
marbles of Utica and Carthage; the graceful proportions of its minaret
and the elegance of its mural decorations are still proverbial in the
Mohammedan world. The bazaar of the city lined a street three miles in
length; its schools became the resort of the learned; the authority of
its muftis on points of doctrine was indisputable; and, as the seat of
the viceroy of the Khalif, it long maintained its political importance.
The implacable and perfidious spirit of the Berbers, whom no treaties
could control, now broke out in the prosecution of petty hostilities,
which the scattered forces of the Moslems were powerless to prevent.
Forays were made upon isolated settlements, flocks were driven off,
hamlets given to the flames, and even the security of the rising
colony of Kairoan was threatened. Emboldened by their success, the
Berber chief’s confederated for the total destruction of the Moslems.
Koceila, an influential chieftain, who had been wantonly insulted and
maimed by Okbah and was now kept a close prisoner in the camp, was
the moving spirit of the conspiracy. Learning too late of the plan
of the enemy, Okbah was compelled to weaken his army, and while a
detachment for the relief of Kairoan was on the march, it was suddenly
attacked near Tehuda by an overwhelming force of barbarian cavalry. The
little band of Mussulmans, less than four hundred in number, seeing
the hopelessness of the contest, commended themselves to God, and,
casting away their scabbards, perished to a man, scimetar in hand. The
tombs of these martyrs are still objects of veneration to the devout,
and Zab, where they are situated, enjoys the sanctity, privileges,
and lucrative trade of a place of pilgrimage. The Franks and Berbers
with their usual inconstancy now flocked to the standard of Koceila,
who assumed the title of an independent sovereign and for five years
remained the undisputed ruler of Ifrikiyah. At the expiration of that
period, a fresh army of Arabs under Zoheir defeated the Berbers in
a decisive battle, and, Koceila having been killed, the lieutenant
of the Khalif again asserted his unstable authority. It was not long
before the new governor Zoheir succumbed to the treachery of the
cunning barbarians, and the Khalif Abd-al-Melik imposed upon Hassan,
Viceroy of Egypt, the task which had foiled the skill and energy of so
many of his predecessors. But none of the latter had mustered such a
force, or could have controlled such vast resources, as did the new
commander-in-chief. His office, as Governor of Egypt, placed at his
disposal the enormous wealth of that fertile country, and he marched
out of Alexandria at the head of a thoroughly equipped army of forty
thousand veterans. He was well provided with scaling ladders and the
various engines for the siege of fortified places, while the success
of the Moslems in the East had inspired them with confidence, and
afforded experience in the attack upon fortifications, a branch of
warfare in which they had at first been entirely deficient. Resolving
to reduce the strongholds of the coast, which were still in possession
of the Greeks, Hassan, after traversing the region which had been
desolated, and partially colonized by former commanders, advanced at
once upon Carthage. This famous city, which had preserved, amidst
unparalleled disaster, the prestige and the traditions of its former
greatness, was still the capital of Africa and the seat of the imperial
prefect. The power of Phœnicia, almost omnipotent in the maritime
world of the ancients, founded upon boundless wealth, upon extensive
acquaintance with distant lands and peoples, upon scientific secrets,
whose importance was exaggerated by mystery, and upon the undisputed
dominion of the seas, had been transmitted to Carthage, her favorite
and most important colony. A brief notice of the history of the latter,
so intimately connected with the fortunes of every nation of ancient
and modern Europe, is not foreign to an account of the Mohammedan
conquest of Africa, nor to that of the subsequent occupation of Spain.
For, inspired by her example, from her harbor issued the first naval
expedition of the Moslems in the West, which ravaged the coasts of
Sardinia, threatened the Greek empire, and subdued the Balearic Isles.
The invention of the compass, popularly but erroneously attributed
to the sailors of Amalfi, it has been conjectured, with some degree
of probability, was in reality a legacy of Tyre to Carthage; and it
is certain that the peculiar properties of the magnet, designated the
Stone of Hercules, were familiar to the mariners of those cities, who
employed it in divination and in the secret ceremonies of their temples
upon the shores of every sea. The straight sword of the Spanish Arab,
so different from the curved blade of the Orient, is the sword of the
Carthaginian; a weapon which, subsequently adopted by Rome from Iberia,
conquered the world, including the African warriors who invented it.
