The acknowledged chiefs of the Sevillian aristocracy were the sheiks of the two powerful tribes of the Beni-Khaldun and the Beni-Hadjadj. Their estates comprised the most valuable and productive lands in the vicinity of the Andalusian capital. In some respects the Arab prejudice against the promotion of trade and the employment of the mechanical arts had been relaxed, and the proud descendants of the Bedouins of Yemen did not consider it inconsistent with their dignity to add to their resources by the freighting of ships, the buying and selling of merchandise, and the fabrication of weapons and armor. The wealth derived from these profitable occupations, added to the income of their vast plantations, enabled them to maintain a state that eclipsed even the regal splendor of the court of Cordova. Faithful to the pastoral traditions of their race, these princely nobles passed the greater portion of their time at their country-seats; but they also maintained palatial establishments in the city, whither they resorted on Fridays to attend the services of the mosque and to dazzle the eyes and provoke the envy and indignation of the populace by the magnificence of their attire and the insolence of their manners.
It is proverbial that the ordinary tendency of opulence and prosperity is rather to allay than to stimulate the passions of ambition and independence. A notable exception to this principle existed in the case of the Arab aristocracy of Seville. The wealthiest and most epicurean in its tastes of any in the kingdom, it was at the same time the most narrow, belligerent, and exclusive. The persistent evils of the Desert—the love of warfare, the Bedouin repugnance to royal power, which seemed to imply undue superiority on the one hand and an appearance of servitude on the other—outweighed all considerations of security, all the advantages of peace. This propensity to disturbance was largely confined to those who resided in the country, where a marked contraction of intellect and a tenacity of prejudice have always been the well-known characteristics of those who pass their lives amidst scenes unaffected by the collision of interests, the bustle, the enterprise, the ever-changing panorama, of metropolitan life. The Arabs of Seville regarded the impatience of their brethren of the Axarafe with a disapproval which not even tribal attachment and ancestral pride could overcome. But their numbers were small and their influence inappreciable when compared with the great power of the rural noble whose multitudes of slaves and vassals imparted to his seat the appearance of the capital of a principality.
Despite all their pretensions, the blood of many of these lords had been contaminated by an impure commerce with the infidel. The family-tree of the Beni-Khaldun showed numerous crosses which had greatly deteriorated the pure stock of the nobility of Hadramaut. The Beni-Hadjadj traced their pedigree in the maternal line from the royal family of the Visigoths. The admixture of Christian blood had, however, no visible effect in softening their manners, and they were at heart as lawless as the most savage Bedouin who still adored the idols of the Age of Ignorance, and regularly plundered the caravans between Medina and Mecca.
The head of the Arab faction at Seville was Koraib, sheik of the Beni-Khaldun. In talent for political intrigue, in unblushing effrontery, in bigoted devotion to what he considered the honor of the tribe, he stood without a rival. For many years he had nursed in secret a dream of independence, to be realized by violence and rapine. Personal ambition does not seem to have had any part in his plan of universal disorder. An unreasoning hatred of royalty and a mad aspiration to restore the freedom of pre-Islamic times appear to have been the only motives that actuated this dangerous agitator, whose intellect was too much obscured by rancor and prejudice to perceive that the only safeguard of his own possessions lay in the preservation of a strong and arbitrary government.
Repulsed by his countrymen in the city, Koraib turned his attention to the inhabitants of the suburbs. His influence was so extensive and his cause so popular in the Axarafe that it was not long before he found himself in a condition to take the offensive. Many influential Arab and Berber sheiks promised their co-operation. The rich spoils of the province of Seville were offered to the Berbers of Merida, and to the outlaws who swarmed in the fastnesses of the Sierra Morena. The signal given, these merciless savages poured down upon the fields and habitations of the defenceless peasantry. With amazement and terror the industrious farmer saw the accumulations of a lifetime swept away in a moment, his home given to the torch, his sons butchered in cold blood, his wife and daughters dragged into slavery. At the first appearance of the enemy, the governor had summoned all the neighboring chieftains to join him with their retainers. Among these was Koraib, who, in consequence of a previous understanding with the Berbers, deserted at a favorable opportunity. In the first encounter the rebels obtained a complete victory, and, having plundered the country at will, they returned to Merida, leaving the environs of Seville in the condition of a conquered province which had undergone all the injury that barbarian ruthlessness could inflict.
