While these events were transpiring in the West and the attention of Hischem was engrossed with the conspiracy of his brothers, serious disturbances had arisen elsewhere. Said-Ibn-Husein, the wali of Tortosa, refused to recognize, or even to admit within the city, an officer whom the Emir had appointed to succeed him. The wali of Valencia was ordered to seize and punish the rebellious governor, but the cunning of the latter led his adversary into an ambuscade, where he was killed and his followers were put to flight. Encouraged by the success of Ibn-Husein, the walis of Barcelona, Saragossa, Huesca, and Tarragona proclaimed their independence, and entered into an offensive and defensive alliance against the Emir. The new wali of Valencia, Abu-Othman, more skilful, or more fortunate, than his predecessor, experienced but little difficulty in suppressing an insurrection which at first promised to be formidable. The armies of the rebels were defeated; the heads of all who were captured by Abu-Othman were sent to Cordova, and the successful general, after receiving the thanks and congratulations of his sovereign, was ordered to the Pyrenees, there to await reinforcements and make preparations for an invasion of France.
The fortunate results which had hitherto attended his measures, and the knowledge that the unruly temperament of his subjects constantly demanded the excitement of arms, determined Hischem to divert to the annoyance of his enemies that active and menacing spirit which had recently been exerted to his own prejudice and to the imminent peril of his crown. And, in addition to these considerations, inducements were not wanting which might afford a powerful stimulus to his political ambition. The pecuniary resources of his kingdom were far greater than those which his father had controlled. Increasing commerce and the sense of public security derived from a centralized government had rendered the burden of taxation more endurable. Long and unintermitting service in the field had created a body of soldiers, patient of discipline, devoted to the interests of their sovereign, and accustomed to conquer. To each succeeding ruler of the Peninsula, from the time of Musa, had been bequeathed as imperative religious obligations, the extension of territory subject to tribute, and perpetual war with the infidel. A thirst for revenge was now added to the original incentives of ambition and proselytism,—a desire to wipe out, by a series of fresh triumphs, the memory of past reverses, and to inflict a long deferred retaliation for frightful misfortunes endured by the routed armies of Islam. The Djihad, or Holy War, was proclaimed simultaneously from the pulpit of every mosque in the Emir’s dominions. To the promotion of the crusade, every Moslem was bound by the law of the Koran to contribute in proportion to his means, by donations of money, military supplies, provisions, or personal service. The martial tribes of the Peninsula, to whom war was a diversion, flocked eagerly to the standard of the empire. One army, forty thousand strong, desolated the settlements of Galicia, defeated Bermudo, King of the Asturias, and returned laden with booty and accompanied by thousands of captives. Another penetrated the depths of the Pyrenees, seized the passes, and, either by force or negotiation, secured the temporary neutrality of the Basques. During the ensuing year, diligent preparations were made for the reconquest of Septimania, whose capital, Narbonne, long the seat of Moslem power in the south of France, had now, for almost thirty years, been held by the infidel. The city of Gerona, recently taken by the Franks, was stormed, pillaged, and its inhabitants remorselessly butchered. This stronghold—a place of great strategic importance, whose possession by the enemy might seriously interfere with the movements of either a successful or a defeated army—having been recovered, the way was open to the Valley of the Rhone. The time was most favorable for the prosecution of such an enterprise. The attention of Charlemagne was engaged by the seditions of the discontented barbarians of Germany. Louis, King of Aquitaine, was in Italy, where he had gone to assist his brother, Pepin, hard pressed by the Lombards. The country was in a practically defenceless condition; drained of its troops; deprived of its sovereign; with a population which, for the space of almost a generation, had not been accustomed to the use of arms, or had experienced the calamities of invasion. The Saracens met with few impediments. No organized resistance was attempted. The atrocities inseparable from savage warfare marked every step of their progress. Flushed with success, the victorious army advanced on Narbonne. The defences of that city defied the efforts of the besiegers, but the suburbs were taken and laid waste.