The cap of the Basque is a modification of the old Punic, or Phrygian,
head covering, still worn by the Jewesses of Tunis, and which, in our
day, has been adopted as one of the emblems of Liberty. The toga of
Rome and the burnous of the Arab can be traced to the same origin,
being derived by Carthage from Phœnicia, and by the latter from Lydia;
and the names, customs, traditions, and ceremonies of modern Spain
suggest daily, to the intelligent observer, the enduring impressions
produced by the domination of the ancient Queen of the Mediterranean.
Even in her ruin did Carthage contribute to the progress of science and
the well-being of humanity. The cathedral of Pisa, under whose dome
Galileo pursued his experiments and perfected the pendulum-clock, was
constructed of the marbles of her palaces; and the unrivalled mosque
of Cordova, the centre of mediæval learning, in whose precincts was
the finest library of the age, still contains hundreds of columns,
around whose shafts once curled the wreaths of incense that rose from
the altars of the Tyrian Hercules. But far more important than all
else was the influence exerted upon the Arab invaders by the defaced
and shattered memorials of her departed grandeur. Despite the effects
of Roman hate and vengeance, the destructive energy of Genseric, and
the shameless neglect of the Byzantine emperors, Carthage was still a
great and beautiful city. Many of her stately edifices were preserved;
her temples, towering in their pristine majesty, beckoned the anxious
mariner to her prosperous shores; her harbors with their colonnades
were still intact, and it was with no ordinary emotions that the Moslem
looked upon these evidences of the taste and civilization of one of the
most opulent and renowned capitals of antiquity. The Phœnicians, by
their proximity to and regular intercourse with the highly cultivated
races of Assyria and Egypt, had added immeasurably to their stock of
learning, and eagerly disseminated among their colonies the notions
of politics, philosophy, and science, which they had imbibed in their
periodical voyages to the banks of the Euphrates and the Nile. And
as from Asia Minor, plainly disclosed in the myth of Cadmus, first
emanated that knowledge of letters and the arts, which, expanding with
a prodigious development, culminated in the matchless creations of the
Grecian sculptor and the Grecian muse; so to the northern coast of
Africa can be traced the dawn of that inspiration of refinement and
taste which awakened in the minds of the rude and warlike nomads of the
Desert a desire for something better than the subjugation of barbarian
tribes, something more enduring than the costly pageants of military
glory.
Settled almost thirteen centuries before the Christian era, and
inheriting from the parent city of Tyre that spirit of enterprise which
had gained for the latter the carrying trade of the world, at the time
of the foundation of Rome, Carthage was already the wealthiest and most
polished state on the shores of the Mediterranean. Her inhabitants,
rather inclined to peaceful occupations and the luxurious ease
that prosperity confers than to the privations of the camp and the
dangers of the field, usually enlisted mercenaries to prosecute their
conquests. When at the height of her power, her armies, which had
penetrated the mysterious depths of the Libyan and Ethiopian deserts,
and whose prowess had been displayed alike in the defiles of Sicily
and upon the plains of the Bætis, had subjected to her authority a
wide extent of territory, and more than three hundred towns in Africa
alone, many of them places of considerable magnitude. In the Spanish
Peninsula, whence she drew her supplies of the precious metals, she
employed in the silver mines fifty thousand men. The most assiduous
care was paid to agriculture, and the extraordinary fertility of the
soil, yielding with ease one hundred and fifty fold, was assisted by an
equable climate and a scientific and extensive system of irrigation.
The substantial character of the public works of the capital is evinced
by the ruins of the cisterns and the aqueduct, which have defied the
storms and revolutions of two thousand years. But it was chiefly in
commercial affairs that the Carthaginians asserted their immeasurable
superiority over all their contemporaries. Their merchants, whose
enterprise was proverbial, were familiar with some of the ingenious
expedients that, in our day, among civilized nations, so facilitate and
simplify important business transactions. The most remarkable of these
described by Latin writers were certain pieces of leather which, when
folded in a peculiar manner, and sealed to prevent forgery, readily
passed as money, undoubted precursors of our bank-notes and bills of
exchange. They seem to have had also well-defined ideas of the fiscal
and other regulations demanded by the exigencies of foreign trade, such
as banking, insurance, and duties on imports.