Information of this successful enterprise was soon conveyed to the lair of every brigand and outlaw in the Peninsula. While long since aware of the weakness of the emirate and the military incapacity of its sovereign, the banditti had nevertheless hesitated to approach the neighborhood of large towns like Seville, and their depredations had been confined to isolated hamlets and the highways connecting the provincial capitals with the seaboard. Now, however, a wider field was opened to their indulgence of their predatory instincts. From every quarter of the compass armed desperadoes and criminals, accustomed from childhood to deeds of cruelty and rapine, made their way singly, and in companies, to the province of Seville. The entire country was laid under contribution. The peasantry abandoned their possessions and fled with their families to the metropolis. The powerful chieftains of Lusitania and Estramadura, who had thrown off the yoke of the emirate but had for years been content to govern their principalities in peaceful independence, now hastened to secure a share of the plunder. The renegade, Ibn-Merwan, whose exploits under a preceding reign have already been recounted, descended upon the plains of Andalusia at the head of the fierce warriors of Badajoz.
The provincial governors, as incompetent as their master, were unable or unwilling to repress the prevalent anarchy. That apparently hopeless task was finally performed by Ibn-Ghalib, a Muwallad of Ecija, whose abilities and courage in a few months restored comparative order throughout Andalusia.
The prestige thus attained by one of the despised race that the malevolent prejudice of party had devoted to extermination was especially odious to the Arab aristocracy. The contest which was raging between the rival castes for self-preservation on the one hand, and absolute supremacy on the other, now became more sanguinary and irreconcilable. The cities were filled with tumult. The Emir was openly insulted. The influence of the Arab faction in the Divan prevailed in the end, and Ibn-Ghalib was sacrificed by an act of treachery to the hatred of his enemies through his zeal for his master’s interests.
The news of his death provoked an insurrection at Seville. The sympathies of the people had been with him in his quarrel with the Arab nobles. Many causes contributed to his popularity. He was a renegade, and his political interests were identified with those of a majority of the citizens. Large numbers of the natives of the province had served under his banner. He had swept brigandage from the highways. In consequence of his vigorous measures trade had revived, and public confidence had, to a certain degree, been restored. Not only his partisans, but even those who from policy had hitherto remained neutral, now clamored for the heads of his murderers. The city was in the hands of an infuriated mob. The governor was besieged in his palace. It required all the resources of the government to suppress the outbreak, which, for a time, threatened the most serious results. A terrible retribution was exacted of all taken in arms, or suspected of having accorded to the insurrection aid or sympathy. The leaders of the Muwallad faction, the most prominent merchants of the city, were decapitated or crucified. Many of the unfortunates who had escaped the blind fury of the pursuit were deliberately massacred. Their houses were abandoned to the avarice, their harems to the lust, of the brutal soldiery. It required all the influence of leading members of the successful party, little given to the exercise of clemency, to check the indiscriminate slaughter of their unhappy neighbors. The cessation of hostilities was, however, only temporary. Mutual acts of violence renewed the deadly struggle between contending factions. The province was at length abandoned to the Arabs by the weakness of the court. History shrinks from the task of recording the outrages and the tortures of barbarians inaccessible to pity and unrestrained by any law of God or man. Suffice it to say the Muwallads of Seville were annihilated. The memories of a catastrophe which produced a profound impression on the politics of the Peninsula are still discernible in the traditions and minstrelsy of the South of Spain.
The Arab faction was now triumphant. The balance of power had been destroyed. The Christians of Cordova, persuaded that the end of the Moslem domination was at hand, made overtures to Ibn-Hafsun, whose former affiliations and present influence seemed to point to him as their deliverer, an advantage which he was not slow to recognize.