THE CALIPHATE OF CORDOVA
THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS--CORDOVA IN THE MIDDLE AGES--THE GLORIES OF
AZ ZAHRA--THE RISE OF ALMANZOR
It was in 712 that Spain, after remaining for nearly three centuries in
the possession of the Visigoths, fell under the yoke of the Saracens.
For some time past, from a palace at Tandjah (Tangiers), a Mussulman
emir had been eyeing the strip of blue water which alone separated him
from that Andalusia which, like the other parts of this world and all of
the next, had been promised to the followers of Muhammad. The invasion
that ensued was singularly pacific. The enthusiasm which distinguished
the youthful period of Muhammadism might account for the conquest which
followed, even if we could not assign additional causes--the factions
into which the Goths had become divided, the resentment of disappointed
pretenders to the throne, the provocations of one Count Julian, whose
daughter, seduced by Roderic, the last of the Gothic kings, caused him,
it is said, to urge the Moors to come over. It is more surprising that a
remnant of this ancient monarchy should not only have preserved its
national liberty and name in the northern mountains, but waged for some
centuries a successful, and generally an offensive, warfare against the
conquerors, till the balance was completely turned in its favor and the
Moors were compelled to maintain almost as obstinate and protracted a
contest for a small portion of the peninsula. But the Arabian monarchs
of Cordova found in their success and imagined security a pretext for
indolence; even in the cultivation of science and contemplation of the
magnificent architecture of their mosques and palaces they forgot their
poor but daring enemies in the Asturias; while, according to the nature
of despotism, the fruits of wisdom or bravery in one generation were
lost in the follies and effeminacy of the next. Their kingdom was
dismembered by successful rebels, who formed the states of Toledo,
Huesca, Saragossa, and others less eminent; and these, in their own
mutual contests, not only relaxed their natural enmity toward the
Christian princes, but sometimes sought their alliance.
Be that as it may, of all who had entered Spain, whether Greek,
Phœnician, Vandal or Goth, the Moors were the most tolerant. The worship
of God was undisturbed. The temples were not only preserved, new ones
were built. In every town they entered, presto! a mosque and a school,
and mosques and schools that were entrancing as song. On the banks of
the Betis, renamed the Great River, Al-Ouad-al-Kebyr (Guadalquivir),
twelve hundred villages bloomed like roses in June. From three hundred
thousand filigreed pulpits the glory of Allah, and of Muhammad his
prophet, was daily proclaimed.
They were superb fellows, these Moors. In earlier ages the restless
Bedouins, their ancestors, were rather fierce, and when the degenerate
Sabaism they professed was put aside for the lessons of Muhammad, they
were not only fierce, they were fanatic as well. A drop of blood shed
for Allah, equaled, they were taught, whole months of fasting and of
prayer. Thereafter, they preached with the scimiter. But in time, that
great emollient, they grew less dogmatic. In the ninth century the court
of Haroûn al Raschid was a free academy in which all the arts were
cultivated and enjoyed. Under the Moors, Cordova surpassed Bagdad.
In the tenth century it was the most beautiful and most civilized city
of Europe. Concerning it Burke, in his “History of Spain”--a work to
which we are much indebted--writes as follows:
There was the Caliph’s Palace of Flowers, his Palace of
Contentment, his Palace of Lovers, and, most beautiful of all, the
Palace of Damascus. Rich and poor met in the Mezquita, the noblest
place of worship then standing in Europe, with its twelve hundred
marble columns, and its twenty brazen doors; the vast interior
resplendent with porphyry and jasper and many-colored precious
stones, the walls glittering with harmonious mosaics, the air
perfumed with incense, the courtyards leafy with groves of orange
trees--showing apples of gold in pictures of silver. Throughout the
city, there were fountains, basins, baths, with cold water brought
from the neighboring mountains, already carried in the leaden pipes
that are the highest triumph of the modern plumber.