Until the conclusion of the second Punic War, no noticeable progress
had been made in the arts at Rome, and the total destruction of
Carthage was, in this respect, as in many others, of incalculable
advantage to her fortunate adversary. Among the treasures procured at
the sack of the city are mentioned, besides paintings and statues, gold
and silver vessels of curious workmanship, and so valuable that the
portion reserved for the triumph of the victor amounted to a sum equal
to eight million dollars. In the spoil were also included beautiful
mosaics, and incredible quantities of precious stones, articles of
luxury especially prized by the Carthaginians, and which they knew how
to engrave with surprising skill. These exquisite models, perfected
by the labors of countless generations, were not without a decided
effect in promoting the education and stimulating the ambition of the
Roman designers and artisans. We learn from Appian that there were many
libraries in the city, which also boasted not a few writers of note,
but none of their productions have been preserved, and the only native
author whose fame has reached posterity is Terence, a liberated slave,
who, at the age of twenty-five, delighted the critical audiences of the
Roman theatres with the flights of his precocious genius. Some estimate
may be formed of the military and naval power of Carthage, when we
recall the fact that during the Sicilian wars, which lasted twenty-four
years, she lost, in a single battle, five hundred ships of the largest
size, together with an army of one hundred and fifty thousand men,
without sensibly impairing her resources or retarding her career of
conquest. Had a similar misfortune befallen any contemporaneous state
it could hardly have survived the shock. The equipage and plate of the
Carthaginian generals were of the most sumptuous description, and they
went into action bearing magnificent bucklers embossed with medallion
portraits of their owners in massy gold.
Occupying the centre of the Southern Mediterranean coast, and
accessible to every port frequented by traders, Carthage was speedily
enabled to profit to the utmost by those advantages of geographical
position that paved the way to her political and maritime ascendency.
At her left hand were the Pillars of Hercules, and the channel
through which passed the trade of Spain and Britain; at her right the
inexhaustible granaries of Egypt; in front of her, the quarries, mines,
and slave-marts of Italy and Greece; in her rear the gold and gems
of Libya. Upon a peninsula, whose isthmus was defended by a triple
wall, lay the city, embracing a circuit of twenty-three miles, and
containing a population of nearly a million. Inside the fortifications,
on the east, was the Kothon, a double harbor, consisting of two
circular basins connected by a canal sixty feet wide, barricaded with
enormous iron chains. The outer and larger basin, six thousand feet
in circumference, was destined for the use of merchantmen; the inner
one was reserved exclusively for galleys and men-of-war. Both were
surrounded by docks, storehouses, quarters for marines, and arsenals,
and were approached by splendid Ionic porticos and colonnades of white
marble. In the centre of an island in the inner harbor, at whose quays
two hundred vessels could ride securely at anchor, rose the castle
of the admiral who directed all manœuvres at the sound of trumpet.
Immediately over the Kothon, on an elevation that commanded it, stood
the famous Byrsa, or citadel. Its wall rose to the height of sixty-five
feet, and was flanked by numerous towers; adjoining the latter were
stables for four thousand horses and three hundred elephants, and
barracks that could accommodate a garrison of twenty-four thousand men.
Eighteen cisterns, seven of which are still intact, each ninety-three
feet long by twenty wide and twenty-eight feet deep, connected by a
tunnel with reservoirs in the suburbs, furnished an abundant supply of
water. The highest point of the Byrsa was occupied by the temple of
Æsculapius, the tutelary deity of the city, and although, in fact, an
almost impregnable fortress, the skill of the engineer had thoroughly
disguised its formidable character. It was situated above a series of
terraces, resembling the hanging gardens of Assyria, and was reached
by superb marble staircases adorned with beautiful statues, urns,
and other works of art. Slabs of porphyry and verd-antique covered
its walls; its arcades were paved and encrusted with mosaics; and
the veneration in which it was held by the people was attested by
the gorgeous appointments of its shrine. But the fane of Æsculapius,
with all its splendor, was not without many rivals in the African
metropolis. The religion of the Carthaginians, originally astronomical
and profoundly symbolic, had centuries before discarded the purer forms
of astral worship for a debased and cruel polytheism. The different
wards of the city were named from the various deities whose altars they
contained. West of the Kothon was the temple of Apollo, and adjoining
it the shrine of Melcareth, or Hercules--whose precincts no woman was
suffered to enter, and whose priests, assuming the vow of chastity,
went barefoot and with shaven crowns--stood side by side with the
fragrant gardens within whose mystic groves were celebrated, amidst
indescribable orgies, the licentious rites of the Phœnician Astarte.
