THE PRINCIPALITIES OF MOORISH SPAIN
1012–1044
Immobility of the African Race--Its Hostility to
Civilization--Its Pernicious Influence on the
Politics of the Western Khalifate--Character of
Suleyman--Invasion of Ali--He ascends the Throne--His
Tyranny--He is assassinated--Abd-al-Rahman IV. succeeds
Him--Yahya--Abd-al-Rahman V.--Mohammed--Hischem
III.--Organization of the Council of State--Ibn-Djahwar, the
Minister--His Talents and Power--Abul-Kasim-Mohammed, Kadi of
Seville--Berber Conspiracy--The Impostor Khalaf is raised to the
Throne as Hischem II.--Almeria--The Vizier Ibn-Abbas--Influence
of the Jews at Granada--The Rabbi Samuel--Rivalry of Granada
and Almeria--Abu-al-Fotuh--Motadhid ascends the Throne of
Seville--His Cruel and Dissolute Character--His Collection
of Skulls--Badis, King of Granada---Increasing Power of
Castile--Valencia and Malaga--Atrocities of the Christians at
Barbastro.
From the earliest period mentioned in history, as has been remarked
in a previous chapter, the spirit of the various tribes inhabiting
the great continent of Africa has been constantly hostile to human
progress. The ignorance, cruelty, and depravity of those nations whose
territory did not touch the shores of the Mediterranean have always
seemed impregnable to the beneficent and ordinarily irresistible
influences of civilization. It is true that the northern extremity of
that continent has been the seat of powerful empires, of great cities,
of rich and enterprising centres of commercial activity. But this
superior culture, confined to a narrow strip whose southern boundary
was only a few days’ journey from the coast, was without exception
exotic. The origin of the Egyptians, lost in the depths of a remote
and unknown antiquity, has never been conclusively established. But it
is almost certain that it was not African. The ethnical peculiarities
which formerly distinguished, and are still noticeable in, the
inhabitants of the Valley of the Nile had nothing in common with the
physical and mental characteristics of surrounding nations. The rigid
seclusion that, as a principle of national policy, prevailed in ancient
Egypt from time immemorial sufficiently precludes the existence of
extraneous influence. Subsequently, under the enlightened empire of the
Ptolemies, while the form of government and the religious ceremonial
of ancient times were preserved, the traditions of the schools and the
social atmosphere which surrounded the splendid court of Alexandria
were entirely Grecian. Carthage was a Phœnician colony. The instincts
of its citizens, their energy, their duplicity, their luxury, their
vices, their political organization, their maritime enterprise, their
architecture, and their gods were Tyrian, and consequently Asiatic.
The prosperity enjoyed by the Latin colonies established after the
Punic Wars, when the countries situated on the southern shores of the
Mediterranean shared with Egypt the burden of providing sustenance for
the slothful and turbulent populace of Italy, was due to the example,
the policy, the institutions of Rome. The empire of the Edrisites,
the magnificence of Fez and Kairoan, the wonderful cultivation of the
Desert, the subjugation and control of the fierce tribesmen of the
Atlas, were the work of princes of Arab blood. In all these glories of
commerce, art, and opulence the Africans had no share. They served in
the armies of the conqueror, but without loyalty, honor, or gratitude.
Their insubordination wrought far greater injury to the cause of good
government than their efforts promoted its advancement. They zealously
preserved their malign and destructive instincts in the midst of
the most refined and intellectual society of the age. Incapable of
profiting by the civilization by which they were surrounded, their
only aim seemed to be the obliteration of those evidences of mental
superiority which they could neither appreciate nor enjoy. Nor have the
benevolent and humanizing influences of the nineteenth century been
able to remove the incorrigible barbarism of the African. The tribes
of the Sahara are no further advanced in the arts of peace than when
they yielded a sullen and reluctant obedience to the military genius
of Musa. The lives of well-meaning sentimentalists have been vainly
sacrificed to ameliorate the debased condition of the Negro. Even with
the example of the most polished nations of modern times before him,
the advantages of education, rare opportunities for the accumulation
of wealth, intimacy with the learned, participation in government,
social privileges--all these blessings have served only to confirm
and emphasize the inherent and irredeemable stupidity, malice, and
bestiality of his nature,--characteristics transmitted by a savage,
perhaps by a simian ancestry. Association with the Romans--degenerate
as they had become since the glorious days of the Republic and the
Empire--aroused in the minds of the Goth and the Vandal aspirations
to, at least in some degree, imitate that excellence which made their
own deficiencies the more conspicuous. They gradually discarded
their savage customs. They adopted the salutary institutions of the
vanquished. They emulated--often with little success, but with the
most praiseworthy intentions--the heroic virtues of antiquity. By this
means the immortal genius of Roman civilization in a measure survived,
to exert its refining power upon subsequent ages. Not so, however,
with the African. His proximity to and intercourse with the highly
cultured nations of Europe produced no improvement in his domestic
life, no stimulation of his intellectual faculties, no mitigation of
his brutal and ferocious nature. He was the principal means by which
the Ommeyade empire was both founded and annihilated. His native
rudeness and repugnance to discipline were manifested even before the
termination of the Conquest. From the hordes of the Atlas and the
Sahara were recruited the ruthless soldiery by whom the disturbances
that distracted the emirate were perpetuated. They formed an important
but treacherous contingent of the armies of the khalifate. While
nominally adherents of the Mohammedan faith, they continued to observe
those idolatrous ceremonies which had provoked the maledictions of
the Prophet. Obedience to the sovereign was always subordinated to
reverence for the chieftain. They maintained under the most adverse
circumstances the primitive traditions of their race. Their camp
was the daily scene of savage rites, of the practice of divination,
witchcraft, sorcery, and magic. In their civil organization, the
patriarchal simplicity of the Desert prevailed, their military
evolutions were the clamorous and irregular demonstrations of brave
but undisciplined barbarians. Their overpowering impulse was that of
indiscriminating destruction. They viewed with stolid indifference the
incomparable monuments of Saracen culture. The most exquisite works
of art, in whose fabrication was exhausted the skill of the goldsmith
and the enameler, were broken and melted for the sake of the precious
metals they contained. The Berber was the very embodiment of cruelty,
perfidy, disorganization, and ruin. In comparison with his boundless
capacity for mischief, all the destructive agencies exerted by the
hostile races composing the population of the Western Khalifate were
insignificant. The inexhaustible numbers of the tribes of Numidia
and Mauritania, whence were drawn alike the instruments of regal
tyranny and of servile revolution, their prowess, their indomitable
ferocity, their impetuous ardor, the persistence of their Pagan ideas
and their social customs, rendered them most formidable impediments
of civilization. To the incessant immigration from Africa, to the
enrolment of Berber mercenaries in the armies of Mohammedan Spain,
to the impolitic appeals for aid to the semi-barbarian princes of
Al-Maghreb, are to be attributed far more than to the rivalry of Arab
tribes or to the inherent defects of the Moslem constitution--serious
as these undoubtedly were--the succession of disasters which overtook
the empire of the Ommeyades, and the unspeakable crimes which stain the
Moorish annals of the eleventh century, whose deplorable consequences
were felt to the remotest corners of the Peninsula.