The Moslems now moved forward on the road to Carcassonne. At the river Orbieu, near Narbonne, they encountered a force of peasants and militia which William, Duke of Toulouse, had collected in the desperate hope of checking their advance. The valor of this hero, who has been canonized by the Church, and whose achievements are, like those of Roland, the theme of mediæval ballad and legend, was unavailing against the furious onset of the Berber cavalry. The half-armed mob was put to flight; but the victors, intimidated by this unexpected appearance of an army, and fearful of losing their plunder, decamped without attempting further hostilities. It would appear from the most probable accounts to be derived from the confused and obscure chronicles of the age that a considerable portion of the territory of the Franks remained for some years in the hands of the Saracens.
About this time another army, commanded by Abd-al-Kerim, invaded Galicia and the Asturias. Little resistance being offered, the Moslems penetrated the country in every direction. The harvests were destroyed, and the peasantry massacred or driven into captivity. The churches were burned to the ground. Encumbered with booty, the invaders on their return fell into an ambush and sustained a crushing defeat. The plunder was retaken, and their principal officers were left on the field of battle. This reverse more than counterbalanced the advantages derived from the expedition into France, and it effected much towards the consolidation of the power of the Christian kingdom.
An incredible amount of booty in gold, silver, and precious merchandise was obtained in Septimania, not a little of which was found in the churches and other ecclesiastical establishments which abounded everywhere. The royal fifth alone, acquired by this foray, amounted to forty-five thousand pieces of gold, all of which was set apart to be expended in the completion of the Great Mosque. The pride of the Moorish commander, Abd-al-Melik, exacted of the innumerable captives who followed in the train of his army an arduous and extraordinary service. They were forced to carry upon their shoulders, or drag in wagons, the stones which had formed the walls encircling the suburbs of Narbonne. From these blocks, thus painfully transported from a country distant many hundred miles, through the steep passes of the mountains, was constructed the foundation of the eastern part of the Great Mosque of Cordova. In the exertion of this seemingly useless and tyrannical act of authority, Abd-al-Melik was not impelled by a feeling of mere bravado, nor by a desire to inflict suffering upon the unfortunate. It was a proceeding in perfect accord with the genius of the Moslem character. Those stones, squared perhaps by Roman masons in the days of Augustus, were tangible and enduring trophies of conquest. The boundaries of contiguous kingdoms have expanded or shrunk; language, religion, and manners have changed; populous cities of the Peninsula have disappeared; important settlements have arisen in the midst of marsh and desert; the mementos of ancient warfare are represented only by a few battered and broken weapons; but the massive stones of Narbonne, rendered doubly sacred from the touching legend of their conveyance by the unwilling hands of Christian captives, still, after the expiration of more than eleven centuries, support the walls of the proudest temple ever dedicated to the God of Islam.
To the completion of this magnificent edifice the energies of Hischem were now directed. Following the pious example of his father, he labored daily upon its walls. He lived to see it finished, after the expenditure of one hundred and sixty thousand dinars, and, although sumptuous in itself, the building of Abd-al-Rahman and his son was greatly inferior in splendor and beauty to the additions and improvements subsequently made to it by their successors. The public spirit of Hischem did not, however, confine his efforts to the completion of the Djalma. He rebuilt the bridge across the Guadalquivir, which had again fallen into decay. He erected many structures to embellish his growing capital and to promote the convenience of its inhabitants,—luxurious palaces, baths, mosques, and fountains. He encouraged the planting of orchards and the cultivation of gardens in the suburbs, and this rational and healthful employment formed one of his favorite recreations. In his character the religious sentiment preponderated, not a little tinctured, in common with the most ignorant of his subjects, with the folly and weakness of superstition. Early in his reign he consulted a famous astrologer, who announced, as the result of his horoscope, a life of but few years’ duration, but prosperous and full of glory. The communication of this prediction had unquestionably much to do with its fulfilment. The manners of Hischem, already grave and dignified, became, for a Mohammedan prince, strangely ascetic. He discarded the splendid vestments of royalty, and invariably appeared clad in simple white, the distinctive color of his family. His leisure was devoted to the investigation of grievances, to the aid of the oppressed, to the consolation of