THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE CHRISTIANS OF SPAIN.
In 711 the victorious Arabs introduced Islam into Spain: in 1502 an
edict of Ferdinand and Isabella forbade the exercise of the Muhammadan
religion throughout the kingdom. During the centuries that elapsed
between these two dates, Muslim Spain had written one of the brightest
pages in the history of mediæval Europe. Her influence had passed
through Provence into the other countries of Europe, bringing into
birth a new poetry and a new culture, and it was from her that
Christian scholars received what of Greek philosophy and science they
had to stimulate their mental activity up to the time of the
Renaissance. But these triumphs of the civilised life—art and poetry,
science and philosophy—we must pass over here and fix our attention on
the religious condition of Spain under the Muslim rule.
When the Muhammadans first brought their religion into Spain they found
Catholic Christianity firmly established after its conquest over
Arianism. The sixth Council of Toledo had enacted that all kings were
to swear that they would not suffer the exercise of any other religion
but the Catholic, and would vigorously enforce the law against all
dissentients, while a subsequent law forbade any one under pain of
confiscation of his property and perpetual imprisonment, to call in
question the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, the Evangelical
Institutions, the definitions of the Fathers, the decrees of the
Church, and the Holy Sacraments. The clergy had gained for their order
a preponderating influence in the affairs of the state; [386] the
bishops and chief ecclesiastics sat in the national councils, which met
to settle the most important business of the realm, ratified the
election of the king and claimed the right to depose him if he refused
to abide by their decrees. The Christian clergy took advantage of their
power to persecute the Jews, who formed a very large community in
Spain; edicts of a brutally severe character were passed against such
as refused to be baptised; [387] and they consequently hailed the
invading Arabs as their deliverers from such cruel oppression, they
garrisoned the captured cities on behalf of the conqueror and opened
the gates of towns that were being besieged. [388]
The Muhammadans received as warm a welcome from the slaves, whose
condition under the Gothic rule was a very miserable one, and whose
knowledge of Christianity was too superficial to have any weight when
compared with the liberty and numerous advantages they gained, by
throwing in their lot with the Muslims.
These down-trodden slaves were the first converts to Islam in Spain.
The remnants of the heathen population of which we find mention as late
as A.D. 693, [389] probably followed their example. Many of the
Christian nobles, also, whether from genuine conviction or from other
motives, embraced the new creed. [390] Many converts were won, too,
from the lower and middle classes, who may well have embraced Islam,
not merely outwardly, but from genuine conviction, turning to it from a
religion whose ministers had left them ill-instructed and uncared for,
and busied with worldly ambitions had plundered and oppressed their
flocks. [391] Having once become Muslims, these Spanish converts showed
themselves zealous adherents of their adopted faith, and they and their
children joined themselves to the Puritan party of the rigid Muhammadan
theologians as against the careless and luxurious life of the Arab
aristocracy. [392]
At the time of the Muhammadan conquest the old Gothic virtues are said
by Christian historians to have declined and given place to effeminacy
and corruption, so that the Muhammadan rule appeared to them to be a
punishment sent from God on those who had gone astray into the paths of
vice; [393] but such a statement is too frequent a commonplace of the
ecclesiastical historian to be accepted in the absence of contemporary
evidence. [394]
But certainly as time went on, matters do not seem to have mended
themselves; and when Christian bishops took part in the revels of the
Muhammadan court, when episcopal sees were put up to auction and
persons suspected to be atheists appointed as shepherds of the
faithful, and these in their turn bestowed the office of the priesthood
on low and unworthy persons, [395] we may well suppose that it was not
only in the province of Elvira [396] that Christians turned from a
religion, the corrupt lives of whose ministers had brought it into
discredit, [397] and sought a more congenial atmosphere for the moral
and spiritual life in the pale of Islam.
