History of the Moors of Spain Part 2

[6] The Coheshirites, the guardians of the Temple of the Caaba at Mecca.

[7] See Note A, page 203.

[8] See Note B, page 206.

[9] See note C, page 207.

[10] See note D, page 208.

[11] See Note E, page 308.

[12] Ambeza, Azra, Jahiah, Osman, Hazifa, Hacchem, and Mohammed.

[13] It was in this battle that Charles acquired the t.i.tle of _Martel_, or the _Hammer_.

[14] Abdoulmelek and Akbe.

[15] Aboulattar and Tevaba.

{45}

SECOND EPOCH.

THE KINGS OF CORDOVA BECOME THE CALIPHS OF THE WEST.

_Extending from the middle of the Eighth to the commencement of the Eleventh Century._

We have seen that, under their first three caliphs, Abubeker, Omar, and Othman, the Arabian conquerors of Syria, Persia, and Africa preserved their ancient manners, their simplicity of character, their obedience to the successors of the Prophet, and their contempt for luxury and wealth: but what people could continue to withstand the influence of such an acc.u.mulation of prosperity? These resistless conquerors turned their weapons against each other: they forgot the virtues which had rendered them invincible, and a.s.sisted by their dissensions in dismembering the empire that their valour had created.

The disastrous effects of the baneful spirit that had thus insidiously supplanted the original principles of union, moderation, and prudence, by which, as a nation, the Moslems had been {46} actuated, were first manifested in the a.s.sa.s.sination of the Caliph Othman.

Ali, the friend, companion, and adopted son of the Prophet, whose courage, achievements, and relationship to Mohammed, as the husband of his only daughter, had rendered him so dear to the Mussulmans, was announced as the successor of Othman.

But Moavias, the governor of Syria, refused to recognise the authority of Ali, and, under the guidance of the sagacious Amrou, the conqueror of Egypt, caused himself to be proclaimed Caliph of Damascus. Upon this, the Arabians divided: those of Medina sustaining Ali, and those of Syria Moavias. The first took the name of _Alides_, the others styled themselves _Ommiades_, deriving their denomination from the grandfather of Moavias. Such was the origin of the famous schism which still separates the Turks and Persians.

Though Ali succeeded in vanquishing Moavias in the field, he did not avail himself judiciously of the advantage afforded him by his victory.

He was soon after a.s.sa.s.sinated,[1] and the spirit and courage of his party vanished with the {47} occurrence of that event. The sons of Ali made efforts to reanimate the ardour of his partisans, but in vain.

Thus, in the midst of broils, revolts, and civil wars, the Ommiades still remained in possession of the Caliphate of Damascus.[2] It was during the reign of one of these princes, Valid the First, that the Arabian conquests extended in the East to the banks of the Ganges, and in the West to the sh.o.r.es of the Atlantic. The Ommiades, however, were for the most part feeble, but they were sustained by able commanders, and the {48} ancient valour of the Moslem soldiers was not yet degenerated.

After the Ommiades had maintained their empire for the s.p.a.ce of ninety-three years, Mervan II.,[3] the last caliph of the race, was deprived of his throne and his life[4] through the instrumentality of Abdalla, a chief of the tribe of the Abba.s.sides, who were, like the Ommiades, near relatives of Mohammed.

Aboul-Abbas, the nephew of Abdalla, supplanted the former caliph. With him commenced the dynasty of the Abba.s.sides, so celebrated in the East for their love of science and their connexion with the names of Haroun Al Raschid, Almamon, and the Bermasides.[5]

The Abba.s.sides retained the caliphate during five successive centuries.[6] At the termination of {49} that period, they were despoiled of their power by the Tartar posterity of Gengis Khan, after {50} having witnessed the establishment of a race of Egyptian caliphs named _Fatimites_, the pretended descendants of Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed.

Thus was the Eastern empire of the Arabs eventually destroyed: the descendants of Ishmael returned to the country from which they had originally sprung, and gradually reverted to nearly the same condition as that in which they existed when the Prophet arose among them. {51} These events, from the founding of the dynasty of the Abba.s.sides, have been antic.i.p.ated in point of time in the relation, because henceforth the history of Spain is no longer intermingled with that of the East.