Nearer the sea was the grand temple of the African Baal, the Moloch
of the Hebrews, surrounded by a labyrinth and covered with three
concentric domes, which, open above like that of the Pantheon at Rome,
permitted the rays of the sun at high meridian to descend upon the
brazen image of the god.
The other edifices of the African capital were, in richness and
splendor, eminently worthy of its temples and its citadel. The vast
commerce of Carthage placed at its command the resources of all
antiquity. No labor or expense was spared in architectural decoration.
On the façade of its theatre, which rose for seven stories in tiers of
graceful arches, were sculptured the forms of animals, the effigies of
famous artisans, the figures of military commanders, and symbolical
representations of the elements, the seasons, and the winds. The
circus, inferior in extent only to that of Rome, was supported by
fluted columns of such enormous size that twelve men could sit with
ease upon the edge of one of their capitals towering a hundred feet
above the arena. In the principal square, the reservoir, fed by the
great aqueduct, was surrounded by balustrades and arches. All of
these public works were of white marble, which glittered like crystal
under the rays of a southern sun. The taste which designed them was
the result of three thousand years of civilization. Every nation of
the ancient world had contributed its share to their symmetry, their
value, their magnificence. The beauty of the material was enhanced a
thousand-fold by the incomparable elegance of the sculpture and the
ornamentation.
The Megara, a suburb of Carthage, contained the country-seats and
palaces of the nobility, some of them built, like the houses of Venice,
upon piles and arches in the sea. It was an immense park seamed with
canals and rivulets, whose waters were conveyed by conduits from the
mountains sixty miles away. The reservoirs of the Megara, so extensive
that they now constitute an Arab village, were constructed in the same
substantial manner as the cisterns of the Byrsa. On a promontory above
them was the necropolis, where the ashes of the dead were deposited in
countless niches hewn in the living rock.
Upon the ruins of this rich and powerful city, which had so long and
so obstinately disputed the supremacy of the masters of the world,
had risen another that almost rivalled its predecessor in commercial
importance and architectural splendor. Founded one hundred and one
years after the triumph of Scipio, it yielded in prestige and luxury
only to the great capitals of Italy and Egypt, and was justly regarded
as one of the most valuable possessions of the Roman colonial empire.
Its advantages of location, the agricultural wealth of the country,
the settlement of many noble Italian families--fugitives from imperial
oppression and barbarian violence--and the glorious example of former
ages, soon raised the new metropolis to a position scarcely inferior
to that of the old. Its edifices could vie with even the proudest
monuments of the Eternal City; the wealth, intelligence, polished
manners, and boundless excesses of its inhabitants made its name
proverbial throughout antiquity. In the seventh century it divided
with Alexandria the commerce of the Mediterranean, and was greatly
its superior in rank, population, and power. The head of the civil
magistracy of Africa, and the seat of a large military garrison,
it almost monopolized the taste and refinement, the learning, the
philosophy, and the jurisprudence, of the Western world. Universities
with chairs of the liberal arts, academies which afforded instruction
in every language and every science, flourished within its walls; its
circus and its amphitheatre were crowded daily with the wit and beauty
of the city, whose pleasure-loving society, unspeakably corrupt, had
added to the dissolute habits inherited from Punic times the unnatural
vices imported by patrician refugees and colonists from the orgies of
decadent Rome. For perversity of disposition, for shameless effrontery,
for perfidious disregard of faith and contempt of honor, and for
brazen immodesty, the most debauched communities of the East and
West, by universal consent, conferred upon the population of Carthage
the unenviable distinction of unapproachable infamy. The Vandals had
plundered its treasures and enslaved its people, but had spared its
noble buildings, and exempted its walls from the destruction which had
usually befallen those of other towns conquered by these barbarians.