Had ecclesiastical writers cared to chronicle them, Spain would
doubtless be found to offer instances of many a man leaving the
Christian Church like Bodo, a deacon at the French court in the reign
of Louis the Pious, who in A.D. 838 became a Jew, in order that (as he
said), forsaking his sinful life, he might “abide steadfast in the law
of the Lord.” [398]
It is very possible, too, that the lingering remains of the old Gothic
Arianism—of which, indeed, there had been some slight revival in the
Spanish Church just before the Arab conquest [399]—may have predisposed
men’s minds to accept the new faith whose Christology was in such close
agreement with Arian doctrine, [400] and a later age may have witnessed
parallels to that change of faith which is the earliest recorded
instance of conversion to Islam in western Europe and occurred before
the Arab invasion of Spain—namely the conversion of a Greek named
Theodisclus, who succeeded St. Isidore (ob. A.D. 636) as Archbishop of
Seville; he was accused of heresy, for maintaining that Jesus was not
one God in unity with the Father and the Holy Spirit, but was rather
Son of God by adoption; he was accordingly condemned by an
ecclesiastical synod, deprived of his archbishopric and degraded from
the priesthood. Whereupon he went over to the Arabs and embraced Islam
among them. [401]
Of forced conversion or anything like persecution in the early days of
the Arab conquest, we hear nothing. Indeed, it was probably in a great
measure their tolerant attitude towards the Christian religion that
facilitated their rapid acquisition of the country. The only complaint
that the Christians could bring against their new rulers for treating
them differently to their non-Christian subjects, was that they had to
pay the usual capitation-tax of forty-eight dirhams for the rich,
twenty-four for the middle classes, and twelve for those who made their
living by manual labour: this, as being in lieu of military service,
was levied only on the able-bodied males, for women, children, monks,
the halt, and the blind, and the sick, mendicants and slaves were
exempted therefrom; [402] it must moreover have appeared the less
oppressive as being collected by the Christian officials themselves.
[403]
Except in the case of offences against the Muslim religious law, the
Christians were tried by their own judges and in accordance with their
own laws. [404] They were left undisturbed in the exercise of their
religion; [405] the sacrifice of the mass was offered, with the
swinging of censers, the ringing of the bell, and all the other
solemnities of the Catholic ritual; the psalms were chanted in the
choir, sermons preached to the people, and the festivals of the Church
observed in the usual manner. They do not appear to have been
condemned, like their co-religionists in Syria and Egypt, to wear a
distinctive dress as sign of their humiliation, and in the ninth
century at least, the Christian laity wore the same kind of costume as
the Arabs. [406] They were at one time even allowed to build new
churches. [407]
We read also of the founding [408] of several fresh monasteries in
addition to the numerous convents both for monks and nuns that
flourished undisturbed by the Muhammadan rulers. The monks could appear
publicly in the woollen robes of their order and the priest had no need
to conceal the mark of his sacred office, [409] nor at the same time
did their religious profession prevent the Christians from being
entrusted with high offices at court, [410] or serving in the Muslim
armies. [411]
Certainly those Christians who could reconcile themselves to the loss
of political power had little to complain of, and it is very noticeable
that during the whole of the eighth century we hear of only one attempt
at revolt on their part, namely at Beja, and in this they appear to
have followed the lead of an Arab chief. [412] Those who migrated into
French territory in order that they might live under a Christian rule,
certainly fared no better than the co-religionists they had left
behind. In 812 Charlemagne interfered to protect the exiles who had
followed him on his retreat from Spain from the exactions of the
imperial officers. Three years later Louis the Pious had to issue
another edict on their behalf, in spite of which they had soon again to
complain against the nobles who robbed them of the lands that had been
assigned to them. But the evil was only checked for a little time to
break out afresh, and all the edicts passed on their behalf did not
avail to make the lot of these unfortunate exiles more tolerable, and
in the Cagots (i.e. canes Gothi), a despised and ill-treated class of
later times, we probably meet again the Spanish colony that fled away
from Muslim rule to throw themselves upon the mercy of their Christian
co-religionists. [413]
The toleration of the Muhammadan government towards its Christian
subjects in Spain and the freedom of intercourse between the adherents
of the two religions brought about a certain amount of assimilation in
the two communities. Inter-marriages became frequent; [414] Isidore of
Beja, who fiercely inveighs against the Muslim conquerors, records the
marriage of ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz, the son of Mūsạ̄, with the widow of King
Roderic, without a word of blame. [415] Many of the Christians adopted
Arab names, and in outward observances imitated to some extent their
Muhammadan neighbours, e.g. many were circumcised, [416] and in matters
of food and drink followed the practice of the “unbaptized pagans.”