After having dwelt briefly upon an event intimately connected as well with the establishment of the Abba.s.sides upon the Moslem throne as with the history of Spain, we will enter continuously upon the main subject of our work.

To return, then, for a moment, to the downfall of the Ommiade caliphs.

When the cruel Abdalla had placed his nephew, Aboul-Abbas, on the throne of the Caliphs of Damascus, he formed the horrible design of exterminating the Ommiades. These princes were very numerous. With the Arabs, among whom polygamy is permitted, and where numerous offspring are regarded as the peculiar gift of Heaven, it is not unusual to find several thousand individuals belonging to the same family.

Abdalla, despairing of effecting the destruction of the race of his enemies, dispersed as they were by terror, published a general amnesty to all the Ommiades who should present themselves before him on a certain day. Those ill-fated {52} people, confiding in the fulfilment of his solemn promises, hastened to seek safety at the feet of Abdalla. The monster, when they were all a.s.sembled, caused his soldiers to surround them, and then commanded them all to be butchered in his presence. After this frightful ma.s.sacre, Abdalla ordered the b.l.o.o.d.y bodies to be ranged side by side in close order, and then to be covered with boards spread with Persian carpets. Upon this horrible table he caused a magnificent feast to be served to his officers. One shudders at the perusal of such details, but they serve to portray the character of this Oriental conqueror.

A solitary Ommiade escaped the miserable fate of his brethren; a prince named Abderamus. A fugitive wanderer, he reached Egypt, and concealed himself in the solitary recesses of its inhospitable deserts.

The Moors of Spain, faithful to the Ommiades, though their governor Joseph had recognised the authority of the Abba.s.sides, had no sooner learned that there existed in Egypt a scion of the ill.u.s.trious family to which they still retained their attachment, than they secretly sent deputies to offer him their crown. Abderamus foresaw the {53} obstacles with which he would be compelled to struggle, but, guided by the impulses of a soul whose native greatness had been strengthened and purified by adversity, he did not hesitate to accept the proposal of the Moors.

The Ommiade prince arrived in the Peninsula A.D. 755, Heg. 138. He speedily gained the hearts of his new subjects, a.s.sembled an army, took possession of Seville, and, soon after, marched towards Cordova, the capital of Mussulman Spain. Joseph, in the name of the Abba.s.sides, vainly attempted to oppose his progress. The governor was vanquished and Cordova taken, together with several other cities.

Abderamus was now not only the acknowledged king of Spain, but was proclaimed _Caliph of the West_ A.D. 759, Heg. 142.

During the supremacy of the Ommiades in the empire of the East, Spain had continued to be ruled by governors sent thither from Asia by those sovereigns; but it was now permanently separated from the great Arabian empire, and elevated into a powerful and independent state, acknowledging no farther allegiance to the Asiatic caliphs either in civil or religious matters. Thus was the control hitherto exercised over the {54} affairs of Spain by the Oriental caliphs forever wrested from them by the last surviving individual of that royal race whom Abdalla had endeavoured to exterminate.

Abderamus the First established the seat of his new greatness at Cordova.

He was not long allowed peacefully to enjoy it, however. Revolts instigated by the Abba.s.sides, incursions into Catalonia by the French, and wars with the kings of Leon,[7] incessantly demanded his attention; but his courage and activity gained the ascendency even over such numerous enemies. He maintained his throne with honour, and merited his beautiful surname of _The Just_.

Abderamus cultivated and cherished the fine arts, even in the midst of the difficulties and dangers by which he was surrounded. It was he who first established schools at Cordova for the study of astronomy, mathematics, medicine, and grammar. He was also a poet, and was considered the most eloquent man of his age.