Such was the city which interposed a formidable and hitherto
insuperable barrier to the enterprise of the Moslems; and whose
transcendent influence has left its stamp upon the habits, the creeds,
and the opinions of every subsequent age; to which ancient commerce was
indebted for its development, and from which modern belief has derived
some of the most popular of its dogmas; among them the doctrines of
St. Augustine and the leading principles of patristic theology, that
even now control ecclesiastical councils and prescribe the rules of
Christian discipline.
His preparations completed, the Moslem general, seconded by the
enthusiasm of his splendid army, and confident of success, prepared at
once for an assault. The ladders were planted, and despite the terrors
of Greek fire, and the valor of the Byzantine garrison which behaved
with unusual spirit, the city was taken. But, in the mean time, news
of the danger of the colony had reached the Bosphorus; the Court was
aroused from its lethargy; a powerful fleet was equipped; and the
Moslems had scarcely rested from. their efforts before the arrival of
this new enemy compelled them to retreat. A few months later, however,
reinforcements having been received by Hassan, Carthage was again
stormed; a decisive victory was gained by the Moslems over the Greeks,
who imprudently risked an engagement in the open field; the city was
plundered and burnt; and the jurisdiction over its territory passed
away forever from the hands of the corrupt and pusillanimous sovereigns
of the Eastern Empire.
But the destruction of the capital, a political measure to secure
supremacy, while producing a decisive moral effect upon the remaining
colonies of the Greeks, was far from intimidating the Berbers, whose
omnipresent squadrons remained the masters of all the region situated
beyond the fortified towers of the frontier. A female impostor of
princely lineage--whose name, Dhabba’, has been abandoned by subsequent
chroniclers for the popular appellation Kahina, or Sorceress--had, by
her mysterious arts, obtained unbounded influence over her countrymen;
and, inspiring them with a certain degree of patriotism, had appeased
their feuds and united the roving tribes of the Atlas in an extensive
and powerful confederacy. Animated by her teachings and allured by her
promise of booty, the Berbers pressed upon the forces of Hassan until
the latter, after great losses, were finally expelled, and repairing to
Barca, remained there in a state of inglorious inactivity for nearly
five years. It is related that as soon as the enemy had passed the
borders, the sorceress-queen ordered the fertile region of the coast,
which, in the days of its prosperity, had furnished the supplies of
the Empire, and whose beauty had been celebrated by every traveller,
to be utterly desolated, as a precaution against future invasion. The
fields were laid waste, the towns depopulated, the harvests burnt,
the orchards cut down, the plantations transformed into a wilderness.
This irrational act of violence was not viewed with complacency by
the land-holders and other civilized inhabitants of the country, and,
from time to time, emissaries were despatched to the Arab Viceroy of
Africa, promising him in return for his interference the assistance and
future allegiance of the persecuted colonists. At length the order to
advance arrived from Damascus, and Hassan, with the most numerous army
that had ever invaded Africa, encountered the priestess at the head of
her adherents near Mount Auras. In the battle that ensued, Kahina was
killed; the Berbers were overwhelmingly defeated; and the whole of the
refractory province again invoked the clemency of the victor. But the
same evil genius which, from first to last, attended the administration
of the Moslem governors of Africa, now began to disturb the fortunes
of Hassan. Abd-al-Aziz, the brother of the Khalif, was appointed to
the viceroyalty of Egypt, upon which the jurisdiction of Africa was
made dependent; and Hassan was summoned to Damascus, to answer serious
accusations of tyrannical conduct which had been lodged against him.
But the sight of the spoil wrested from the Berbers, the present of
female captives of extraordinary beauty, the plausible explanations
of his conduct which his fertile ingenuity suggested, and the glowing
accounts of his successes, soon restored the distinguished commander
to the favor of his sovereign, and Hassan was reinvested with the
government of Africa with increased authority. On the return of the
latter, while passing through Egypt, Abd-al-Aziz demanded the surrender
of his commission under color of the supremacy formerly attached to the
viceroyalty of that country, and by which the rest of Mohammedan Africa
was claimed as a dependency. Enraged by his refusal, the governor
arbitrarily deprived Hassan of his commission, tore it in pieces before
his face, and, in defiance of the royal authority, declared the office
vacant, and appointed at his own instance Musa-Ibn-Nosseyr commander of
the armies of the West.