But more wonderful even than Cordova itself was the suburb and palace of
Az Zahra. For five-and-twenty years the Caliph Abdur Rahman devoted to
the building of this royal fancy one-third of the revenues of the
State; and the work, on his death, was piously continued by his son,
who devoted the first fifteen years of his reign to its completion. For
forty years ten thousand workmen are said to have toiled day by day, and
the record of the refinement as well as the magnificence of the
structure, as it approached completion, almost passes belief. It is said
that in a moment of exaltation the Caliph gave orders for the removal of
the great mountain at whose foot the fairy city was built, as the dark
shade of the forests that covered its sides overshadowed the gilded
palace of his creation.
Convinced of the impossibility of his enterprise, An Nasir was content
that all the oaks and beech trees that grew on the mountain side should
be rooted up; and that fig trees, and almonds, and pomegranates should
be planted in their place; and thus the very hills and forests of Az
Zahra were decked with blossom and beauty.
Travelers from distant lands, men of all ranks and professions, princes,
embassadors, merchants, pilgrims, theologians and poets, all agreed that
they had never seen in the course of their travels anything that could
be compared with Az Zahra, and that no imagination, however fertile,
could have formed an idea of its beauties. Of this marvelous creation of
Art and Fancy not one stone remains upon another--not a vestige to mark
the spot on which it stood; and it is hard to reconstruct from the dry
records of Arab historians the fairy edifice of which we are told no
words could paint the magnificence. According to these authors the
inclosing wall of the palace was four thousand feet in length from east
to west, and two thousand two hundred feet from north to south. The
greater part of this space was occupied by gardens, with their marble
fountains, kiosks and ornaments of various kinds, not inferior in beauty
to the more strictly architectural parts of the building.
Four thousand three hundred columns of the rarest and most precious
marbles supported the roof of the palace; of these some were brought
from Africa, some from Rome, and many were presented by the Emperor at
Constantinople to Abdur Rahman. The halls were paved with marble,
disposed in a thousand varied patterns. The walls were of the same
material, and ornamented with friezes of the most brilliant colors. The
ceilings, constructed of cedar, were enriched with gilding on an azure
ground, with damasked work and interlacing designs. Everything, in
short, that the wealth and resources of the Caliph could command was
lavished on this favorite retreat, and all that the art of
Constantinople and Bagdad could contribute to aid the taste and
executive skill of the Spanish Arabs was enlisted to make it the most
perfect work of its age. Did this palace of Zahra now remain to us, says
Mr. Fergusson, we could afford to despise the Alhambra and all the other
works of the declining ages of Moorish art.
It was here that Abdur Rahman and Nasir received Sancho the Fat, and
Theuda, queen of Navarre, the envoys from Charles the Simple of France,
and the embassadors from the Emperor Constantine at Constantinople. The
reception of these imperial visitors is said to have been one of the
most magnificent ceremonies of that magnificent court. The orator who
had been at first intrusted with the speech of ceremonial greeting was
actually struck dumb by the grandeur of the scene, and his place was
taken by a less impressionable rhetorician.
Nor was it only material splendor that was to be found at Cordova. At a
time when Christian Europe was steeped in ignorance and barbarism, in
superstition and prejudice, every branch of science was studied under
the favor and protection of the Ommeyad Caliphs. Medicine, surgery,
botany, chemistry, poetry, the arts, philosophy, literature, all
flourished at the court and city of Cordova. Agriculture was cultivated
with a perfection, both theoretical and practical, which is apparent
from the works of contemporary Arab writers. The Silo, so lately
introduced into England as a valuable agricultural novelty, is not only
the invention of the Arabs, but the very name is Arabic, as is that of
the Azequia and of the Noria of modern Spain. Both the second and the
third Abdur Rahman were passionately fond of gardening and
tree-planting; and seeds, roots and cuttings were brought from all parts
of the world and acclimatized in the gardens at Cordova. A pomegranate
of peculiar excellence, the Safari, which was introduced by the second
Abdur Rahman from Damascus, still maintains its superiority, and is
known in Spain to the present day as the Granada Zafari.
