The discouraging effects of this reverse were, to some extent, counterbalanced by the intelligence of the death of Ibn-Hafsun, whose operations had harassed, and whose ambition had menaced, the reigns of three Moslem sovereigns. With the disappearance of their most implacable enemy, the inhabitants of Andalusia flattered themselves that they could hereafter pursue their avocations unmolested and enjoy the results of their industry, hitherto subject to the extortions and depredations of unrestricted brigandage. But the fallacy of these hopes was soon demonstrated. The sons of the renowned partisan leader, Giafar, Abd-al-Rahman, Suleyman, and Hafs, who inherited all his audacity and no small share of his military genius, sustained for ten years longer the unequal and hopeless struggle. The wretched peasantry were again compelled to acknowledge the weakness of the government and the uncertain tenure by which they held their property and their lives. Gradually, however, the resources of the emirate, directed by a firm and skilful hand, began to prevail in the Serrania. Three of the sons of Ibn-Hafsun were removed by voluntary retirement, by death in battle, by murder provoked by a double apostasy. The survivor Hafs, reduced to extremity by the siege of Bobastro, submitted, and, having become a loyal subject, served afterwards with distinction in the imperial army. The fanatics who followed in the train of the Emir, actuated by all the malignity of their kind, caused the tombs of Ibn-Hafsun and Giafar to be opened; and Abd-al-Rahman, having learned that the bodies had been interred according to the customs of the infidel, ordered them to be nailed to stakes before the principal gate of Cordova. The surrender of Bobastro was soon followed by the submission of the entire Serrania. In the mean time, the insurgent chieftains of the mountains of Priego, of Alicante, and other cities of the opulent provinces of Tadmir, Merida, Santarem, Beja, and finally of Badajoz, made humble professions of fealty and obedience to the conqueror.
The rebel territory, which, not many years before, had extended almost to the walls of the capital, was now limited to the narrow area inclosed by the fortifications of Toledo. Anxious to avoid bloodshed, the Emir attempted to open negotiations for the surrender of the city without resorting to force. But his overtures were rejected; the Toledans, whose natural inclination to turbulence had been encouraged by long impunity, and whose taste for a lawless independence had been strengthened by its enjoyment, dismissed the royal envoys with haughty disdain. Abd-al-Rahman at once proceeded to invest the city. The suburbs were devastated. All supplies were intercepted by a close blockade. The sallies of the besieged were repulsed at every point. Their last hope vanished with the defeat of a Christian army sent by the King of Leon to assist them, and the distressed city, after an obstinate resistance lasting two years, capitulated.
The fierce and bloody struggle which had decimated communities, destroyed the accumulations of industry, and retarded national progress for nearly half a century was finally at an end. From the confines of the County of Barcelona to the shores of the Atlantic, from the Pyrenees to the Mediterranean, the authority of Abd-al-Rahman was now acknowledged as supreme. The danger of successful rebellion had disappeared with the name and fortunes of Ibn-Hafsun. Since the time of Sertorius, no leader had so ably defended the cause of the Spanish people. The effect of the protracted contest in which the latter had participated had been to raise them from the position of outcasts to an equality with their ancient oppressors. The brigand chief of the sierras had been, in a measure, the peculiar champion of their rights. Though long a Moslem, his following had consisted largely of Christians, and he had finally been received into their communion. His sagacity and generous confidence had entrusted them with important civil offices, with the conduct of delicate negotiations, with embassies to Africa, with the command of armies. Experience in warfare had brought with it the civilizing influences which develop, even in the midst of destruction, increased intelligence, a more tolerant spirit, a higher sense of personal dignity and honor. Accustomed from the earliest times to an arbitrary government, while nominally fighting for liberty, they yet saw nothing repugnant in the despotism of the emirate. But it was different with the Koreishite nobles, whose arrogant pretensions had provoked and precipitated the long series of calamities now happily terminated. The licentious freedom of the Desert was their ideal, the salutary restraints of authority their aversion. The haughty pride engendered and transmitted through countless generations of chieftains in whose veins coursed the purest blood of Arabia, and whose achievements were recounted in the passionate strains of famous poets, induced them to regard with ineffable disdain, and to subject to every indignity, all who were not members of their exclusive caste. The day of these insolent lords was now over. Of all the parties whose quarrels had distracted society theirs had fared the worst. Never strong in numbers, their ranks had been thinned by the ordinary casualties of war; by the evils inseparable from poverty; by summary executions for treason. Their power had been so effectually destroyed that they appear no more as a disturbing element in the annals of the Peninsula. Submitting, although with reluctance, to the force of necessity, they by degrees contracted alliances with the faction once the object of their scorn, and lent their unwilling aid to the noble project of Abd-al-Rahman, which aimed at a complete fusion of races and the obliteration of hereditary feuds and ancient prejudices. The last important constituent of the population, the Berbers, preserved, under apparent conformity to custom, their character of mercenary and idolatrous barbarians, who, not amenable to the benefits of peace, were destined erelong to demonstrate the suicidal policy which had introduced such perfidious allies into the heart of the empire.