the afflicted, to the support of the indigent. Neither the inclemency of the season nor the inconvenience of darkness was suffered to interfere with his errands of mercy. He visited holy men at midnight in the midst of torrents of rain. In person he distributed alms to the homeless, whom want had impelled to seek shelter under the arcades of the mosque. He walked unattended through the streets, and did not disdain to enter the hovels of the poor and bestow words of comfort upon such as seemed abandoned by the world. He was the first of his line to establish a system of municipal police to insure the safety of the capital. The fines collected for breaches of the peace he disbursed in charity. In the imposition of taxes he earned the gratitude of his subjects by only exacting the tithe prescribed by Mohammedan law. Under his paternal administration the widows and children of soldiers killed in battle were pensioned. He ransomed from his private purse all Mussulmans held in captivity, and so thorough was his search and so successful his efforts in this direction, that during his reign a wealthy citizen having left by will a large sum for the liberation of slaves held by the Christians, the bequest reverted to the heirs, as no such slaves could be found. The inflexible justice of Hischem was a prominent trait of his character. He refused to purchase a house for which he had been negotiating when he learned that one of his neighbors desired it; and, aware that respect for the dignity of the sovereign would induce his competitor to withdraw, he abandoned without hesitation the coveted property to the latter. In the conduct of complex and doubtful affairs of government Hischem justified the discernment of his father, which had selected him to the prejudice of his elder brethren. His courage and firmness inspired the fear and respect of his enemies. He frequently despatched emissaries to the courts of the walis, empowered to examine into their official conduct and to hear the complaints of their subjects. By the liberality he displayed in the construction of public edifices, he awakened the emulation of the rich, who vied with each other in the luxurious adornment of their palaces and the picturesque beauty of their gardens. He inherited from his father a predilection for science combined with a taste for the cultivation of letters; and, in his opinion, the permanent benefits to be derived from literature and the arts were far preferable to the transitory pleasures of sensual gratification. The prediction of the astrologer, which to eight years had prescribed the duration of his reign, developed in a mental constitution naturally inclined to morality a sentiment of deep reverence for everything connected with religion. Partly with a view to the fusion of races and the reconciliation of hereditary enmities, but chiefly in the hope of their eventual conversion, he made the use of the Arabic tongue obligatory in the schools of Jews and Christians; thus, in his zeal for proselytism, violating the wise tolerance which the Koran accords to tributary infidels. By this act of profound statesmanship he unconsciously effected in a few years a political and social revolution, which, under ordinary conditions, many generations would not have sufficed to accomplish. No isolation is so thorough as that which is caused by the preservation and use of an unfamiliar idiom. Even the social alienation induced and maintained by the observance of religious practices regarded as heretical is not so deep or persistent. By the compulsory adoption of the language of the conquerors, the tributary sects became daily better acquainted with the creed, the characteristics, and the opinions of their masters. Their prejudices contracted through ignorance were gradually dispelled amidst the requirements of business and the courtesies and recreations of familiar intercourse. The Christian learned to esteem the Moslem; the Moslem, by degrees, entertained less contempt for the Christian. An appreciation of each other’s virtues, mutual concessions, and hopes of prospective advantage soon produced closer relations in trade, intermarriages, and the formation of intimate and durable friendships. Proselytism to the faith of Islam—once an occurrence as rare as it was abhorrent—at last became so common as scarcely to excite remark. The Gothic costume was superseded by the turbans and flowing robes of the Orient. The harems of the rich and powerful were ruled by favorites born in Teutonic and Roman households. The customs of the latter were those of the Desert. Their surroundings had nothing in common with the traditions of their ancestry or the memories of their youth. Their children knew no other tongue but Arabic. The lasting consequences of this law of Hischem, in the partial amalgamation of three races and the seal it impressed upon their product, are to-day manifested in the swarthy complexions, the guttural accents, the grace and dignity of bearing which distinguish the peasantry of Northern Andalusia, who, living near the capital of the khalifate, the more readily obeyed the mandates of its court, and were the more susceptible to the influence of its manners.