Thus, in small things as in great, the Arabs of Cordova stood
immeasurably above every other people or any other government in Europe.
Yet their influence unhappily was but small. They surpassed, but they
did not lead. The very greatness of their superiority rendered their
example fruitless. Medieval chivalry, indeed, was largely the result of
their influence in Spain. But chivalry as an institution had itself
decayed long before a new-born Europe had attained to the material and
moral perfection of the great Emirs of Cordova. Their political
organization was unadapted to the needs or the aspirations of Western
Europe, and contained within itself the elements, not of development,
but of decay. Their civilization perished, and left no heirs behind
it--and its place knows it no more.
The reign of Hakam II., the son and successor of the great Caliph, was
tranquil, prosperous and honorable, the golden age of Arab literature in
Spain. The king was above all things a student, living the life almost
of a recluse in his splendid retreat at Az Zahra, and concerning himself
rather with the collection of books for his celebrated library at
Cordova than with the cares of State and the excitements of war. He sent
agents to every city in the East to buy rare manuscripts and bring them
back to Cordova. When he could not acquire originals he procured copies,
and every book was carefully catalogued and worthily lodged. Hakam not
only built libraries, but, unlike many modern collectors, he is said to
have read and even to have annotated the books that they contained; but
as their number exceeded four hundred thousand, he must have been a
remarkably rapid student.
The peaceful disposition of the new Caliph emboldened his Christian
neighbors and tributaries to disregard the old treaties and to assert
their independence of Cordova. But the armies of Hakam were able to make
his rights respected, and the treaties were reaffirmed and observed.
Many were the embassies that were received at Cordova from rival
Christian chiefs; and Sancho of Leon, Fernan Gonzalez of Castile, Garcia
of Navarre, Rodrigo Velasquez of Galicia, and finally Ordoño the Bad,
Pretender to the crown of Leon, were all represented at the court of Az
Zahra.
The reign of this royal scholar was peaceful and prosperous; but kingly
power tends to decline in libraries, and when Hakam ceased to build and
to annotate, and his kingdom devolved upon his son, the royal authority
passed not into the hands of the young Hisham, who was only nine years
of age at the time of his father’s death, but into those of the Sultana
Sobeyra and of her favorite, Ibn-abu-amir, who is known to later
generations by the proud title of Almanzor.[2]
Ibn-abu-amir began his career as a poor student at the University of
Cordova. Of respectable birth and parentage, filled with noble ambition,
born for empire and command, the youth became a court scribe, and,
attracting the attention of the all-powerful Sobeyra by the charm of his
manner and his nobility of bearing, he soon rose to power and
distinction in the palace; and as Master of the Mint, and afterward as
Commander of the City Guard, he found means to render himself
indispensable, as he had always been agreeable, to the harem. Nor was
the young courtier less acceptable to the Caliph. Intrusted by him on a
critical occasion with the supremely difficult mission of comptrolling
the expenditure of the army in Africa, where the general-in-chief had
proved over-prodigal or over-rapacious, Ibn-abu-amir acquitted himself
with such extraordinary skill and tact that he won the respect and
admiration, not only of the Caliph whose treasury he protected, but of
the general whose extravagance he checked, and even of the common
soldiers of the army, who are not usually drawn to a civilian
superintendent, or to a reforming treasury official from headquarters.
The expenses were curtailed; but the campaign was successful, and the
victorious general and the yet more victorious Cadi shared on equal
terms the honor of a triumphal entry into the capital.
On the death of Hakam, in September, 976, Ibn-abu-amir showed no less
than his usual tact and vigor in suppressing a palace intrigue and
placing the young Hisham on the throne of his father. The Caliph was but
twelve years of age, and his powerful guardian, supported by the harem,
beloved by the people, and feared by the vanquished conspirators, took
upon himself the entire administration of the kingdom, repealed some
obnoxious taxes, reformed the organization of the army, and sought to
confirm and establish his power by a war against his neighbors in the
north. The peace which had so long prevailed between Moor and Christian
was thus rudely broken, and the Moslem once more carried his arms across
the northern frontier. The campaign was eminently successful.
