History of the Moors of Spain

by Florian

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 fête of the great and the lesser Beiram, which corresponds with the Passover 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 fêtes, 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 circumstances 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.