| "A strong cuirass, magnificent in combat, |
| Like water frozen over." |
The amir, far from resenting this intrusion of a bystander into the royal circle, bade the girl draw nearer and asked her name. She said that her name was Romikiwa and that she was the slave of Romiya. The prince then asked if she were married. The maiden replied that she was not. "It is well," said Mut'adid-billah, "for I propose to buy you and to marry you." It is to be presumed that Romiya had no objection to offer to this plan.
This monarch, the son of the first Abbadite amir, could do other things than make verses. He was a mighty warrior in Islam, and kept a kind of garden planted with the skulls of his enemies, in the contemplation of which he took great delight. With a view to adding to his collection he made extensive conquests in what are now the provinces of Ciudad Real, Badajoz, and Alemtejo, and undertook successful expeditions against Cordova and Ronda. It was the misfortune of his son and successor, Mote'mid, to be the contemporary of those great and vigorous Castilian kings, Fernando el Magno and Alfonso VI. Conscious of the weakness of his little State, the Amir of Ishbiliyah neglected no means of humouring his powerful neighbour. Fernando sent an armed mission to his court to demand the body of the holy martyr, Justa. But though Mote'mid eagerly extended all the assistance in his power, no trace of the relics could be obtained. The mission would have been obliged to return empty-handed had not St. Isidore (the brother of St. Leander) appeared in a dream to one of the Christian envoys and commanded him to convey his remains to Leon, instead of St. Justa's. The venerable prelate's body was discovered at Italica and carried off to the north, fragrant with balsamic odours and wrapped in costly silks. Mote'mid loudly lamented the loss of the remains. "Oh! venerable brother," he was heard to exclaim, "dost thou then leave me? Thou knowest what has passed between me and thee, and the love I bear thee. I pray thee to forget me never." Very remarkable words indeed, to fall from the lips of a Mohammedan sovereign in reference to a Catholic saint.
In truth the Spanish Moslems of that day were sadly wanting in zeal for their religion. "In those days," writes an Arab chronicler, "men of virtue and principle were rare among the people of Mohammed. The majority scrupled not to drink wine and to give themselves up to every kind of dissipation. The conquerors of Andalusia disputed about their slaves and singing girls, passing their time in debauchery and pleasures, wasting the treasure of the State on amusement, and oppressing the people with exactions and tributes that they might buy the friendship of the tyrant Alfonso with costly presents. So things went on among the quarrelsome Mussulman chiefs, until, the conquerors and the conquered alike prostrated and the kings and captains having lost their pristine worth, the warriors became cowards, the people vegetated in misery and dejection, the whole of society became corrupt, and the lifeless, soulless body of Islam was only a decaying carcase. The Moslems who did not bow beneath the yoke of Alfonso consented to pay him annual tributes, constituting themselves in this manner mere tax collectors for the Christian king on their own territories. Meanwhile the affairs of Islam were directed by Jews, who obtained the offices of wizir, hagib, and khatib, reserved in another age to the most illustrious of the citizens. The Christians devastated the beautiful land of Andalusia, and carried off captives and booty, burning villages and threatening the towns."
In pursuance of his policy of conciliation, Mote'mid gave his daughter Zayda in marriage to Alfonso VI., her dowry being all the towns Mut'adid had conquered in New Castile. Lucas of Tuy says the damsel was taken "quasi pro uxore ut præmissam est." But this ambiguous union did not avert a serious rupture between the sovereigns a year or two later. When the Castilian king sent two ambassadors to Seville to collect his tribute, one of them, a Jew, conducted himself so haughtily that the exasperated Moslems stabbed him to death, letting the Christians escape without serious injury. This outrage meant war. Mote'mid cast about him for an ally. No help was to be found in Spain, and with inward misgivings, no doubt, the Abbadite amir called on the Almoravides of Africa to uphold the cause of Islam. Warned of the danger of this course, Mote'mid is said to have replied, "Better be a camel driver in the African desert than a swineherd in Castile." The Almoravides came and routed the Christians. They returned to Africa, and then came again, this time reducing all the petty Mussulman States beneath their sway. In 1091 Ishbiliyah became a mere provincial centre, the seat of a Berber governor. Mote'mid was sent in chains to Africa, where he died four years later.
The Almoravide rule was of scant duration. Fifty-five years later all Andalusia was annexed to the empire of the Almohades. The third sovereign of the new dynasty dealt what seemed a decisive blow to the allied Christians at Alarcos in the year 1195. But the conquerors knew not how to follow up their victory. The Spaniards rallied, and in 1212 was fought the battle of "Las Navas de Tolosa." The Mussulmans were totally defeated, and left, it is said, six hundred thousand dead upon the field. Yet the knell of Ishbiliyah had not yet sounded. The authority of the Almohade khalifas was nominally recognized in the city sixteen years longer. In 1228 the last of the race of Abd-ul-Mumin to rule in Spain was expelled by the famous Ben Hud, who was himself slain by his rival Al Ahmar, the founder of the Nasrite dynasty of Granada, ten years later. In their despair the people of Seville turned once more to the African Almohades. But no new army of Ghazis crossed the strait to do battle with the Unbeliever. The Andalusians were left to fight their last fight unassisted. Cordova had fallen before St. Ferdinand, and the Sevillians provoked his anger by the murder of one of their chiefs who was devoted to his interests. At the eleventh hour the defence was entrusted—strangely enough for a Mohammedan community—to a junta composed of six persons. Their names are worth being recorded: Abu Faris Ben Hafs, Sakkaf, Ben Shoayb, Yahya Ben Khaldun, Ben Khiyar, and Abu Bekr Ben Sharih.
Thus driven to bay, the Moors offered a determined resistance. They were attacked not only by the Castilians, but by their own co-religionists; for Al Ahmar, the new Amir of Granada, was serving with his followers under the banner of Ferdinand. The siege lasted fifteen months. A fleet was brought round from the shores of Biscay under the command of Admiral Ramon Bonifaz. The Moorish ships were dispersed and the chain which the defenders had stretched across the river broken. The besieged were thus cut off from their magazines in the suburb of Triana. Meanwhile all the outlying posts had been taken by the Castilians, and the Moors were driven to take refuge within the walls. Only when threatened with famine did the garrison ask for terms. They offered to capitulate if they were allowed to destroy their principal mosque to save it from profanation. The Infante Alfonso replied that if a single brick was displaced, the whole population would be put to the sword. The terms finally accorded the besieged were, for that age, not ungenerous. A limited number of families were to be allowed to remain in the city, the lives and property of these and of the rest were to be respected, and the means of transport to Africa and other parts of the peninsula were to be provided for those who were to leave. Probably only a few thousand Moors remained in Seville. Abu Faris, magnanimously declining an honourable post offered him by the conqueror, retired to Barbary. Thither he was followed by thousands of his fellow-townsmen, while others accepted Al Ahmar's invitation to settle at Granada.
Ferdinand took possession of the city on December 22, 1248. He took up his residence at the Alcazar, and allotted houses and lands to his officers, not forgetting even his Moorish auxiliaries. Among his first cares was the purification of the mosque and its conversion into a Christian church. It is interesting to note that the first of his knights to mount the Giralda Tower was a Scotsman named Lawrence Poore.