I have been led to the consideration of the topic discussed in the
preceding pages by reason of the prominent part assumed by the
African tribes during the closing years of the Moslem domination in
Spain. While an apparent digression, it is in fact inseparable from
a complete account of the events transpiring in the dominions once
embraced by the khalifate of Cordova. The relations of Africa and
Mussulman Europe had long been intimate. The jealousies of ambition
and sovereignty had, except in infrequent and isolated cases, been
subordinated to the offices of mutual kindness and friendship. No
serious acts of hostility had as yet been permitted to interrupt the
cordial intercourse which--facilitated by the short distance separating
the two continents--existed between nations acknowledging, at least in
form, the same religion and governed by similar laws. Wealthy traders
maintained commercial establishments at the same time in Almeria
and Kairoan. The sons of sheiks of the Desert rose to high commands
under the famous princes of the House of Ommeyah. The negro slaves
of the Soudan were repeatedly chosen to guard the sacred person of
the monarch. The erudition of the philosophers of Cordova had been
exhibited to the astonishment, if not to the approbation, of the
fanatical sectaries of Fez. Powerful princes of Mauritania had more
than once rendered homage and paid tribute to the rulers of the mighty
Khalifate of the West. They had submitted with a feeling of pride to
the supremacy of one of the most renowned of those rulers, for they
remembered that he was popularly reputed to be of the same origin and
of kindred blood. During the administration of Al-Mansur, no African
prince would have cherished the apparently chimerical hope that his
dynasty was destined to influence, in a decisive way, the future of
the Peninsula. The death of that great commander, who left no worthy
successor, encouraged the aspirations of every ambitious chieftain
to plunge the country into anarchy, a condition from which he might
possibly emerge with the lion’s share of power and plunder. In less
than forty years the Berbers obtained control of the most valuable
portion of the rich inheritance of the Moslems of Spain; in less than
a century and a half the magnificent empire of the Ommeyades, whose
civilization had been the marvel of the age, its cities sacked and
demolished, its fertile fields laid waste, its commerce annihilated,
its industrious and thriving population massacred or condemned to
painful servitude, had descended, from the exalted rank of a monarchy
whose name was mentioned with respect and fear by the most distant and
inaccessible nations, to the humiliating position of a dependency of
the barbarous and illiterate sultans of Africa.
The jurisdiction of the self-designated Khalif Suleyman, who, as
the head of the Berber faction, had acquired an appearance of regal
authority by a frightful expenditure of blood, was confined to a
circumscribed extent of territory including only five populous cities,
of which Cordova, whose possession implied the prestige and power of
an imperial title, was, of course, the most important. At the first
appearance of national discord consequent on the dismemberment of
the khalifate, the military commanders who occupied the strongest
fortresses proclaimed their neutrality or independence. The Eastern
provinces of the Peninsula, whose territory had hitherto escaped the
calamities which had so seriously afflicted the less fortunate regions
of the West, preserved, by the freedom of their ports, the enterprise
of their merchants, and the unmolested industry of their laborers,
a prosperity of diminished extent and uncertain duration, but one
which contrasted vividly with the miserable condition of the once
flourishing centres of trade and agriculture, in happier days the pride
of beautiful Andalusia. Here the Slave officers appointed under the
nominal authority of the royal puppet, Hischem II., held their courts
and displayed on a limited theatre all the luxurious magnificence and
tyrannical caprices of Asiatic despotism. In the North, where the
adherents of the Amirides abounded, the Berber princes of Saragossa and
Toledo maintained an appearance of barbaric pomp and martial rivalry.
From the latter, who, like the Slaves, had asserted their independence,
Suleyman, although his troops were allied to their subjects by the
closest bonds of nationality and relationship, could expect no support.
He was therefore compelled to rely entirely upon his army, composed
of soldiers of fortune, whose fidelity was wholly dependent on the
willingness of their general to indulge their mutinous instincts and
their love of rapine. Of these mercenaries, who, half Pagan and half
Christian, served with singular inconsistency under the standard of
a Moslem prince against sectaries of his own religion, the bitter
enemies of both, the Berbers were the controlling element. They were
regarded by the mass of the population of Moorish Spain, and especially
by the Arabs of noble blood, with peculiar execration. The fact that
under the very shadow of the noble mosques of the Andalusian capital
they habitually practised heathen rites denounced by the Koran and
abhorred by every Mussulman was notorious. The rich and flexible idiom
of the Peninsula, the pride of the Arab, the language spoken by the
Prophet, the medium by which the learning of the scholars of the Moslem
world had been communicated and preserved, was wholly unknown to them.
Their uncouth manners and insolent bearing excited the disgust of a
people proverbial for their native refinement and dignified courtesy.
Every city, every hamlet, every plantation, bore ineffaceable marks of
the blind ferocity of these detested foreigners. They had sacked the
splendid metropolis of the West. They had transformed the unrivalled
palace and suburb of Medina-al-Zahrâ into a heap of blackened ruins.
Their violence had made of the most fertile portions of Andalusia
an uninhabited and gloomy solitude. The towns swarmed with Berber
robbers, who pursued their nefarious calling almost without hinderance;
the country was unsafe on account of the organized bands of Berber
outlaws that infested the highways. Crime of every description enjoyed
immunity through the corrupt partnership of its perpetrators with the
authorities, who greedily shared their booty. The confiscated spoils
of noble families that traced their ancestry to the Companions of
the Prophet were flaunted with the shameless impudence of legalized
brigandage and irresponsible power in the faces of their former owners
now reduced to penury. The beautiful wives and daughters of the Arab
aristocracy were dragged from their homes to pine in the harems of
brutal and half-savage Berber chieftains. The African prejudice
against learning had caused the extermination of the philosophers of
Cordova,--a deed whose atrocity was aggravated by the fact that the
victims were non-combatants, a class protected by the soldiery of every
generous and self-respecting nation. Not without cause did the poet
lament that the wrath of Allah had unchained a legion of demons to
afflict with unspeakable misery the imperial cities adorned with the
triumphs of the august line of the Ommeyades.
The sovereign of these oppressors, through the circumstances of
his position, had become a cruel tyrant. By nature he was inclined
to peace. When untrammelled by the baneful associations which had
corrupted his mind, and through whose influence he had risen to power,
he exhibited the disposition of a generous and enlightened ruler. He
strictly observed the principles of humanity and justice. His decisions
as a magistrate were characterized by a spirit of impartial equity.
His temper was mild. He was a friend of letters, and disclosed in the
poetic efforts attributed to him ability of no mean order. His greatest
delight was in the familiar conversation of scholars, whose talents
he appreciated and whose tastes he encouraged. He availed himself of
every resource at his command to restore tranquillity and confidence
in the communities terrorized by the excesses of his followers. It was
only when the interests of the latter were directly involved that he
remembered the instruments of his greatness, and sanctioned crimes that
have left an indelible blot upon his name.
In spite of the pretensions of Suleyman and his occupation of the
throne of the khalifs, the khotba, or public prayer, for Hischem
II., whose death had not been established to the satisfaction of
the people, was still, despite the entreaties and the protests of
the usurper, recited in the Andalusian mosques. The corpse of the
last of the Ommeyades had never been exhibited to the populace for
identification. The presumption of his survival was in a measure
confirmed by the strict seclusion in which he had passed his life. A
generation of tutelage and imbecility had not entirely destroyed the
prestige of that dynasty whose heroic achievements had reflected such
lustre on the Moslem name. Pretenders to the supreme power, concealing
their ambition under the specious pretext of liberating an imprisoned
sovereign and avenging his wrongs, arose throughout the cities of the
South. The ablest and most powerful of these was Khairan, governor of
Almeria, an official who had stood high in the favor of Al-Mansur.
Even in Africa the aspirations of enterprising generals were excited
by the alluring prospect of a vacant throne, a prize which in the
lottery of war might readily fall to a bold and fortunate soldier. The
excellent qualities of Suleyman did not compensate in the eyes of the
multitude for the unpopular methods by which he had risen to power.
A leader was soon found who was disposed to profit by the universal
discontent. Ali-Ibn-Hamud, at that time governor of Ceuta, had been
one of the ablest officers in the armies of Al-Mansur and had served
with distinction under that commander. He traced his genealogy to
the family of Mohammed. His ancestors, long domiciled in Mauritania,
were, however, regarded by the Berbers as of common nationality with
themselves. His instincts and associations led him to identify himself
with their cause, although he claimed descent from the son-in-law of
the Prophet. An understanding was established by the emissaries of
their countrymen between the ambitious general and certain conspirators
in Spain. Gifted with the astuteness of his race, he easily deceived
the superstitious Khairan with a false account of an interview with
Hischem, during which he alleged that the latter had appointed him his
successor, proclaimed himself the champion of the persecuted Khalif,
and, enlisting the sympathies of the innumerable malcontents who viewed
with favor any plan promising the overthrow of Suleyman, soon found
himself at the head of a formidable revolution.