The history of this famous soldier is tinged with a coloring of
adventure, unusual even in the romantic atmosphere of the Orient.
A hundred miles directly west of Ctesiphon is Ain-Tamar, now an
oasis frequented by wandering banditti, but in the seventh century a
prosperous settlement enriched by the trade of Syria and Persia, and
the seat of a Nestorian church and monastery. Attracted by the reports
of its wealth, an expedition headed by Khalid himself surprised it,
after a long and painful march over the desert. In the cloisters of
the monastery were found a number of youths of high rank, who were
nominally pursuing their studies under the direction of the monks,
but were in reality hostages selected from the most distinguished
families of Asia Minor. When offered the customary alternative of
slavery or apostasy, the majority chose the latter, and two of
them, Sirin and Nosseyr, became the fathers of sons who exerted a
wide-spread influence over the destinies of Islam. From Sirin descended
Mohammed the learned doctor of Bassora, and one of the most famous
authorities of Islamic literature; and Nosseyr was the parent of
Musa, the conqueror of Africa and Spain. Nosseyr was attached to the
family of Abd-al-Melik by the right of capture and Mohammedan custom,
and his son occupied the same relation to Abd-al-Aziz, the heir of
the Khalif, who bestowed upon him marks of distinguished favor, and
shared with him a friendship rare indeed in the families of princes.
Educated in the best schools of Syria, which had already attained a
high and well-deserved reputation, Musa early developed a precocity of
intellect, and a talent for negotiation, which led to his employment
in diplomatic affairs of the greatest importance. Under the reign of
Abd-al-Melik, he was appointed vizier to the governor of Bassora,
but having been convicted of peculation, he only escaped with his
life through the intercession of his protector Abd-al-Aziz, who also
paid for him the fine of one hundred dinars of gold--fifty times the
amount of the theft--which the wrath of the Khalif had imposed upon
the defaulter. Residing afterwards at the court of Egypt, and acting
as the trusted councillor of the viceroy, history is silent as to the
fields in which he acquired the experience in arms that subsequently
gained for him such enduring renown. Of a hardy constitution, inured to
hardship, plain in his attire, frugal and abstemious in his habits, his
form presented an example of robust health, although he had long since
passed the meridian of life; and under his locks, whitened by the snows
of many winters, still smouldered the ardent passions of youth, and the
powerful incentives of ambition and adventure. Sagacious in council,
prompt in execution, fearless in battle, implacable in revenge, his
character was, however, tarnished by cruelty, by suspicion, and by
ingratitude; and he never hesitated to risk the sacrifice of power and
position, in the gratification of the avarice which seemed to dominate
his being, almost to the exclusion of every other passion. Unrivalled
in tact and instinctive knowledge of human nature, by his powers of
persuasion he made even his enemies subservient to his designs; while
the strict observance of the ceremonies of his religion, although he
became liable at times to imputations of inconsistency, yet procured
for him in general the reputation of profound and sincere piety. In
his military operations, he displayed the qualities of a skilful and
wary leader, and his dispositions were made with remarkable prudence;
realizing the demands of successful warfare, he annihilated the power
of his adversaries by massacre or wholesale captivity; and by rapid and
sudden advances after a battle he never failed to secure the uncertain
fruits of victory. Such was the character of the man to whom were now
committed the destinies of the Moslem armies of the West.