Unfortunately for the future tranquillity of the Peninsula, Hischem was a fast friend of the theologians. His most intimate associates were chosen from the faquis,—half-priests, half-lawyers,—whose studies were divided between the elucidation of sacred traditions and the interpretation of the principles of jurisprudence. Discouraged by the firm policy of Abd-al-Rahman, this order had assumed a sudden and ominous importance under the favorable auspices of his successor. It was an era of unprecedented religious excitement in the domain of Islam. New sects, with whose organization and maintenance politics had often quite as much to do as theology, were forming everywhere. One which had obtained great popularity and was destined eventually to be included in the four recognized by true believers as orthodox had been recently founded at Medina by the famous doctor, Malik-Ibn-Anas. A bond of union, based on antipathy to a common enemy, was soon established between the Oracle of Medina and the monarch of Spain. Notwithstanding his claims to pious consideration as the founder of a new theological school, Ibn-Anas had been suspected of encouraging the pretensions of a descendant of Ali—of the detested sect of the Schiites—to the throne of the Abbasides. Either from insufficiency of evidence, or through fear of insurrection, the Khalif of Bagdad had not imposed sentence of death upon the offender, but he had ordered him to be scourged, which punishment had been inflicted with every accompaniment of brutality and insult by the zealous officials of the Hedjaz. Conscious of his influence, and consumed with rage and hatred, the venerable fanatic bore his injuries like a martyr, concealing under an appearance of resignation the fury of his implacable resentment. Abhorrence of his oppressors led him to turn for sympathy to the Ommeyades, whose princes, like himself, had experienced the relentless persecution and insatiable vengeance of the tyrants of Damascus and Bagdad. The noble character of Hischem was not unknown to the inhabitants of the Holy Cities. The admiration of the Medinese doctor for the Emir, perhaps increased somewhat by a desire to profit by past humiliation, and to indirectly disparage his enemies, became extravagant. He lost no occasion of praising him as a pattern of the kingly virtues, and went so far as to declare publicly that he, of all the princes of Islam, was the only one worthy of the undivided honors of the khalifate. On the other hand, Hischem entertained the greatest respect for the theologian, whose doctrines he adopted and sedulously endeavored to propagate throughout his dominions by every inducement to which the human mind is susceptible. The Malikites were among those highest in his confidence. They administered the most responsible employments of Church and State. They were entrusted with important commands in the army. The Emir afforded every facility to such as desired to pursue their studies under the eye of the great interpreter of the law, and these, at their return, were received with every mark of respect and consideration. In consequence of this impolitic favoritism, the Malikites soon obtained a preponderating and dangerous influence in public affairs. The sect was dominated by a limited number of shrewd and ambitious faquis, whose opinions, received by the ignorant as infallible, were supposed to be prompted by divine inspiration, and whose wild fanaticism was justly regarded by themselves as the most efficient means for the attainment to supreme power. Neither the Berbers, nor the Arabs of pure blood, seem to have embraced the new doctrine with any great degree of enthusiasm. Its most ardent champions were the renegades, apostates from Christianity, or the descendants of converted tributaries and slaves. The obligations of no particular creed were recognized as paramount by these careless proselytes, born and bred in an atmosphere of turmoil and revolution, and to whose impulsive and fickle natures the heat of controversy incident to the promulgation of a new belief and the excitement of a foray were equally acceptable. Mutual sympathy and the ambitious designs of their leaders suggested the association and residence of these sectaries in quarters where their power could be most advantageously employed in times of sedition. One of these localities was the southern suburb of Cordova, separated from the city by the Guadalquivir. It was one of the most attractive and beautiful portions of the capital. Its population exceeded twenty thousand souls. Its markets were filled with all the evidences of a widely extended and profitable traffic. Through its gates were conveyed the larger proportion of the provisions consumed by the inhabitants of the metropolis and no inconsiderable part of its merchandise obtained from the rich provinces of the East. These were transported from the suburb to the bazaars by means of the stupendous bridge constructed by the Cæsars and remodelled by Al-Samh and Hischem. The level surface bounded by the left bank of the Guadalquivir was more favorable for building than the inequalities of the ground on the north and west. The streets were wider than those elsewhere; the markets more commodious; the mosques and villas not less sumptuous and elegant. A belt of beautiful gardens—traversed by walks of pebbles laid in mosaic and cooled by the spray of countless fountains, amidst whose verdure nestled the pleasure-houses of the wealthy—encircled the entire suburb. Here was the stronghold of the Malikite sect, the increasing power and insolence of whose spiritual guides were preparing for their wretched dupes a day of unspeakable calamity.