Ali had hardly landed in Andalusia, before Amir-Ibn-Fotuh, governor
of Malaga, whose attachment to the family of the dethroned Khalif
had been recently strengthened by the appropriation of a part of his
dominions by the Berbers, surrendered that important fortress, and,
Ali having formed a junction with Khairan at Almuñecar, the allied
army pressed forward without delay to attack the capital. Zawi, the
governor of Granada, whose authority and resources equalled those of
Suleyman himself, as soon as intelligence of the invasion reached him,
announced his adherence to the cause of the insurgents. The times
had never been more auspicious for the enterprise of a pretender.
By the populace, too often disposed to hold the leader responsible
for the delinquencies of his faction, Suleyman was regarded as a
fiend incarnate. The soldiers despised him because they mistook his
disposition to lenity for an indication of cowardice. The supporters of
the ancient dynasty and the dependents of the Amirides, who attributed
to his agency the persecution of which they had been the victims, never
mentioned his name without a curse. The palace and the Divan were as
usual on such occasions centres of intrigue. The army swarmed with
traitors. In Cordova itself the mob, which had enjoyed for centuries
an unenviable reputation for inconstancy and turbulence, awaited with
impatience the signal for revolt. The consequences of this political
condition soon became evident. The detachments sent by Suleyman to
check the insurgents were one after another put to flight. When the
Prince himself appeared in the camp to take command in person, he
was seized by his own troops and sent in chains to the enemy. A few
days afterwards the wretched Suleyman received at the hands of the
executioner, after the infliction of every insult, the last penalty
of disaster and incapacity,--the usual fate of captive monarchs in
that barbarous age. In spite of the diligent search instituted by the
victorious generals, the missing Hischem could not be found, and,
as previously related, although Suleyman had insisted that he was
dead, the corpse exhumed as his and subjected to a superficial and
insufficient identification was not accepted as genuine by those not
interested in supporting a fraud, and the fate of the unfortunate son
of Al-Hakem remains to this day an impenetrable mystery.
In compliance with an agreement in which he had taken advantage of the
credulity of Khairan, Ali now assumed the royal insignia and authority,
with the title of Al-Nassir-al-Din-Allah, and another usurper was
invested with the uncertain and perilous dignity of nominal ruler of
the dismembered khalifate.
Contrary to the expectations of his opponents, and to the infinite
disgust of his partisans, who had counted upon indulgence in unbridled
license, the beginning of the reign of Ali was marked by a display of
moderation and justice for many years unknown to the unhappy people
of Andalusia. Before his tribunal the distinctions of faction were no
longer recognized, and the Spaniard, without regard to his political
relations, received equal consideration with the African. The bandit
propensities of the Berbers were mercilessly repressed. The fact that
Ali had been reared among them, was connected with their race by ties
of consanguinity, was familiar with no other tongue but theirs, and had
been raised to the throne through their influence, afforded no security
to the Berber malefactor. The slightest act of rapine was punished
with instant death. An incident is related by the Arab historians
which conveys a significant idea of this summary administration of
justice. As the Khalif was once passing through a gate of the capital,
he encountered a mounted Berber with a quantity of grapes on the
saddle before him. The royal cavalcade was instantly halted, and the
Prince demanded of the horseman: “Whence hast thou obtained those
grapes?” “I seized them like a soldier,” was the insolent reply. At
a signal from Ali, the culprit was at once dragged to the roadside
and decapitated. His head was then fastened upon the grapes, and the
horse, with its ghastly burden, preceded by a crier, was led through
the principal streets of the city as an example of the fate to be
expected by all whose lawless inclinations, confirmed by former
impunity, tempted them to violate the rights of person and property.
In the forms of legal procedure the new ruler discarded the habits of
seclusion and mystery affected by the later Ommeyades, and returned to
the ancient and patriarchal simplicity which had characterized from
time immemorial the unceremonious judicial tribunals of the Orient. On
certain appointed days, attended by a slender retinue and with scarcely
any tokens of his exalted rank, he sat at the gate of the palace to
receive the complaints and redress the grievances of his subjects.
At the bar of this court no offender could hope for immunity through
pride of lineage, amount of wealth, or important tribal affiliations.
Justice was meted out equally to all. The executioner was constantly
in attendance, and infliction of the penalty, whether by scourging,
imprisonment, or death, followed closely upon the sentence. As the
Berbers constituted the majority of the delinquents, they soon began
to denounce their sovereign as a political apostate and an enemy of
his race. This exhibition of judicial severity was followed by the
most satisfactory results. The irresponsible infliction of unusual
punishments was replaced by the regular process of law. The Berbers
submitted sullenly but completely to the disagreeable but wholesome
restraints of discipline. The citizen and the peasant could now,
without serious molestation, pursue their ordinary employments. The
streets became safe for pedestrians. The highways were purged of
banditti. Commerce began to revive. The partiality of Ali for the
Andalusians, who, as the more peaceable class of the population, were
seldom arraigned before the magistrate to answer for violation of the
laws, became daily more marked. Indeed, he had formed the commendable
design of depriving his Berber subjects of the property they had
acquired by the pillage of their neighbors, and of restoring to the
latter the estates which had been confiscated without other warrant of
authority than that conveyed by force during the lawless period which
had followed the death of Al-Mansur. This plan was frustrated by the
habitual inconstancy and ingratitude of the people, fomented by the
discontent of a military leader, whose exaggerated estimate of his own
abilities was in a direct proportion to his inordinate ambition.
For nearly two years Ali governed the states of his contracted
kingdom with exemplary firmness and wisdom. But, while reluctantly
acknowledging the benefits they enjoyed, the partisans of the House
of Ommeyah could never forget the foreign origin and barbarian
antecedents of the determined prince who had avenged their wrongs
and tamed the ferocity of their savage oppressors. As for the
Africans, they detested the ruler who owed his rank to their courage
and treachery, and who repaid their devotion with a contumely and
an impartial disregard of their claims which they did not hesitate
to denounce as the most flagrant ingratitude. Thus the inflexible
justice of Ali alienated his partisans, while the national prejudice
against his race operated to his disadvantage in every other quarter.
Aware of this feeling, Khairan, who felt aggrieved because he was not
intrusted with a larger share in the government he had contributed to
establish, organized a conspiracy to restore the Ommeyades to power.
Al-Morthada, a great-grandson of Abd-al-Rahman III., was selected as
the representative of the malcontents under the title of Abd-al-Rahman
IV. The prestige investing the name of the illustrious family of
the pretender, the hope of vengeance upon the Berbers, the prospect
of revolution, so attractive to the Andalusian mind, brought many
followers to his standard. Valencia declared for him. The governor of
Saragossa espoused his cause and marched southward with a force of
several thousand men. The services of Raymond, Count of Barcelona, were
secured, and he appeared in the rebel camp at the head of a squadron
of Christian knights sheathed in complete armor. The popularity of the
enterprise enlisted the sympathy of the peasantry, always prone to
insurrection. In Cordova the presence of the soldiery alone prevented
an outbreak, and it was problematical for how long a time the garrison
would be able to overawe the populace, even if their own fidelity
remained unshaken. Indignant that his efforts for the restoration
and maintenance of public order should meet with such a recompense,
Ali renounced the statesmanlike policy he had hitherto pursued. The
Berbers again reigned supreme in the capital. Once more the streets
rang with the tumultuous din of outrage and riot, with the groans of
murdered men, with the shrieks of violated women. The tribunals, which
for many months had dispensed justice with rigid impartiality, now
refused to entertain a complaint against the military tyrants whose
passions, exasperated by restraint, raged with redoubled violence.