[417]
The very term Muzarabes (i.e. mustʻaribīn or Arabicised) applied to the
Spanish Christians living under Arab rule, is significant of the
tendencies that were at work. The study of Arabic very rapidly began to
displace that of Latin throughout the country, [418] so that the
language of Christian theology came gradually to be neglected and
forgotten. Even some of the higher clergy rendered themselves
ridiculous by their ignorance of correct Latinity. [419] It could
hardly be expected that the laity would exhibit more zeal in such a
matter than the clergy, and in 854 a Spanish writer brings the
following complaint against his Christian fellow-countrymen:—“While we
are investigating their (i.e. the Muslim) sacred ordinances and meeting
together to study the sects of their philosophers—or rather
philobraggers—not for the purpose of refuting their errors, but for the
exquisite charm and for the eloquence and beauty of their
language—neglecting the reading of the Scriptures, we are but setting
up as an idol the number of the beast. (Apoc. xiii. 18.) Where nowadays
can we find any learned layman who, absorbed in the study of the Holy
Scriptures, cares to look at the works of any of the Latin Fathers? Who
is there with any zeal for the writings of the Evangelists, or the
Prophets, or Apostles? Our Christian young men, with their elegant airs
and fluent speech, are showy in their dress and carriage, and are famed
for the learning of the gentiles; intoxicated with Arab eloquence they
greedily handle, eagerly devour and zealously discuss the books of the
Chaldeans (i.e. Muhammadans), and make them known by praising them with
every flourish of rhetoric, knowing nothing of the beauty of the
Church’s literature, and looking down with contempt on the streams of
the Church that flow forth from Paradise; alas! the Christians are so
ignorant of their own law, the Latins pay so little attention to their
own language, that in the whole Christian flock there is hardly one man
in a thousand who can write a letter to inquire after a friend’s health
intelligibly, while you may find a countless rabble of all kinds of
them who can learnedly roll out the grandiloquent periods of the
Chaldean tongue. They can even make poems, every line ending with the
same letter, which display high flights of beauty and more skill in
handling metre than the gentiles themselves possess.” [420]
In fact the knowledge of Latin so much declined in one part of Spain
that it was found necessary to translate the ancient Canons of the
Spanish Church and the Bible into Arabic for the use of the Christians.
[421]
While the brilliant literature of the Arabs exercised such a
fascination and was so zealously studied, those who desired an
education in Christian literature had little more than the materials
that had been employed in the training of the barbaric Goths, and could
with difficulty find teachers to induct them even into this low level
of culture. As time went on this want of Christian education increased
more and more. In 1125 the Muzarabes wrote to King Alfonso of Aragon:
“We and our fathers have up to this time been brought up among the
gentiles, and having been baptised, freely observe the Christian
ordinances; but we have never had it in our power to be fully
instructed in our divine religion; for, subject as we are to the
infidels who have long oppressed us, we have never ventured to ask for
teachers from Rome or France; and they have never come to us of their
own accord on account of the barbarity of the heathen whom we obey.”
[422]
From such close intercourse with the Muslims and so diligent a study of
their literature—when we find even so bigoted an opponent of Islam as
Alvar [423] acknowledging that the Qurʼān was composed in such eloquent
and beautiful language that even Christians could not help reading and
admiring it—we should naturally expect to find signs of a religious
influence: and such indeed is the case. Elipandus, bishop of Toledo
(ob. 810), an exponent of the heresy of Adoptionism—according to which
the Man Christ Jesus was Son of God by adoption and not by nature—is
expressly said to have arrived at these heretical views through his
frequent and close intercourse with the Muhammadans. [424] This new
doctrine appears to have spread quickly over a great part of Spain,
while it was successfully propagated in Septimania, which was under
French protection, by Felix, bishop of Urgel in Catalonia. [425] Felix
was brought before a council, presided over by Charlemagne, and made to
abjure his error, but on his return to Spain he relapsed into his old
heresy, doubtless (as was suggested by Pope Leo III at the time) owing
to his intercourse with the pagans (meaning thereby the Muhammadans)
who held similar views. [426] When prominent churchmen were so
profoundly influenced by their contact with Muhammadans, we may judge
that the influence of Islam upon the Christians of Spain was very
considerable, indeed in A.D. 936 a council was held at Toledo to
consider the best means of preventing this intercourse from
contaminating the purity of the Christian faith. [427]
It may readily be understood how these influences of Islamic thought
and practice—added to definite efforts at conversion [428]—would lead
to much more than a mere approximation and would very speedily swell
the number of the converts to Islam so that their descendants, the
so-called Muwallads—a term denoting those not of Arab blood—soon formed
a large and important party in the state, indeed the majority of the
population of the country, [429] and as early as the beginning of the
ninth century we read of attempts made by them to shake off the Arab
rule, and on several occasions later they come forward actively as a
national party of Spanish Muslims.