Eight years from the date of the horoscope had been declared by the astrologer to be the limit of the life of Hischem. The strength of his intellect was not sufficient to reject a prediction which was universally accepted by a credulous and superstitious race with the same reverence that, in ancient times, attached to the mysterious response of an oracle. A pattern of religious virtue, he had long disciplined his mind to obey, without repining, the inevitable decrees of fate, and the prospect of an early death, while it seriously disconcerted his plans, could not disturb his equanimity. As the time set for the accomplishment of the prophecy approached, the Emir assembled the Great Council of the realm to swear fealty to his son, Al-Hakem, who was to succeed him. This ceremony concluded, he addressed the young prince in the following words, which are far better calculated than any eulogy to describe his own character: “Dispense justice without distinction to the poor and to the rich, be kind and gentle to those dependent upon thee, for all are alike the creatures of God. Entrust the keeping of thy cities and provinces to loyal and experienced chieftains; chastise without pity ministers who oppress thy subjects; govern thy soldiers with moderation and firmness; remember that arms are given them to defend, not to devastate, their country; and be careful always that they are regularly paid, and that they may ever rely upon thy promises. Strive to make thyself beloved by thy people, for in their affection is the security of the state, in their fear its danger, in their hatred its certain ruin. Protect those who cultivate the fields and furnish the bread that sustains us; do not permit their harvests to be injured, or their forests to be destroyed. Act in all respects so that thy subjects may bless thee and live in happiness under thy protection, and thus, and in no other way, wilt thou obtain the renown of the most glorious of princes.”
Early in the following spring Hischem expired, after a short illness, in the fortieth year of his age. His reign had not been distinguished by great military enterprises, nor by measures that indicated the possession of more than ordinary talents for the requirements of politics or the art of government. But although his administration was not brilliant it was eminently successful. He had checked the impetuous ardor of the Asturians. He had invaded and ravaged with impunity the provinces of the most illustrious and powerful monarch in Europe. He had thwarted the repeated attempts of desperate adventurers to overturn his throne. He had gained the applause of his enemies by his clemency, and won the admiration of his friends by his generous treatment of his rebellious kinsmen. No unfortunate was so degraded as to be unworthy of his notice, no sufferer too obscure to be the recipient of his bounty. By the enforcement of judicious regulations he had accomplished much towards the removal of those social and political barriers which separated the races and menaced the prosperity of his kingdom. By his influence and example he gave fresh impulse to the cultivation of letters. The universal sorrow manifested by all classes at the news of his death announced the depth of the esteem and affection everywhere entertained for his character.
It was with ill-concealed anxiety that the subjects of the emirate expected the first act of the administration of Al-Hakem. It is true no one doubted his ability. His military prowess had already been demonstrated, for, while yet a boy, he had at the head of an inferior force annihilated the army of his uncle on the plains of Lorca. The prophetic sagacity of his father, in accordance with the custom of his princely line, had early familiarized him with the functions of a ruler by his employment in offices of grave responsibility. His education had been entrusted to the best scholars of the time, and he had proved an apt and intelligent pupil. The fortuitous but important advantages of personal beauty and a distinguished presence were not wanting to this heir to the glory and the misfortunes of the Ommeyades. Yet, though reared in the publicity of a court and habituated to the transaction of official business, little was known of the disposition and the private opinions of Al-Hakem. A stolid apathy and an impenetrable reserve effectually concealed his emotions. His feelings never relaxed even in the presence of his most intimate associates, upon whom, moreover, his confidence was grudgingly bestowed. But the veil which enveloped his character could not hide the fact that he was irascible, arrogant, vainglorious, and cruel. The event proved that the apprehensions of the shrewd observers who regarded his accession with manifest uneasiness and distrust were not entirely without foundation.