An army of informers was maintained by the government, and eminent
citizens were daily consigned to dungeons on the false testimony of
the vilest of mankind. This spirit of espionage was so general that
it is remarked by a writer, who himself witnessed these scenes, that
“one-half of the inhabitants was constantly employed in watching
the other half.” The possession of wealth was of itself a powerful
incentive to an accusation of treason. A convenient and effective
method of replenishing the treasury was devised by causing the arrest
of the rich upon fabricated evidence and then restoring them to liberty
after payment of an exorbitant ransom. When the friends of the victims
came to escort them to their homes, their horses were seized and they
were forced to return on foot. It was not unusual for the houses of the
nobles to be robbed in open day by the African guards of the Khalif.
The few remaining palaces erected by the Ommeyades were destroyed;
the known adherents of that faction were persecuted with unrelenting
severity, and every conceivable insult was visited upon those whose
prejudices against the party in power were assumed to exist by reason
of their literary tastes or their superior erudition. The mosques,
which heretofore, either from superstitious fear or from motives of
policy, had been exempt from forced contributions, were now subjected
to the most vexatious extortion. Their ornaments were carried away.
Their revenues were confiscated. The ministers of religion were taxed.
Many of the finest temples of the capital were deserted or became the
haunts of nocturnal marauders. Even the devout dared not assemble for
the worship of God. The consciousness of the perfidious ingratitude
displayed by his subjects so embittered the temper of the Khalif that
he resolved upon the most extreme measures, and publicly announced
his intention of razing to its foundation the city of Cordova. The
accomplishment of this malignant design, which, in destroying the most
splendid architectural monument of Moslem genius, would at the same
time have inflicted an irreparable injury upon art and archæology,
was fortunately frustrated by the assassination of the tyrant. Three
of his most trusted slaves, animated by a desire to liberate their
country from the evils from which it suffered, and, so far as can be
determined, without the co-operation of others, killed Ali in the bath
on the very day he was about to take the field against the enemy.
The murder of the usurper was far from producing the effect desired and
expected by the revolutionists, who everywhere hailed it with the most
extravagant demonstrations of rejoicing. The dreaded Africans still
overawed the populace of the capital. The emissaries of Al-Morthada
were unable to arouse the mob, in whose mind was still fresh the
remembrance of the merciless vengeance of these barbarians. A council
of chieftains was assembled, and the crown was offered to Kasim,
the brother of Ali, at that time governor of Seville, who, a trusty
lieutenant of Al-Mansur, had served with gallantry in many campaigns
against the Christians.
While these events were taking place the cause of the Ommeyade party
was declining. Its head, who had been proclaimed khalif under the name
of Abd-al-Rahman IV., manifested too independent a spirit to please
those who had expected to retain him in perpetual subjection. After
the factitious enthusiasm of revolution had subsided, the ranks of the
insurgents began to be seriously depleted by desertions. Recruits could
not be enlisted for an enterprise which now offered the unattractive
prospect of much fighting and privation and but little plunder. The
governors of important towns held aloof, or withdrew from an alliance
which they had never heartily indorsed. Even the ardor of the leaders
was visibly cooled. Khairan himself, whose treasonable propensities
were incorrigible, now agreed with Zawi, governor of Granada,--before
which city the revolutionary army was encamped,--to abandon the
Ommeyade pretender during the first engagement. The perfidious compact
was fulfilled to the letter. The traitors deserted in the heat of
battle, the faithful adherents of Al-Morthada were overpowered and
cut off to a man, and that unfortunate prince, having escaped with
difficulty from the field, was followed and put to death by the
horsemen of Khairan.
With the death of Ali had disappeared the last impediment to the
undisputed ascendency of the Berber faction. The people of Cordova,
who had taken no active part in the recent disturbances, submitted
with scarcely a murmur to the government of a sovereign who, though
trained in camps, evinced little inclination for scenes of bloodshed.
The persecution of Ali had effectually broken the spirit of the
Andalusian nobility. The wealthy were impoverished. The philosophers,
the theologians, the faquis,--whose hypocrisy served as a convenient
cloak for their ambition,--had been either exterminated or driven
into exile. Thus, the elements of successful resistance having been
paralyzed or entirely eliminated, a rare opportunity was afforded for
the restoration of order and prosperity. In the very first dispositions
of his reign, Kasim displayed a tact and a magnanimity which would
have done credit to the most enlightened monarch. He suppressed the
violence which had hitherto been tolerated, if not sanctioned, by
representatives of the law. He granted an amnesty to the vanquished.
The treason of Khairan was pardoned. Eminent supporters of the ancient
dynasty were raised to important and responsible commands. Strenuous
efforts were made to heal the wounds caused by generations of civil war
and to reconcile, at least in appearance, the political dissensions
prevailing even among individuals of the same family, and which
constantly distracted the peace of every community. This patriotic and
conservative policy of Kasim had hardly commenced to restore public
confidence, when a measure, adopted for his own security, once more
awakened the animosity of the implacable enemies of civilization and
order. Long familiarity with the inconstant attachments and treacherous
character of the Berbers had rendered the Khalif unwilling to entrust
his person to their keeping. They were therefore gradually removed from
the palace and their places supplied by negro slaves purchased in the
markets of Africa, whose habits of obedience were presumed to afford a
better warrant for their fidelity than the offensive pretensions and
proud independence of the desert tribes, confirmed for years by legal
impunity and successful revolution. The disgrace of the royal guard was
considered an unpardonable affront by every individual of the Berber
nation. A plot was formed to bestow the khalifate on Yahya, a son of
Ali, whose absence in Africa had alone prevented his succession to his
father, and who responded with alacrity to the overtures of the Berber
chieftains. Landing at Malaga, which city was under the jurisdiction of
his brother Edris, and welcomed with the acclamations of the people,
he occupied Cordova without encountering the slightest resistance.
Kasim, having received intimations of the intended defection of his
followers, left the capital at night, and, attended by five slaves on
whom he could rely, withdrew to Seville. The pre-eminent unfitness of
Yahya for his exalted position soon became apparent. He alienated the
Berbers by refusing to restore the ancient privileges of plunder and
extortion to which they considered themselves entitled by the right
of conquest. Proud of his descent from the family of the Prophet, he
constantly maintained a haughty demeanor towards the nobility, and
disdained all intercourse with the people, whom he affected to regard
as slaves. Notwithstanding this offensive assumption of superiority, he
chose for his intimate associates men without standing or character,
whose principal recommendation was their indulgence of his whims
and their subserviency to his vices. The eminent qualifications
for government derived from intellectual acquirements and military
experience received no consideration at the hands of this vain and
ignorant successor of the khalifs. Discontent soon spread throughout
the court and the city. The Berbers importunately demanded a division
of the public treasure. The slave-guards of Kasim, apprehensive for
their safety, sought the presence and the forgiveness of their former
monarch at Seville. Officers, who had signalized their abilities in
the councils and the campaigns of a generation, abandoned with disgust
the cares of government to the incompetent and low-born sycophants who
swarmed around the throne. In no mosque of Andalusia was the khotba
repeated in the name of Yahya; that expressive mark of sovereignty was
still enjoyed by Kasim, or by some representative of the uncertain and
fast-vanishing dignity of the royal race of the Ommeyades.
Thus restricted to the walls of Cordova, whose population regarded
his conduct with unconcealed disfavor, Yahya soon began to appreciate
the threatening character of the perils that environed him. Convinced
of his inability to defend himself in case of attack, he retired to
Malaga, accompanied by a retinue little superior in numbers to that
with which his uncle had abandoned his capital but a few months before.