This first Caliph of the West adorned and fortified his capital, erected a superb palace, which he surrounded by beautiful gardens, and commenced the construction of a grand mosque, the {55} remains of which continue even at this day to excite the admiration of the traveller. This monument of magnificence was completed during the reign of Hacchem, the son and successor of Abderamus. It is thought that the Spaniards have not preserved more than one half of the original structure, yet it is now six hundred feet long and two hundred wide, and is supported by more than three hundred columns of alabaster, jasper, and marble. Formerly there were twenty-four doors of entrance, composed of bronze covered with sculptures of gold; and nearly five thousand lamps nightly served to illuminate this magnificent edifice.

In this mosque the caliphs of Cordova each Friday conducted the worship of the people, that being the day consecrated to religion by the precepts of Mohammed. Thither all the Mussulmans of Spain made pilgrimages, as those of the East resorted to the temple at Mecca. There they celebrated, with great solemnity, the fete of the great and the lesser Beiram, which corresponds with the Pa.s.sover of the Jews; that of the Newyear, and that of Miloud, or the anniversary of the birth of Mohammed.

Each of these festivals lasted for eight days. During that time {56} all labour ceased, the people sent presents to each other, exchanged visits, and offered sacrifices. Disunited families, forgetting their differences, pledged themselves to future concord, and consummated their renewed amity by delivering themselves up to the enjoyment of every pleasure permitted by the laws of the Koran.

At night the city was illuminated, the streets were festooned with flowers, and the promenades and public places resounded with the melody of various musical instruments.

The more worthily to celebrate the occasion, alms were lavishly distributed by the wealthy, and the benedictions of the poor mingled with the songs of rejoicing that everywhere ascended around them.

Abderamus, having imbibed with his Oriental education a fondness for these splendid fetes, first introduced a taste for them into Spain.

Uniting, in his character of caliph, the civil and the sacerdotal authority in his own person, he regulated the religious ceremonies on such occasions, and caused them to be celebrated with all the pomp and magnificence displayed under similar circ.u.mstances by the sovereigns of Damascus.

Though the caliph of Cordova was the enemy {57} of the Christians, and numbered many of them among his subjects, he refrained from persecuting them, but deprived the bishoprics of their religious heads and the churches of their priests, and encouraged marriages between the Moors and Spaniards. By these means the sagacious Moslem inflicted more injury upon the true religion than could have been effected by the most rigorous severity.

Under the reign of Abderamus, the successors of Pelagius, still retaining possession of Asturia, though weakened by the internal dissensions that already began to prevail among them, were forced to submit to the payment of the humiliating tribute of a hundred young females, Abderamus refusing to grant them peace except at this price.

Master of entire Spain, from Catalonia to the two seas, the first caliph died A.D. 788, Heg. 172, after a glorious reign of thirty years, leaving the crown to his son Hacchem, the third of his eleven sons.

After the death of Abderamus the empire was disturbed by revolts, and by wars between the new caliph and his brothers, his uncles, or other princes of the royal blood. These civil wars {58} were inevitable under a despotic government, where not even the order of succession to the throne was regulated by law. To be an aspirant to the supreme authority of the state, it was sufficient to belong to the royal race; and as each of the caliphs, almost without exception, left numerous sons, all these princes became the head of a faction, every one of them established himself in some city, and, declaring himself its sovereign, took up arms in opposition to the authority of the caliph. From this arose the innumerable petty states that were created, annihilated, and raised again with each change of sovereigns. Thus also originated the many instances of conquered, deposed, or murdered kings, that make the history of the Moors of Spain so difficult of methodical arrangement and so monotonous in the perusal.

Hacchem, and, after him, his son Abdelazis-el-Hacchem retained possession of the caliphate notwithstanding these unceasing dissensions. The former finished the beautiful mosque commenced by his father, and carried his arms into France, in which kingdom his generals penetrated as far as Narbonne. The latter, Abdelazis-el-Hacchem less fortunate than his predecessor, did not {59} succeed in opposing the Spaniards and his refractory subjects with unvarying success. His existence terminated in the midst of national difficulties, and his son Abderamus became his successor.

Abderamus II. was a great monarch, notwithstanding the fact that, during his reign, the power of the Christians began to balance that of the Moors.