Ibn-abu-amir, who contrived not only to vanquish his enemies but to
please his friends, became at once the master of the palace and of the
army. The inevitable critic was found to say that the victor was a
diplomatist and a lawyer rather than a great general; but he was
certainly a great leader of men, and if he was at any time unskilled in
the conduct of a battle, he owned from the first that higher skill of
knowing whom to trust with command. Nor was he less remarkable for his
true military virtue of constant clemency to the vanquished.
In two years after the death of Hakam, Almanzor had attained the
position of the greatest of the _maires du palais_ of early France, and
he ruled all Muhammadan Spain in the name of young Hisham, whose throne
he forbore to occupy and whose person was safe in his custody. But if
Almanzor was not a dilettante like Abdur Rahman II., nor a collector of
MSS. like Hakam, he was no vulgar fighter like the early kings of Leon
or of Navarre. A library of books accompanied him in all his campaigns;
literature, science, and the arts were munificently patronized at court;
a university or high school was established at Cordova, where the great
mosque was enlarged for the accommodation of an increasing number of
worshipers. Yet in one thing did he show his weakness. He could afford
to have no enemies.
Though the idol of the army, the lover of the queen, the prefect of the
city, the guardian of the person of the Caliph, Almanzor yet found it
necessary to conciliate the theologians; and the theologians were only
conciliated by the delivery of the great library of Hakam into the hands
of the Ulema. The shelves were ransacked for works on astrology and
magic, on natural philosophy, and the forbidden sciences, and after an
inquisition as formal and as thorough and probably no more intelligent
than that which was conducted by the curate and the barber in the house
of Don Quixote, tens of thousands of priceless volumes were publicly
committed to the flames.
Nor did Almanzor neglect the more practical or more direct means of
maintaining his power. The army was filled with bold recruits from
Africa, and renegades from the Christian provinces of the north. The
organization and equipment of the regiments was constantly improved; and
the troops were ever loyal to their civilian benefactor. Ghalib, the
Commander-in-chief, having sought to overthrow the supreme administrator
of the kingdom, was vanquished and slain in battle (981). The Caliph was
practically a prisoner in his own palace, and was encouraged by his
guardian and his friends, both in the harem and in the mosque, to devote
himself entirely to a religious life, and abandon the administration of
his kingdom to the Hájib, who now, feeling himself entirely secure at
home, turned his arms once more against the Christians on the northern
frontiers; and it was on his return to Cordova, after his greeted with
the well-known title of Almanzor.
In 984 he compelled Bermudo II. of Leon to become his tributary. In 985
he turned his attention to Catalonia, and after a brief but brilliant
campaign he made himself master of Barcelona. Two years later (987),
Bermudo having dismissed his Moslem guards and thrown off his allegiance
to Cordova, Almanzor marched into the northwest, and after sacking
Coimbra, overran Leon, entirely destroyed the capital city, and
compelled the Christian king to take refuge in the wild fastnesses of
the Asturias.
Meanwhile, at Cordova, the power of Almanzor became year by year more
complete. Victorious in Africa as well as in Spain, this heaven-born
general was as skillful in the council chamber as be was in the field.
The iron hand was ever clad in a silken glove. His ambition was content
with the substance of power, and with the gradual assumption
[Illustration: SPAIN & PORTUGAL.]
of any external show of supreme authority in the State. In 991 he
abandoned the office and title of Hajib to his son, Abdul Malik. In 992
his seal took the place of that of the monarch on all documents of
State. In 993 he assumed the royal cognomen of Mowayad. Two years later
he arrogated to himself alone the title of Said; and in 996 he ventured
a step further, and assumed the title of Malik Karim, or king.