The return of Kasim was the signal for fresh conspiracies and renewed
disorder. In the conflict of interests the two factions which had
accomplished his expulsion were again arrayed against him, and the
force of negro slaves, whose duplicity had so signally disappointed
his expectations, constituted the sole and precarious bulwark of the
throne. A report, perhaps well founded, gained credence in Cordova
that another descendant of Abd-al-Rahman would soon lay claim to his
hereditary and usurped prerogatives. When the rumor of this movement
reached the court, Kasim adopted the most radical measures for the
prevention of a new revolution. An indiscriminate proscription was
inaugurated against the Ommeyades. The uncertainty of the candidate for
regal honors, whose pretensions were to be exhibited for the approval
of the people, stimulated the animosity and increased the vigilance
of the authorities. The members of the proscribed dynasty fled
precipitately from the capital. Of those arrested, many were summarily
executed. Others were cast into filthy dungeons to perish slowly by
disease and hunger. Princes bred in luxury were compelled to assume
the most humble disguises and to adopt the most menial occupations
to avoid arrest. The indefatigable search of the emissaries of the
Khalif, aided by the venal malice of informers, caused the seizure
of a considerable number of the obnoxious faction, who had found a
temporary asylum in the villages and farm-houses of the surrounding
country. These rigorous precautions failed, however, to intimidate the
seditious and exasperated populace. An insurrection suddenly broke out.
Oppressed by the tyranny of the government and the increasing license
of the soldiery, the citizens, animated by irresistible fury, drove the
Khalif, the negro slaves, and the Berbers headlong from the city. The
capital was now invested by those who had recently been its masters.
Though unprovided with facilities indispensable to the successful
maintenance of a siege, they more than once managed to force their way
inside the fortifications. The citizens, aware that no quarter was to
be expected from their infuriated enemies, defended themselves with
the valor of desperation. The gates were walled up with masonry. The
ramparts were guarded with ceaseless vigilance. Women and children
contributed their puny but encouraging assistance to the almost
superhuman efforts of their husbands and fathers. Hunger, exposure,
suffering, were endured by all with uncomplaining fortitude. At length
the failure of provisions necessitated a compromise. Overtures were
made by the besieged for a peaceful evacuation. The Berbers, certain
of their prey and meditating a bloody revenge, refused to entertain
any proposals from a foe reduced to extremity. Then a sally was made,
and the besiegers, unable to withstand the impetuous attack of the
Cordovans, sustained a crushing defeat. Their army was scattered; the
negroes were slaughtered; the surviving Berbers betook themselves to
Malaga, where they entered the service of Yahya; and Kasim, repulsed
from the gates of Seville, in which city he had hoped once more to find
security, made his way to Xeres, where he soon afterwards fell into the
hands of his nephew, and was by his order strangled in prison.
Liberated from the detested presence of the Berbers after an
interregnum of two months, the inhabitants of Cordova determined to
exercise the right of election in the choice of a ruler, an ancient
and integral but long suspended principle of their polity. A vast
concourse was convoked in the spacious temple erected by Abd-al-Rahman
I. The proceedings were conducted with every circumstance of pomp
and solemnity. The presence of the surviving princes of the House of
Ommeyah, of the descendants of families illustrious for centuries in
the annals of the Peninsula, of nobles who traced their lineage beyond
the Hegira, all arrayed in silken vestments embroidered with gold
and silver, imparted an air of majesty and splendor to the scene.
Thousands of the clients of the dynasty, whose fate had been so closely
interwoven with that of the capital it had done so much to embellish,
attended in the snowy robes which constituted the distinguishing badge
of their party. The Mosque, which easily contained ten thousand people,
was crowded to its utmost capacity. Three candidates--Abd-al-Rahman,
brother of Mohammed Mahdi; Suleyman, son of Abd-al-Rahman IV.; and
Mohammed-Ibn-al-Iraki--appeared to solicit the suffrages of the
multitude. Of these, Suleyman, whose claims were urged by the viziers
and by the most powerful nobles of the court, seemed so certain of
success that, with ill-advised haste, he appeared in the assemblage
clad in the costume reserved for royalty, while his adherents had
prematurely caused the deed of investiture to be drawn up in his name.
But the votes of the lower classes, with whom Abd-al-Rahman was the
favorite, overwhelmed the aristocratic party of Suleyman, and, amidst
the acclamations of his supporters, the fortunate candidate received
the reluctant homage of his rivals, and was raised to the throne of his
ancestors under the name of Abd-al-Rahman V.
The reign of the new Khalif lasted only forty-seven days. His elevation
was displeasing to the old nobility. His orthodoxy was suspected.
The irreverent speeches of his companions were heard with disgust
by the theologians and the ministers of religion, who, perhaps not
unjustly, thought that infidel and sacrilegious sentiments should
not be encouraged in the presence of the Successor of the Prophet.
The predilection of the young prince for the society of poets and
scholars was a source of complaint to the populace, including many
thousand unemployed mechanics and laborers, who had been impoverished
by the unsettled condition of society, who had in vain solicited
relief from each successive administration, and who, exasperated by
repeated disappointments, were ready for any desperate undertaking. The
habitual discontent of this numerous class was diligently encouraged
by Mohammed, a degenerate grandson of the great Al-Nassir, who united
the tastes of an aristocrat with the arts of a demagogue. By the
mediation of Ibn-Imran, a noble who had been imprisoned for sedition
and imprudently released, a combination of the two most antagonistic
elements of Moslem society was accomplished; and disappointed ambition
induced the haughty patrician to co-operate with the laborer and the
slave who, with the jealousy born of degradation and poverty, had
always regarded the members of the ancient Arab nobility as their
natural and implacable enemies. When the conspiracy was matured, the
guards, who had been corrupted, were withdrawn; the ministers quietly
deserted their master; the revolutionists occupied the citadel; and
Abd-al-Rahman, dragged ignominiously from an oven where he had hastily
sought concealment, was put to death without ceremony or delay. The
palace was then sacked by the mob; every individual related by blood
or affinity to the Berbers was butchered; the seraglio of the late
Khalif was apportioned among the leaders of the triumphant faction; and
Mohammed, surrounded with the sanguinary evidences of victory and with
the corpse of his predecessor lying before him, took his seat upon the
throne.
The unnatural union of the patricians and the mob was dissolved as
soon as its object had been attained. The former despised Mohammed,
whom they had used solely as an instrument of vengeance, and at once
begun to plot his overthrow. Ina few months another insurrection
vacated the royal office. Mohammed escaped in a female disguise,
only to be poisoned by one of his followers. The African, Yahya, who
ruled the city of Malaga, was invited to assume the hazardous and
unprofitable honor attaching to the empty title of khalif and the
precarious sovereignty of Cordova. That prince, knowing by experience
the character of those who tendered him a crown, and the desperation
which must have prompted that act when the prejudice against his
nationality was considered, while not unwilling to include Cordova in
his dominions, yet hesitated to intrust his person to a people whose
reputation for disorder and perfidy had gained for it such an infamous
and wide-spread notoriety. He therefore delegated his authority
to a Berber officer, who, to the consternation and disgust of the
inhabitants, took up his abode in the Alcazar, with the title and the
powers of viceroy.
The old feeling against the Africans was soon revived. A new conspiracy
solicited the interference of Khairan, whose advancing years
apparently offered no impediment to his participation in treasonable
or revolutionary enterprises, and, with the aid of Modjehid, governor
of Denia, he easily drove the Berbers from Cordova. But, as each
party feared the other, no agreement could be effected concerning the
succession, and the Cordovans were again left to extricate themselves
as best they might from the difficulties which misgovernment and
license had brought upon them. Once more an attempt was made to restore
the Ommeyades, and the crown was offered to a brother of Abd-al-Rahman
IV., called Hischem, a name of inauspicious associations, and fated to
designate the last of that renowned dynasty of Moorish kings.