The pacification of the dominions of Abd-al-Rahman had not been perfected a moment too soon. An enemy more dangerous than any that had yet menaced the throne of the Ommeyades had appeared on the coast of Africa. The Ismailians, a branch of the Schiite sect reformed by a shrewd and ambitious charlatan in Persia, had, through its missionaries, supplanted the dynasty of the Aghlabites, and now ruled, with a splendor heretofore unknown in that country, the opulent and fertile strip of territory extending from Mauritania to Egypt. The same motives, the same aspirations to supreme power disguised under professions of religious reformation which had prevailed in Spain, inspired the leaders of this moral and political revolution. The tyranny and pride of the Arab nobles had caused the formation of secret societies, organized ostensibly for the purification of the faith and the benefit of the oppressed, but in reality to further the treasonable designs of able and daring conspirators. The hypocrisy of the latter, who in secret scoffed at all religion, may be gathered from the following saying current among them: “Prophets are nothing but impostors, whose real object is to obtain pre-eminence over other men.”
The Fatimite dynasty in Africa had risen to power with a rapidity astonishing even to an age accustomed to the ever-varying phenomena of Moslem revolution. Its head, Obeydallah, who traced a fictitious descent from Ali, son-in-law of the Prophet, assumed the sacred name and character of Madhi,—the inspired and holy personage whose coming had been announced by Mohammed. The cruelties perpetrated by the Fatimites upon their enemies are incredible. No torture was too severe, no persecution too sanguinary, for those who dared to resist their demands. The world stood aghast at the horrors of the African conquest. The prestige derived from a pretended origin gave the fanatics encouragement to assert the Schiite pretensions to infallibility, and, by the right of inheritance, to claim the dominion of the world. They were thoroughly familiar with the politics, intrigues, and military resources of the Peninsula. Their spies were to be found in every walk of life. Merchants, travellers, soldiers, dervishes—many of them men of great intelligence and observation—were in their pay, and regularly transmitted reports of the condition of trade, the location of treasure, the prospect of order, or the progress of revolution to their employers at Kairoan. The famous geographer, Ibn-Haukal, was one of these Fatimite emissaries, and his work contains many of the results of his experience which are not complimentary to the general condition of Mohammedan Spain, the capacity of its rulers, or the humanity of his own intolerant sect. There is reason to believe that a considerable party favorable to the reformers, and consisting largely of the better classes, existed in that country; and it is certain that the Berbers, whose sympathies were readily enlisted in favor of everything African, would have deserted by thousands to serve under their banners. This alarming state of affairs had been promoted by an obscure prediction sedulously propagated by the agents of the Fatimites, which announced that an African sovereign was one day to rule over the Peninsula, and all who believed it confidently asserted that the time of its realization was at hand.
Fully cognizant of the dangers attending the victorious progress of the Ismailians, who were now engaged in the conquest of Mauritania, Abd-al-Rahman heard with joy the appeal for assistance of the exiled princes of Necour, whose family for more than a century had been connected with his own by the closest ties of affection and gratitude. The distinguished refugees who had with difficulty escaped the vengeance of the tyrant of Kairoan were furnished with ships and munitions of war, and, by the policy of their benefactor, soon regained possession of their lost inheritance. Aware of the impossibility of permanently holding an isolated province against the overwhelming forces of the enemy, the Prince of Necour at once proclaimed the authority of the Ommeyades throughout his dominions; and the prudent generosity of Abd-al-Rahman was rewarded by the addition of a new state—which embraced the larger part of Mauritania—to the already extensive territory of his empire. Thus, by the interposition of a tributary province between the frontiers of Eastern Africa and Spain, the destructive advance of the Fatimites was stayed, and the permanence of the Ommeyade dynasty assured for two centuries longer.