We have little or no details of the history of the conversion of these
New-Muslims. Instances appeared to have occurred right up to the last
days of Muslim rule, for when the army of Ferdinand and Isabella
captured Malaga in 1487, it is recorded that all the renegade
Christians found in the city were tortured to death with sharp-pointed
reeds, and in the capitulation that secured the submission of Purchena
two years later, an express promise was made that renegades would not
be forced to return to Christianity. [430] Some few apostatised to
escape the payment of some penalty inflicted by the law-courts. [431]
But the majority of the converts were no doubt won over by the imposing
influence of the faith of Islam itself, presented to them as it was
with all the glamour of a brilliant civilisation, having a poetry, a
philosophy and an art well calculated to attract the reason and dazzle
the imagination: while in the lofty chivalry of the Arabs there was
free scope for the exhibition of manly prowess and the knightly
virtues—a career closed to the conquered Spaniards that remained true
to the Christian faith. Again, the learning and literature of the
Christians must have appeared very poor and meagre when compared with
that of the Muslims, the study of which may well by itself have served
as an incentive to the adoption of their religion. Besides, to the
devout mind Islam in Spain could offer the attractions of a pious and
zealous Puritan party with the orthodox Muslim theologians at its head,
which at times had a preponderating influence in the state and
struggled earnestly towards a reformation of faith and morals.
Taking into consideration the ardent religious feeling that animated
the mass of the Spanish Muslims and the provocation that the Christians
gave to the Muhammadan government through their treacherous intrigues
with their co-religionists over the border, the history of Spain under
Muhammadan rule is singularly free from persecution. With the exception
of three or four cases of genuine martyrdom, the only approach to
anything like persecution during the whole period of the Arab rule is
to be found in the severe measures adopted by the Muhammadan government
to repress the madness for voluntary martyrdom that broke out in
Cordova in the ninth century. At this time a fanatical party came into
existence among the Christians in this part of Spain (for apparently
the Christian Church in the rest of the country had no sympathy with
the movement), which set itself openly and unprovokedly to insult the
religion of the Muslims and blaspheme their Prophet, with the
deliberate intention of incurring the penalty of death by such
misguided assertion of their Christian bigotry.
This strange passion for self-immolation displayed itself mainly among
priests, monks and nuns between the years 850 and 860. It would seem
that brooding, in the silence of their cloisters, over the decline of
Christian influence and the decay of religious zeal, they went forth to
win the martyr’s crown—of which the toleration of their infidel rulers
was robbing them—by means of fierce attacks on Islam and its founder.
Thus, for example, a certain monk, by name Isaac, came before the Qāḍī
and pretended that he wished to be instructed in the faith of Islam;
when the Qāḍī had expounded to him the doctrines of the Prophet, he
burst out with the words: “He hath lied unto you (may the curse of God
consume him!), who, full of wickedness, hath led so many men into
perdition, and doomed them with himself to the pit of hell. Filled with
Satan and practising Satanic jugglery, he hath given you a cup of
deadly wine to work disease in you, and will expiate his guilt with
everlasting damnation. Why do ye not, being endowed with understanding,
deliver yourselves from such dangers? Why do ye not, renouncing the
ulcer of his pestilential doctrines, seek the eternal salvation of the
Gospel of the faith of Christ?” [432] On another occasion two
Christians forced their way into a mosque and there reviled the
Muhammadan religion, which, they declared, would very speedily bring
upon its followers the destruction of hell-fire. [433] Though the
number of such fanatics was not considerable, [434] the Muhammadan
government grew alarmed, fearing that such contempt for their authority
and disregard of their laws against blasphemy, argued a widespread
disaffection and a possible general insurrection, for in fact, in 853
Muḥammad I had to send an army against the Christians at Toledo, who,
incited by Eulogius, the chief apologist of the martyrs, had risen in
revolt on the news of the sufferings of their co-religionists. [435] He
is said to have ordered a general massacre of the Christians, but when
it was pointed out that no men of any intelligence or rank among the
Christians had taken part in such doings [436] (for Alvar himself
complains that the majority of the Christian priests condemned the
martyrs [437]), the king contented himself with putting into force the
existing laws against blasphemy with the utmost rigour. The moderate
party in the Church seconded the efforts of the government; the bishops
anathematised the fanatics, and an ecclesiastical council that was held
in 852 to discuss the matter agreed upon methods of repression [438]
that eventually quashed the movement. One or two isolated cases of
martyrdom are recorded later—the last in 983, after which there was
none as long as the Arab rule lasted in Spain. [439]
But under the Berber dynasty of the Almoravids at the beginning of the
twelfth century, there was an outburst of fanaticism on the part of the
theological zealots of Islam in which the Christians had to suffer
along with the Jews and the liberal section of the Muhammadan
population—the philosophers, the poets and the men of letters. But such
incidents are exceptions to the generally tolerant character of the
Muhammadan rulers of Spain towards their Christian subjects.