Already in the decline of life, of moderate abilities, and for
years accustomed to the hardships of poverty and exile, Hischem
III. possessed none of those qualities which inspire the respect of
the noble and the learned or arouse the enthusiasm of the giddy and
inconstant populace. His person was without dignity. His manners were
those of a clown. His education had been neglected. Long familiarity
with hunger had made him insensible to all enjoyments save those
afforded by the indulgence of inordinate gluttony. Although he was
welcomed by the inhabitants of Cordova with every demonstration of
affection and rejoicing, he constantly maintained a reserved and
stolid demeanor which as ill became his station and prospective
greatness as did the simplicity of his attire and smallness of his
retinue, neither of which was commensurate with the rank of even a
prosperous citizen. Upon a people who had not forgotten the majesty
of the ancient khalifate and the lavish display of regal magnificence
exhibited by its princes, the plebeian appearance and insignificant
equipage of this successor of the famous Abd-al-Rahman III. produced
a feeling of disappointment not unmingled with contempt. Nor did the
subsequent conduct of Hischem III. tend to remove the unfavorable
impressions which his first appearance elicited. His voracity and his
indolence made him a conspicuous target for the sarcastic wits of the
capital. His practical surrender of the power and emoluments of his
office to his prime minister, Hakem-Ibn-Said, whose former respectable
but humble occupation of weaver seemed a doubtful qualification for
important employments of state, provoked the envy and indignation of
the arrogant and highly accomplished Arab nobility. The arbitrary
measures devised by Hakem to replenish the treasury soon increased the
unpopularity which his obscure origin and his unexpected exaltation
inspired. He confiscated and sold at auction the jewels and other
personal effects of the wealthy Amirides, who, belonging to the weakest
political faction of Andalusia, could be oppressed and robbed with
comparative impunity. These descendants of the renowned Al-Mansur were
also forced to purchase for an enormous sum the metal collected from
the royal palaces, whose destruction was popularly attributed to the
ambition or the vengeance of the adherents of that family of daring
adventurers. Amidst the maledictions and unavailing remonstrances of
the clergy, the sanctity of the mosques was again profaned, and the
treasures accumulated through the generosity of the pious compelled to
contribute to the imperious necessities of the state. The diminution
of their revenues exasperated the ministers of religion far more
than the sacrilegious interference with their authority and the
appropriation of the precious utensils of divine worship. But the
theological element had long since, by its avarice, its hypocrisy,
and its inclination to political disorder, forfeited the respect of
the people of Cordova, where once the ravings of a popular faqui
could awaken the apprehensions of the most powerful of sovereigns.
While Hakem had little to fear from the hostility of this class, the
conduct of the patricians caused him no little anxiety. All attempts
to conciliate them proved ineffectual. They scorned his advances.
They refused with disdain honorable and lucrative employments. The
most magnificent presents failed to gain their friendship or even to
secure their neutrality. Thus, repulsed by those whose support he had
hoped to acquire, the minister was driven to the inferior orders for
the selection of his generals and his magistrates. Every official
now shared the odium attaching to his superior. The prejudices thus
entertained by the most illustrious and influential order of the empire
against the government could not long exist without consequences fatal
to its stability.
To insure the continuance of his authority, the astute vizier, who no
doubt drew a parallel between his own case and that of the talented and
unscrupulous hajib of Hischem II., gratified with all the resources
of boundless wealth and unlimited power the sensual caprices and
epicurean tastes of his aged and dissolute sovereign. The provinces
were ransacked for delicacies to tempt his palate. Such dainties
as were unattainable in his own dominions were procured in foreign
countries through the medium of enterprising merchants. The choicest
wines of Spain, even then famous for the variety and excellence of
its vintage, were consumed at the royal table in quantities which
appalled the orthodox Mussulman, and struck with amazement the more
liberal courtier, who was familiar with the scandalous excesses of
preceding reigns. Professional singers and dancers, of exquisite beauty
and rare accomplishments, solaced the leisure of the representative
of a religion which pronounced their performances an abomination in
the sight of God. The attendants of the Khalif were instructed to
employ every artifice to retain the latter in seclusion; but the
congenial character of the diversions with which the politic ingenuity
of the minister daily amused him afforded little probability of his
interference with the ambitious designs of one whose anticipation of
the desires of his master, in his eyes, more than atoned for the evils
resulting from the public misfortune.
But the character of Hischem, while weak, was far from despicable.
At times, despite the blandishments of the inmates of his harem,
he came forth from his retirement and mingled with the people. He
dispensed with liberal and indiscriminating hand the alms whose
bestowal is one of the cardinal virtues of the faith of Islam. He
visited the hospitals and brought hope and consolation to the couch
of the sick and the dying. His generosity relieved the necessities
of impecunious pilgrims. The kindness and urbanity he manifested,
even to the most degraded, acquired for him the respect and esteem
of his subjects. Many a malefactor condemned to an inglorious death
had reason to applaud his noble but often mistaken clemency. These
estimable qualities, however, could not, in the eyes of the indignant
aristocracy, compensate for the habitual neglect of public duty
displayed by the Khalif, nor for his complacent resignation of the
destinies of the empire into the hands of a low-born subordinate,
whose creatures monopolized the highest employments and exacted the
unwilling homage of cavaliers whose lineage antedated the Conquest
by centuries. A number of nobles, whose influence had been secretly
but effectively exerted during the recent disturbances, again met for
consultation. The deposition of Hischem was resolved upon, and it was
also determined that they themselves should hereafter be the sole
depositaries of power. The method they pursued to accomplish their end
affords a significant illustration of the low standard of public morals
which at that time universally prevailed. It must be remembered that
these men were no vulgar conspirators. Of the distinctions conferred
by birth, education, political experience, and military renown none
possessed a larger share. They belonged to the most haughty and
exclusive of the patricians. Their blood had never been contaminated
by degrading alliances with African, Jew, or Spaniard. Aside from the
losses incurred through enforced contributions, their wealth had not
been sensibly impaired by the destructive accidents of revolution
and civil war. Their attainments would have been respectable even
when Cordova was the most enlightened community in Europe, and now,
in its age of degeneracy, few indeed could be found to rival them in
acuteness and erudition. Some were descended from a line of courtiers
for generations employed in the diplomatic service of the khalifate.
Others had exercised their military talents against the Christian
chivalry on the frontiers of Aragon and Catalonia. A few theologians
were to be found among them whose religious principles had not escaped
the vicious contagion of the age, and with whom questions of casuistry
were invariably subordinated to the alluring claims of pecuniary
interest and worldly ambition. It would naturally be presumed that men
of this character would be solicitous to maintain a high standard of
personal honor and political integrity. But constant familiarity with
treason in its most repulsive forms; with the organized hypocrisy that
permeated every department of the government and every rank of society;
with the savage tyranny of princes, who themselves did not hesitate
to assume the hateful office of executioner; with the deliberate
malice of assassins, who without compunction thrust the dagger into
the vitals of their unsuspecting friends; with the irreconcilable
enmities of the nearest kindred; with the spirit of anarchy ripe among
the masses, had produced such complete demoralization that no caste
or individual was uncontaminated by its pernicious influence. The
association of nobles, above alluded to, had organized itself into
a semi-official body under the designation of the Council of State.