The dangerous ambition of the African fanatics having been checked, Abd-al-Rahman was at liberty to turn his attention to the only foe who now dared to make war upon him,—the Christians of the North. A great victory was won by the minister Bedr at Mutonia; and the Leonese, thoroughly humiliated and convinced of the mutability of fortune, retired sullenly within the walls of their castles. Impatient of the monotonous life of his capital and ambitious of military distinction, Abd-al-Rahman now resumed command in person, and, entering the enemy’s country, left in his wake the dreary evidence of rapine and desolation. Osma, Clunia, and San Estevan—over whose gate the head of the unfortunate general, Ibn-Abi-Abda, had been nailed—were stormed and destroyed. Navarre was invaded; its king, Sancho, beaten in a pitched battle and driven into the forests of the Pyrenees. The latter then effected a junction with Ordoño, and the two monarchs offered battle in the Valley of Junquera. Accustomed to ambuscade and to the protection of their native rocks and defiles, the mountaineers proved no match for the Moorish horsemen in the field. A more signal catastrophe than that of Junquera had never afflicted the Christian cause. The slaughter was appalling. The country for leagues was strewn with the bodies of the slain. A great number of prisoners fell into the hands of the Moslems, not the least important of whom were the militant bishops, Dulcidius of Salamanca, and Hermogius of Tuy, who, following a custom ante-dating the Battle of the Guadalete, were taken, sheathed in armor, and fighting bravely in the front of battle.
After this victory, no serious resistance was offered to the Moslem advance. The light Moorish cavalry swept like a hurricane along the frontier of Navarre. The comparative poverty of the inhabitants presented few attractions to the invaders, who were forced to content themselves with flocks and the produce of the fields instead of the more tempting booty offered by the opulence and luxury of more civilized nations. The accumulation of provisions was so great in the Arab camp that they could not be removed, and a vast quantity of wheat was given to the flames to prevent it from falling into the hands of the enemy. This campaign was characterized by all the ruthless barbarity of the time. The women and children of the mountaineers were enslaved. The unsuccessful resistance of a garrison was followed by its extermination. The savage instincts of the Berbers were indulged by tortures and all the arts of the most exquisite cruelty. Whenever these barbarians encountered a monastery not one of the holy fathers was left alive. There was now visited upon the Christians a severe retaliation for the unspeakable horrors which they had been in the habit of inflicting upon their infidel adversaries in the name of the Gospel of Peace.
It is a striking peculiarity of the warfare so long waged between Moslem and Christian in Spain that disasters of the greatest apparent severity, no matter by whom endured, were productive of no substantial advantage to the conqueror. Many causes conspired to produce this anomalous result. The immense resources of the emirs were insufficient to protect their extended frontier. The numerous castles erected by the Kings of Leon and the Counts of Castile to retard the advance of the Arab squadrons failed to intimidate the bold riders of Andalusia. Thus the armies of either nation penetrated with trifling difficulty into the heart of the other’s dominions. The extraordinary recuperative power of the Christians was manifested during the following year by an expedition of Ordoño, which carried the standard of Leon to a point but one day’s journey from Cordova. Other evidences of the indomitable character of his enemies—who continued to capture his towns and carry off his subjects—having impressed Abd-al-Rahman with the necessity for future reprisals, he entered Navarre with an irresistible force. Pampeluna was taken, and its cathedral and many of its houses destroyed. The attacks of the King of Navarre, whose efforts were restricted to the feeble devices of guerilla warfare, were invariably repulsed. The death of Ordoño, and the quarrels resulting from a disputed succession which followed that event, paralyzed for a time the efforts of the Christians, and enabled Abd-al-Rahman to take an important and long meditated step for the increase of his greatness and the consolidation of his power.
It had hitherto been a legal maxim promulgated by the jurists, and unanimously recognized by the potentates, of the Moslem world that the title of Khalif, or Successor of the Prophet, was the peculiar attribute of that monarch whose dominions included the cities of Medina and Mecca. The control of the territory of the Hedjaz was thus considered to carry with it a degree of distinction and sanctity corresponding to that now conferred upon the successors of St. Peter by the choice of the conclave and the ceremonies of investiture which attend the accession of the spiritual sovereigns of Rome. The princes of the Abbaside dynasty had preserved their title, even after they had been deprived of the greater part of their empire; but now, descended to a state of tutelage to powerful vassals, and restricted in jurisdiction to the walls of their capital, they appeared to all true believers unworthy of an appellation which implied so much responsibility and had been the incentive to so much renown. Considerations of respect for ancestral greatness, the claims of religious prejudice and established custom, so revered by the Oriental, no longer existing in their former intensity, the Ommeyade Sultan did not hesitate to appropriate, in the character of the most opulent and distinguished of Moslem rulers, a title that had been virtually abandoned by a dynasty whose degenerate princes had demonstrated their incapacity to defend it, or even to appreciate the proud and holy distinction which its possession implied. Conscious of his merits, and believing that the past achievements of his reign had earned for him an honor which the imbecility and dependence of the monarchs of Bagdad had forfeited, Abd-al-Rahman issued an edict in which he assumed the titles of Amir-al-Mumenin, Commander of Believers, and Al-Nassir-al-Din-Allah, Defender of the Faith.