One of the Spanish Muhammadans who was driven out of his native country
in the last expulsion of the Moriscoes in 1610, while protesting
against the persecutions of the Inquisition, makes the following
vindication of the toleration of his co-religionists: “Did our
victorious ancestors ever once attempt to extirpate Christianity out of
Spain, when it was in their power? Did they not suffer your forefathers
to enjoy the free use of their rites at the same time that they wore
their chains? Is not the absolute injunction of our Prophet, that
whatever nation is conquered by Musalman steel, should, upon the
payment of a moderate annual tribute, be permitted to persevere in
their own pristine persuasion, how absurd soever, or to embrace what
other belief they themselves best approved of? If there may have been
some examples of forced conversions, they are so rare as scarce to
deserve mentioning, and only attempted by men who had not the fear of
God, and the Prophet, before their eyes, and who, in so doing, have
acted directly and diametrically contrary to the holy precepts and
ordinances of Islam which cannot, without sacrilege, be violated by any
who would be held worthy of the honourable epithet of Musulman.... You
can never produce, among us, any bloodthirsty, formal tribunal, on
account of different persuasions in points of faith, that anywise
approaches your execrable Inquisition. Our arms, it is true, are ever
open to receive all who are disposed to embrace our religion; but we
are not allowed by our sacred Qurʼān to tyrannise over consciences. Our
proselytes have all imaginable encouragement, and have no sooner
professed God’s Unity and His Apostle’s mission but they become one of
us, without reserve; taking to wife our daughters, and being employed
in posts of trust, honour and profit; we contenting ourselves with only
obliging them to wear our habit, and to seem true believers in outward
appearance, without ever offering to examine their consciences,
provided they do not openly revile or profane our religion: if they do
that, we indeed punish them as they deserve; since their conversion was
voluntarily, and was not by compulsion.” [440]
This very spirit of toleration was made one of the main articles in an
account of the “Apostacies and Treasons of the Moriscoes,” drawn up by
the Archbishop of Valencia in 1602 when recommending their expulsion to
Philip III, as follows: “That they commended nothing so much as that
liberty of conscience, in all matters of religion, which the Turks, and
all other Muhammadans, suffer their subjects to enjoy.” [441]
What deep roots Islam had struck in the hearts of the Spanish people
may be judged from the fact that when the last remnant of the Moriscoes
was expelled from Spain in 1610, these unfortunate people still clung
to the faith of their fathers, although for more than a century they
had been forced to outwardly conform to the Christian religion, and in
spite of the emigrations that had taken place since the fall of
Granada, nearly 500,000 are said to have been expelled at that time.
[442] Whole towns and villages were deserted and the houses fell into
ruins, there being no one to rebuild them. [443] These Moriscoes were
probably all descendants of the original inhabitants of the country,
with little or no admixture of Arab blood; the reasons that may be
adduced in support of this statement are too lengthy to be given here;
one point only in the evidence may be mentioned, derived from a letter
written in 1311, in which it is stated that of the 200,000 Muhammadans
then living in the city of Granada, not more than 500 were of Arab
descent, all the rest being descendants of converted Spaniards. [444]
Finally, it is of interest to note that even up to the last days of its
power in Spain, Islam won converts to the faith, for the historian,
when writing of events that occurred in the year 1499, seven years
after the fall of Granada, draws attention to the fact that among the
Moors were a few Christians who had lately embraced the faith of the
Prophet. [445]