At its head was Ibn-Djahwar, a statesman of great talents, of large
experience, of exquisite tact, of indefatigable energy. The antagonism
between this powerful junta and the minister became each day more
bitter, as each endeavored, with industrious malignity, to subvert the
authority of the other. The influence of his favorite was paramount
with the Khalif, but the Khalif was a cipher. The nobles possessed the
sympathy of their order and the deferential admiration of the masses,
who always looked to the aristocracy for advice and leadership. They
artfully stimulated the discontent of the people, already sufficiently
grievous, by representing the public distress and the decline of
commercial prosperity--legitimate results of a long series of national
misfortunes--as the work of the obnoxious hajib. They aroused the
feeling against the Berbers, some of whom Hakem had intrusted with
important employments. Then, with an ingenious refinement of treachery,
they engaged a young adventurer named Ommeya, a collateral descendant
of the dynasty of Cordova, to head a revolution with the hope of
ascending the throne. Every facility was afforded him by his shrewd
but perfidious allies. They secretly distributed emissaries through
every quarter of the capital and the provinces. They contributed gold
with profuse liberality. The officers of the army were corrupted by
bribery and by promises of promotion. At length the long-expected
signal was given. The mob rose and killed the minister as he issued
from the palace. The venerable Khalif was seized and confined in his
apartments while the nobles assembled to determine his fate. Ommeya,
wholly unconscious of the duplicity of which he was the victim, had
already began to arrogate to himself the prerogatives of imperial power
by the issuing of commands, the appointment of officials, and the
distribution of rewards. The members of the Council of State, attended
by an armed escort, now appeared upon the scene. With a solemnity that
awed the multitude, they declared the khalifate abolished, and assumed,
by virtue of their self-established dignity, the responsibilities of
government and the supreme direction of affairs. In a proclamation
addressed to the inhabitants of Andalusia, they recounted the
calamities which had ensued from the broken and disordered succession
of the empire; the repeated disappointments resulting from the
elevation of incompetent and dissolute pretenders; the insecurity
of the present and the uncertainty of the future which paralyzed
all branches of commerce and industry; the absolute hopelessness of
improvement under the worthless princes of a decrepit and unstable
dynasty. With modesty and firmness they enumerated their own
qualifications for the discharge of the functions they had usurped.
They promised the maintenance of order, the regulation of police, the
removal of the burdens imposed by immoderate and arbitrary taxation.
They pledged themselves to the faithful execution of the laws. The
well-known and eminent character of the nobles composing the Council
of State procured for their statements a respectful hearing, and their
power, long exercised in an advisory capacity, had prepared the way for
the unreserved assumption of authority. Without either remonstrance
or enthusiasm, the inhabitants of a considerable portion of the
Peninsula transferred their alliance from a line of monarchs, rendered
illustrious by the glorious traditions of nearly three centuries,
to the irresponsible members of a precarious and self-constituted
oligarchy.
The dupe of the conspirators, Ommeya, who with mingled rage and terror
had seen his delusive hopes of empire vanish in an instant, was
forcibly expelled from the city. His part having been played, and his
insignificance rendering him unworthy of further attention, he remained
at liberty, until, having tried to secretly enter the capital, he was
arrested, and his disappearance from that moment was attributed, not
without probability, to the sanguinary precautions of the Council of
State.
Hischem was condemned to imprisonment for life in an isolated fortress
of the Sierra Ronda. The negligence or the corruption of the guard,
however, enabled him to escape after a few months’ detention, and he
passed the five remaining years of his existence in the city of Lerida,
a dependency of the princely family of Ibn-Hud, Emirs of Saragossa.
With Hischem III. finally disappeared the dynasty which had ruled, for
the most part with phenomenal success and splendor, the powerful empire
of Moorish Spain. In the space of two hundred and sixty-seven years,
fourteen khalifs of the House of Ommeyah had guided the destinies of
that empire. Of these princes, six pre-eminent in executive ability,
in intellectual culture, in military genius, in political sagacity,
had ascended, one after another, to the foremost rank among the great
sovereigns of the earth. They had founded magnificent cities. They
had erected palaces, whose crumbling ruins suggest the creations
of the genii. They had collected vast libraries. Their commercial
establishments were to be found among the most remote nations. The
prowess of their captains had been recognized on the banks of the
Rhone, on the plains of Lombardy, in the provinces of the Atlas,
in the islands of the Mediterranean. Their munificence and culture
had made the imperial city of the Guadalquivir a shrine of literary
pilgrimage. In that city the aristocracy of intellect was even more
esteemed than nobility of descent. Its possessors were the companions,
the favorites, the councillors of kings. In singular contrast to the
prejudices of subsequent ages, the edifices of religion were made
subservient to the interests of science, and the minarets of mosques
were furnished with astronomical apparatus. In the ability to erect
stupendous monuments of mechanical and agricultural industry, in the
perfection of hydraulic engineering, in the skilful employment of the
principles of fortification, the subjects of these polished rulers
were the superiors of any of the nations of antiquity. In such of
the arts as were not proscribed by the doctrines of their religion,
they produced models of unapproachable excellence. And, while these
great advances in civilization were being made under the auspices of
Islam, the European world was plunged in the darkness of barbarism and
superstition. Of the great capitals of Europe, to-day the renowned
seats of art and learning, London and Paris were the only ones whose
population was sufficiently numerous to raise them to the dignity of
cities. Within their precincts the most ordinary conveniences of life
were practically unknown. The intercourse of the people was dominated
by the brutal instincts of savage life; property was at the mercy of
the strongest; and society was conjointly ruled by the sword of the
baron and the crucifix of the monk. The vicious tendencies of the
Moslem system; the participation of barbarians in a government whose
mechanism they had neither the capacity to understand nor the judgment
to direct; the corruption of public morals, inevitable in a state which
has reached the highest degree of civilization attainable under its
institutions; the gradual relaxation and final rupture of the ties of
allegiance which bind the subject to the sovereign; the decrepitude of
a nation which, in obedience to the inexorable necessity resulting from
its political and social conditions, had completed its existence and
fulfilled its destiny in the history of the world, had undermined the
foundations and demolished the imposing fabric of the Ommeyade empire.
The time had long since passed when the magic of a name, whose owners
had accomplished so much for the cause of human progress, had ennobled
the pursuits of learning and assumed the patronage of art,--a name
almost synonymous with national prosperity and regal grandeur,--could
inspire the respect of foreign nations or arouse the dormant enthusiasm
of the multitude. No member of that dynasty, however talented, could
now have restored the monarchy of his ancestors, whose reminiscences,
for centuries refused the sanction of history among Christian nations
and imperfectly preserved even by Arab authors, were destined to be
largely transmitted to future ages through the suspicious medium of
romantic and exaggerated tradition.
The relation of Moorish affairs in the Peninsula becomes henceforth
necessarily desultory and disconnected. The authority, once central
at Cordova, was distributed among a hundred states, whose rulers,
mutually hostile and aspiring to individual supremacy, constantly
enlisted Christian auxiliaries in a struggle which must eventually
terminate in the contraction of their dominions, the impairment of
their sovereignty, and the destruction of their faith. The blessings of
peace, the preservation of order, were forgotten in a fierce contest
for power inspired by revenge and ambition. Prejudices of race and
religion, engendered by ages of unremitting hostility, were discarded
by unnatural coalitions of Moslem usurpers and Castilian adventurers,
whose only bond of alliance was a community of spoliation and infamy.
The intrigues of one faction planted the banners of the Cross on the
shores of the Mediterranean. The blind animosity of another permitted
the desecration of the noblest monument of Moslem piety. Professed
disciples of the religion of Mohammed saw with complacent indifference
the horses of Christian knights tethered to the columns of the mosque
of Abd-al-Rahman, while the sanctuary, which still contained the sacred
Koran of the Khalif Othman, resounded with the clanking tread of the
curious and scoffing infidel.
The disintegrated sections of the empire were now to witness the trial
of a form of government hitherto unknown to the Moslem constitution.
The very essence of the polity of Islam had always been the
concentration of power in a single individual, who exercised conjointly
the functions appertaining to the official head of both Church and
State. The assumption of authority by an association of nobles, while
the result of political necessity, was none the less an act of flagrant
usurpation. It was repugnant to the principles, the traditions, the
legal and religious maxims upon which the organization of Moslem
society was based, and by which it had always been maintained. It
had not received the sanction of popular approbation or consent. The
dethronement of Hischem was an arbitrary deed of violence unconfirmed
by any evidence of voluntary abdication. As there had been no formal
renunciation of vested rights, those rights were only suspended, and
the subjects of the Khalif were not, in law, absolved from their
allegiance.