But in 996 Almanzor was at length confronted by a rival. Sobeyra, the
Navarrese Sultana, once his mistress, was now his deadly enemy, and she
had determined that the queen, and not the minister, should reign
supreme in the palace. Almanzor was to be destroyed. Hakam, a feeble and
effeminate youth, was easily won over by the harem, who urged him to
show the strength that he was so far from possessing, by espousing the
cause of his mother against his guardian. The queen was assured of
victory. The treasury was at the disposal of the conspirators. A
military rival was secretly summoned from Africa. The minister was
banished from the royal presence. The palace was already jubilant.
But the palace reckoned without Almanzor. Making his way into Hakam’s
chamber, more charming, more persuasive, more resolute than ever,
Almanzor prevailed upon the Caliph not only to restore him to his
confidence, but to empower him, by a solemn instrument under the royal
sign-manual, to assume the government of the kingdom. Sobeyra, defeated
but unharmed by her victorious and generous rival, retired to a
cloister; and Almanzor, contemptuously leaving to one of his lieutenants
the task of vanquishing his subsidized rival in Africa, set forth upon
the most memorable of all his many expeditions against Christian Spain
(July 3, 997).
Making his way, at the head of an army, through Lusitania into far away
Galicia, he took Corunna, and destroyed the great Christian church and
city of Santiago de Compostella, the most sacred spot in all Spain, and
sent the famous bells which had called so many Christian pilgrims to
prayer and praise to be converted into lamps to illuminate the Moslem
worshipers in the mosque at Cordova.
Five years later, in 1002, after an uncertain battle, Almanzor died in
harness, if not actually in the ranks, bowed down by mortal disease,
unhurt by the arm of the enemy. The relief of the Christians at his
death was unspeakable; and is well expressed, says Mr. Poole, in the
simple comment of the Monkish annalist, “In 1002 died Almanzor, and was
buried in Hell.”
In force of character, in power of persuasion, in tact, in vigor, in
that capacity for command that is only found in noble natures, Almanzor
has no rival among the Regents of Spain. His rise is a romance; his
power a marvel; his justice a proverb. He was a brilliant financier; a
successful favorite; a liberal patron; a stern disciplinarian; a
heaven-born courtier; an accomplished general; and no one of the great
commanders of Spain, not Gonsalvo de Aguilar himself, was more uniformly
successful in the field than this lawyer’s clerk of Cordova.
Hisham, in confinement at Az Zahra, was still the titular Caliph of the
West, but Almanzor was succeeded as commander-in-chief and virtual ruler
of the country by his favorite son, his companion-in-arms, and the hero
of an African campaign, Abdul Malik Almudaffar, the Hajib of 991. But
the glory of Cordova had departed. Abdul Malik indeed ruled in his
father’s place for six years. But on his death, in 1008, he was
succeeded by his half-brother, Abdur Rahman, who, as the son of a
Christian princess, was mistrusted both by the palace and by the people;
and the country became a prey to anarchy.
Cordova was sacked. The Caliph was imprisoned; rebellions, poisonings,
crucifixions, civil war, bigotry and skepticism, the insolence of
wealth, the insolence of power, a Mahdi and a Wahdi, Christian alliance,
Berber domination, Slav mutineers, African interference, puppet princes,
all these things vexed the Spanish Moslems for thirty disastrous years;
while a number of weak but independent sovereignties arose on the ruins
of the great Caliphate of the West.
The confused annals of the last thirty years of the rule of the
Ommeyades are mere records of blood and of shame, a pitiful story of
departed greatness.
On the death of Hisham II., the Romulus Augustulus of Imperial Cordova,
Moslem Spain was divided into a number of petty kingdoms, Malaga,
Algeciras, Cordova, Seville, Toledo, Badajoz, Saragossa, the Balearic
Islands, Valencia, Murcia, Almeria, and Granada. And each of these
cities and kingdoms made unceasing war one upon another.
From the death of Hisham, if not from the death of Almanzor, the centre
of interest in the history of Spain is shifted from Cordova to Castile.