The veterans who had served under the banner of Hassan, who had
scaled the walls of Carthage, and dispersed the army of the Berber
sorceress, looked with little favor upon their new commander. Calling
them together, Musa paid them their arrears three times over, and
addressing them in a speech in which the eloquence of the orator, the
humility of the devotee, and the art of the demagogue were shrewdly
blended, said: “I am a soldier, like yourselves; applaud and imitate
my good deeds; censure and reprove my failures, for none of us are
free from weakness and error.” Impressed not only with the politic
generosity of their chief, but gratified as well by the unwonted
condescension he displayed, the soldiers greeted him with applause,
and he became henceforth the idol of his army. Without unnecessary
delay, and with his accustomed vigor, he opened the campaign. At the
very outset an incident occurred which not only secured the gratitude
of his followers, but, in that superstitious age, seemed to invest
their general with supernatural powers. A long-continued drought had
dried up the springs and wells, and the army, now far advanced into
the desert, was threatened with death by thirst. In the midst of the
troops solemnly assembled, Musa prayed long and fervently for relief.
Tradition relates that the supplication was almost immediately granted;
and the identical prayer which evoked this apparent miracle was
repeated for nine centuries afterwards by the Spanish Moors when their
country suffered from a scarcity of rain. The Berbers, elated by their
former successes, ventured upon a pitched battle, and were defeated.
Thousands were killed; the fugitives who took refuge in the mountains,
where the natural obstacles of the locality made their defences the
more formidable, were besieged and forced to surrender. The policy of
Musa, different from that of his predecessors, was marked by unusual
severity. If resistance was offered, the tribe was enslaved, its
property confiscated, and its villages burnt to the ground; but, on
the other hand, a ready submission guaranteed protection and favor,
and the stoutest warriors were at once enrolled in the Moslem ranks.
Twelve times already had the Berbers professed adherence to Islam, and
apostatized; and Musa, conscious of their instability, now provided
his new troops with teachers learned in the Koran, who could give them
daily instruction in their religious duties. Their new associations,
the trust reposed in them, the separation from their kindred, and the
boundless prospect of plunder and glory, soon transformed these unruly
bands into a serviceable force, capable of the greatest exploits.
The seizure of the horses, cattle, and sheep, which constituted the
wealth of the Berbers, compensated the victors, in some degree, for
the absence of the costly booty which had rewarded the courage of
their brethren in Syria and Egypt; while the prodigious number of
slaves, resulting from the depopulation of entire provinces, provided
a source of wealth whose profits were easily realized in the markets
of Alexandria and Damascus. The royal fifth of the latter reserved by
Musa amounted to sixty thousand, a number so vast as to be incredible,
and which caused the Khalif to regard the announcement as false when
he received it. With characteristic munificence, he directed Musa
to reimburse himself for the fine which he had formerly paid as the
penalty for his dishonesty, and, at the same time, he granted to him
and the most distinguished soldiers of the army pensions commensurate
with their services.
The invasion and sack of Medina by the Syrians, bent upon retribution
for the murder of Othman, had caused a great emigration from Arabia,
and thousands of the descendants of the proudest families of the
Holy Cities had established themselves in Africa, and had rendered
great aid to the projects of Musa. Their incorporation into the
armies of Al-Maghreb and Iberia sensibly affected the fortunes of
the latter country, and indirectly led to the restoration of the
dynasty of the Ommeyades. Four sons of Musa had accompanied him in
his campaign, and now deputing his authority to the two eldest, he
despatched them to the South and West, where a few remaining Berber
tribes still asserted their independence. Following the example of
their father they exterminated such tribes as dared to resist, and
in a few months returned to Kairoan, whither Musa had retired with
considerable spoil and a large number of captives. In the mean time,
the latter, recognizing the supreme importance of naval operations, and
treating with contempt the absurd prejudice of his countrymen whose
superstitious dread of the sea amounted at times to absolute terror,
ordered the refitting of the dock-yards and harbors of Carthage, whose
substantial quays had been little impaired by the successive calamities
which had befallen the city. A hundred vessels were built, launched,
and manned; Abdallah was appointed admiral; the fleet cruised along the
coast of the Mediterranean, and crossing to Sicily, sacked the city of
Linosa and returned in triumph with a booty of twenty thousand pieces
of gold. Four years afterwards a descent was made by Abdallah on the
Balearic Isles, and Majorca was, after a short campaign, added to the
dominions of the Khalif.