The constitution of the Council of State, whose jurisdiction extended
but a short distance beyond the walls of Cordova, was partly
oligarchical and partly democratic. A formal assemblage of citizens
conferred upon Ibn-Djahwar, the most prominent member of that body,
an office whose powers and privileges appertained to the anomalous
dignity of the autocratic supreme magistrate of a republic. The
course of Ibn-Djahwar was characterized by the greatest moderation
and justice. Unlike the Cæsars of Rome, whose despotic edicts were
registered by an obsequious senate, the president of the Moorish
Council of State refused, of his own volition, to decide or even to
examine any question until it had been publicly presented to his
associates, and he required that all official communications should
be addressed to them. This habitual deference to the opinions of
his colleagues, which, however, invariably coincided with his own,
increased the consideration in which he was held by the nobility, the
army, the clergy, and the people. The new magistrate, in addition to
the eminent qualifications which both suggested and justified his
promotion, was aided by many adventitious circumstances which rarely
fail to elicit the admiration or the homage of mankind. He belonged
to a family of ancient and distinguished lineage. His ancestors had
served the khalifs in the departments of finance and war. He was
the most opulent citizen of the capital, and had managed, by an
exercise of thrift and economy unusual in his station, to make vast
accumulations to his wealth without ever incurring the suspicion of
corruption or tyranny. The measures he adopted for the public welfare
were dictated by the most exemplary prudence and wisdom. Taxes were
reduced. Mercantile enterprise was promoted by the assurance of
public security, derived from the protection of the highways and the
repression of crime. Intimate commercial relations were established
between Cordova and the other principalities of Andalusia, resulting
in the interchange of commodities and the extension of trade. With a
prudent regard for future contingencies, he provisioned the principal
cities and forts under his jurisdiction. The magazines of the capital
alone contained supplies for the entire population of the kingdom
for many months. Important reforms were instituted in the army. The
Berbers, ever an element of discord, were disbanded. Such as had been
notorious for their atrocities were exiled. Their places were filled by
a volunteer soldiery, which, in its general character, corresponded to
our militia, and in whose organization the sentiments or the prejudices
of no single faction were allowed to predominate. One division of this
force, commanded by an officer of experience and ability, was made
responsible for the peace of the city. The most distinguished citizens
were enrolled in the guard of public safety, and by turns patrolled
the streets. Public business was transacted with no more ceremony than
was required to make it impressive by commanding respect. The numerous
throng of parasites and dependents usually considered an indispensable
appendage to the royal dignity no longer encumbered the antechambers of
the palace. The formerly lucrative profession of informer, patronized
by even the greatest khalifs as a precaution against treason, became
deservedly infamous. The judicial tribunals were organized in the
interests of equity. Competent advocates, who received compensation
from the public treasury, were appointed to prosecute the causes of
such as were too poor to employ counsel. Immigration was encouraged,
and a considerable portion of the capital which had been demolished
during the civil wars was rebuilt by the colonists, who, weary of
perpetual strife, sought the protection of a new government which
seemed to offer to its subjects the fairest hopes of peace and
tranquillity. The administration of the finances was conducted in
accordance with the strictest principles of economy, and officials
charged with the collection of taxes were compelled to render accounts
at stated times, and were held responsible, under heavy penalties, for
the performance of their duties. The extraordinary and illegal burdens
which had been imposed upon the mosques were abolished, and the clergy
once more entered upon the enjoyment of the revenues of which they had
been arbitrarily deprived. The disorders of the times had raised up
a great number of impostors,--half physicians, half sorcerers,--who,
to the great detriment of medical science and of the public health,
plied their trade, sustained by the ignorance and credulity of the
populace, ever easily deluded by the arts of charlatans. These were
prosecuted by the government for magic, and to provide against a
recurrence of the evil a college of physicians was organized, who
passed upon the knowledge and the qualifications of every future
practitioner. Such were the reforms effected by the prudence and the
sagacity of Ibn-Djahwar. Although they produced for a time a semblance
of prosperity, this was delusive and rather apparent than real. The
calamities which had, almost without intermission, afflicted Cordova
for a quarter of a century had forever degraded her from the proud
rank of imperial cities. Her inhabitants had been massacred. Her wealth
had been dispersed. Her trade had been destroyed. The literary prestige
which had exalted her name far above even those of the polished
capitals of the Moslem empire of the East had been swept away amidst
the turmoil of barbarian supremacy. Henceforth the political eminence
which she had once enjoyed was to be transferred to the cities of
Toledo, Saragossa, Almeria, Badajoz, Seville, and Granada.
The policy of the early khalifs, who thoroughly appreciated the
dangerous character of their African allies, had established the Berber
hordes on the northern and western frontiers of their dominions, and as
far as possible from their capital. The incessant warfare maintained
by the Christians, as had been foreseen, so occupied these barbarians
that their attention was diverted from the provinces of the South by
the circumstances of their location, and the consequent demand for
unremitting vigilance required by the proximity of an audacious and
persevering enemy. The loyalty of the governors of this territory,
whose capital was Saragossa, had never been above suspicion. The
propensity of the Africans to rebellion was habitually indulged by
their chieftains, who carried into the distant North the licentious
independence of the Desert. During the existence of the khalifate,
the Emirs of Saragossa conceded to the Ommeyade princes the doubtful
allegiance of tributary vassals rather than the implicit obedience
of faithful subjects. Their martial instincts, their predatory
inclinations, and their constant familiarity with danger made them a
race of formidable and experienced warriors. The family of Ibn-Hud,
whose most distinguished ancestor was appointed governor of the
frontier by the Khalif Abdallah, was the founder of the dynasty which
raised Saragossa to great political influence among the independent
estates of Moorish Spain. By political alliances with its Christian
neighbors, it long preserved the integrity of its domain. It encouraged
agriculture, commerce, manufactures. It patronized the arts. The
portal of the palace mosque, still intact, conveys an idea of the
barbaric extravagance of its architecture. Its princes were far from
considering the pursuits of science as incompatible with regal dignity.
One composed a work on mathematics. Another delighted to pass the hours
of darkness in the study of the heavens. It was a singular destiny
which had transformed the seat of these ferocious nomads--as a rule so
insensible to extraneous influences--into one of the centres of Moslem
civilization.
The fortunate experiment of Cordova in abolishing the empire--a measure
which resulted in the restoration of peace--was imitated by Seville, a
city which in population, opulence, and commercial resources had always
been a powerful rival of the capital, and was now destined to assume a
pre-eminent rank among the ephemeral dynasties of the Peninsula.
The expulsion of Kasim by the infuriated mob of Cordova was followed by
his exclusion from the territory of Seville. Popular indignation had
been aroused by a tyrannical order requiring that a thousand houses
should forthwith be vacated by the citizens for the accommodation of
his African followers. A garrison of Berbers had already exasperated
the inhabitants by its repeated acts of insolence and cruelty. The
prospect of an army of privileged banditti being quartered in their
homes, an occupancy which was equivalent to absolute confiscation,
drove the people of Seville to revolt. Abul-Kasim-Mohammed, the Kadi,
and other representatives of the malcontents by promises of military
promotion and pecuniary rewards easily induced the Berber governor to
renounce the service of a master whom fortune seemed about to abandon.
The gates were closed in the very face of the Emir. The walls were
occupied by thousands of armed citizens prepared to defend, at all
hazards, their newly obtained liberty. Kasim, after stipulating for the
delivery of his treasures and the restoration of his sons who happened
to be at that time in the city, consented to retire forever from the
scenes of his former power. His rear-guard had scarcely been lost
sight of from the battlements before the Berber garrison was notified
to depart, and, relieved from apprehensions of hostile interference,
the Sevillians proceeded without delay to the task of political
reorganization.