“In the days of the patriarch Jacob, the people of Arabia were far enough advanced in civilization to maintain an active overland trade with Egypt. The Midianite merchantmen to whom Joseph was sold for twenty pieces of silver—about a dozen dollars—were from Arabia. Yet, for more than two thousand years from that time, the Arabs continued to be so divided into hostile clans, that they were almost unknown to history. The religion of Mohammed first united them; and the history of the Arabs really begins with the Hegira, or flight of the Prophet from Mecca, in the year 622. For ten years Mohammed had proclaimed his new creed in Mecca; his followers had been few, and had suffered incessant persecution; and now he was promised, by men from Medina, that, if he would flee to their city, his faith should be adopted and maintained. He made his escape from Mecca, though not without great risk, and reached Medina in safety, accompanied by a single friend. In Mecca he had preached patience and resignation under the wrongs inflicted by man. At Medina, where he had followers, his doctrine was, that one drop of blood shed in the cause of God—meaning the new faith, of course—was to be of more avail in working out the salvation of his hearers than two months of fasting and prayer. At first he made war on the caravan trade of his native city; and Mecca sent out an army to meet him. Mohammed had but three hundred and twenty-four men, while the Meccans were a thousand. But the prophet assured his followers that three thousand angels were fighting on his side; and with these unseen allies he utterly routed his enemy. After this first victory, conquest followed conquest in rapid succession. In less than a century from the Hegira, Arabia was but a small province of the empire which had been founded by Mohammed’s successors; an empire that extended from India to the Atlantic, and included Syria, Phœnicia, Mesopotamia, Persia, Bactriana, Egypt, Libya, Numidia, Spain, and many important islands of the Mediterranean.
“After King Roderick’s defeat and death at Xeres, the Moors almost immediately took possession of the whole country, except Biscaya, Navarre, a part of Aragon, and the mountains of the Asturias. Here a few resolute Goths made a stand, under Pelayo, and established a kingdom; a stronghold which enabled the Christians step by step to recover their lost territory, till after eight centuries the last foot of Spanish soil was retaken from the Moslems.
“During a part of the Moors’ dominion in Spain the country was very prosperous. For more than forty years after the conquest, however, it was ruled by viceroys dependent upon the caliphs who reigned in Damascus. This was a time of discord and civil war; and, towards the close of this period, many a city and village was laid in ruins never again to rise.
“The eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries were the most prosperous in the history of Mohammedan Spain; and the last was its golden age. The Moors, though warlike, were also industrious, and agriculture flourished during this period as it has never flourished since. Roads and bridges were built, and canals for fertilizing the land were made in all parts of the country. Learning was encouraged by the kings of Cordova; and, at the end of the eleventh century, Moorish Spain could boast of seventy large libraries; while her poets, historians, philosophers, and mathematicians were second to none of that age. Cordova, the capital, was equal to many cities like the Cordova of to-day. At one time there were in that city six hundred mosques, and nearly four thousand chapels, or mosques of smaller dimensions; four hundred and thirty minarets, or towers from which the people were called to prayers, such as you saw in Constantinople; nine hundred baths; more than eighty thousand shops; sixty thousand palaces and mansions; and two hundred and thirteen thousand common dwelling-houses. The city extended eight leagues along the Guadalquiver. If these statistics are correct, the city must have contained not less than a million inhabitants. We can form some idea of its splendors when we are told that a palace built near the city, by Abderrahman III., had its roof supported by more than four thousand pillars of variegated marble; that the floors and walls were of the same costly material; that the chief apartments were adorned with exquisite fountains and baths; and that the whole was surrounded by most magnificent grounds.
“In 1031 the kingdom, or caliphate, of Cordova came to an end; and several petty kingdoms took its place. But all of them soon became dependent upon the Moorish monarch of Northern Africa. The Christian kings of Spain were prompt in taking advantage of this division among the infidels, as the Moors were called; and the power of the Moslems began to decline. The Christians gained rapidly on the Moors; and in 1238, when the kingdom of Granada was founded, the Moors held only a part of Southern Spain. Granada was the last realm of the Moors in Spain; and its population was largely composed of the Moslems who fled there from the kingdoms which had been overthrown by the victorious arms of the Christian monarchs.
The little kingdom of Granada, though it had an area of only nine thousand square miles, contained thirty-two large cities and ninety-seven smaller ones, and a population of three million souls. The city of Granada had seventy thousand houses. This kingdom held out against the Christians till the beginning of the year 1492. This was the year in which America was discovered; and Columbus followed Ferdinand and Isabella, in their campaign against the Moors, to this city.
“With the fall of Granada, came the close of the Moorish rule in the peninsula. A few years later many of the Moors were expelled from the country. In many parts of Spain the traveller still sees numerous traces of their dominion. He finds these traces in the Oriental style of the older buildings; in the alcazars, or palaces, they built; in the mosques now converted into Christian churches; and in the canals which still fertilize the soil from which the Moslems were driven more than three centuries ago.
“The old Gothic monarchy founded by Pelayo survived in the kingdom of the Asturias. As the Christians began to recover their lost territory from the Moors, these conquests, instead of being joined to the Asturian kingdom, were erected into independent states; but, by the middle of the fifteenth century, the number of them had been reduced to five,—Navarre, Aragon, Castile, Granada, and Portugal. We shall say something of Portugal at another time, for it has a history of its own. In 1479 Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile united these two monarchies into one. The kingdom of the Asturias had been merged into that of Leon, which was united to Castile in 1067. Granada was added in 1492, and Navarre twenty years later.
“At the death of Ferdinand in 1516, Charles I. became king of Spain. He was the son of ‘Crazy Jane,’ daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. He was elected emperor of Germany three years after his accession to the throne, as Charles V. His reign and that of his son and successor covered the most splendid period in the history of modern Spain, ending with the death of Philip in 1588. Their dominions were the most extensive among the monarchs of Europe; their armies were the best of that age; and their treasuries were supplied by the exhaustless mines of the new world which Columbus had given to Spain. But, after the death of Philip II., the monarchy rapidly declined; so rapidly indeed that a century later, when Charles II. died, in 1700, it was without money, without credit, and without troops.