Their incorrigible duplicity and restlessness, and the absence of a
competent military force, again impelled the tribes of the interior
to revolt. Taking the field at the head of a picked force, Musa, with
trifling difficulty, took Tangier, the last fortified post held by the
Greeks in Al-Maghreb; and sending his son Merwan with five thousand
cavalry against Sus-al-Aska, the head-quarters of the insurgents, soon
had the satisfaction of learning that the rebellion was subdued, and
the recalcitrant Berbers punished with a rigor unexampled even in the
sanguinary wars of Africa. After making two attempts to capture Ceuta,
one of the keys of the strait separating Africa from Europe, both of
which the gallant behavior of the governor, Count Julian, rendered
ineffectual, Musa appointed Tarik-Ibn-Zeyad, a Berber convert, formerly
his slave, and now one of his most trusty officers, to the command of
Tangier, and returned to Kairoan.
With the surrender of Tangier the Byzantine domination in Africa came
to an end. Sixty years of warfare, the destruction of fleets, the
annihilation of armies, the devastation of provinces, the enslavement
of nations, had been required to accomplish this result, never for a
moment lost sight of by the Moslems amidst the imbroglios of courts and
the revolts of pretenders to the Khalifate of Damascus. The abnormally
perfidious and martial character of the Berber placed him outside
the category of ordinary enemies. No reverses, however severe, could
break his spirit. He ignored the obligation of treaties. No resource
remained, therefore, but depopulation. The number of slaves made by the
Mussulmans in Africa excited the amazement of their brethren in the
East. A successful campaign often yielded two hundred thousand of these
unfortunates. Such wholesale captivity was without precedent even in
the annals of Rome. The fortresses, with the exception of Ceuta, which
was nominally a dependency of the Visigothic kings of Spain--though
held by a feeble and uncertain tenure--were now in the possession of
the Saracens.
The Berbers either paid tribute to the Khalif or, serving under
their own commanders, were enrolled in his armies. Already, after the
expiration of only two generations, during which the laws and customs
of Mohammedan life can be said to have been established, the momentous
effects of polygamy were strikingly noticeable. The children of the
pagan slaves who filled the harems of the conquerors were educated in
the doctrines of the Koran, and idolatry had totally disappeared, save,
perhaps, in some sequestered valley of the Atlas Mountains, where the
half-savage devotee bowed before a rude and lonely altar, and with
mystic incantations invoked the aid of some misshapen image. Islam,
which, even by the reluctant testimony of Christian missionaries,
exalts the character of the Negro and invests him with a sense of
personal dignity and self-respect which no other religion has been
able to inspire, soon gained the professed allegiance of the Berbers;
and like the Arab, the more suspicious and clannish they had been
in their Age of Ignorance, the more patriotic and enterprising they
became as Mohammedans--the very isolation and irreconcilable antagonism
of their former condition seemed to insensibly impress them with a
realization of the imperative necessity and paramount value of national
union. The call to prayer of the muezzin everywhere rang out from
the towers of pagan temple and Christian church, whose magnificent
decorations, bestowed by penitent Goth and Vandal, had once glittered
as trophies amidst the splendid pageantry of a Roman triumph. But,
despite community of interest, ethnological resemblance, and identity
of religious belief, the environment of the inhabitants of Africa seems
to be hostile to the permanent improvement of the human species, and
before attaining to the highest degree of development of which the race
is elsewhere susceptible, it begins to retrograde. The natural state
of this great continent, determined largely by climatic and other
physical conditions, is essentially and eternally barbarous. Unlike
Europe, which has reaped something of value even from its misfortunes,
and, by the example of its achievements in art and letters, subdued
its very enemies, the institutions and influence of no polished people
have ever impressed upon the natives of Africa any enduring traces. The
astounding expansion of the Arab intellect--the crowning phenomenon
of the Middle Ages--was as transitory in its effects upon them as
the thrift and refinement of Carthage or the more solid and majestic
influence of Rome. In some respects resembling Asia--whose voluptuous
idleness tends inevitably to physical and mental degeneracy--Africa,
with its vast mineral resources, its unsurpassed facilities for
commercial intercourse, and its inexhaustible agricultural wealth,
has--with the exception of Egypt, whose isolation rendered it
practically a foreign country--been of little use to its inhabitants,
alike incapable of appreciating these manifold advantages and of
systematically employing them for their own benefit or for the general
profit of mankind.