History of the Moorish Empire in Europe, Vol. 1 (of 3)

by S. P. Scott

The health of Al-Hakem growing steadily worse, he made preparations to avoid, as far as possible, the evils incident to a disputed succession. He had only one son, Hischem, then fourteen years of age; but the history of his house abounded with instances of the unscrupulous ambition of royal claimants belonging to the collateral branches who had aspired to establish their pretensions by arms. Without declaring his object, a grand council of nobles, governors of provinces, generals of the army, and ministers of state was convened at Cordova. With bowed head and faltering gait, the feeble monarch ascended for the last time the steps of his throne. Through the vizier, he explained to the assembled officials the reason why he had called them together, and made the request—which was understood as a command—that all should attach their signatures to an instrument declaring Hischem the sole heir to the crown of the khalifate. This having been done, similar documents were despatched without delay into all the provinces of the empire, to be signed by the inferior officials of the government and even by the people, in order to secure, by every practical expedient, the permanence of the dynasty and the integrity of its succession, which had at last come to be recognized as dependent upon the law of primogeniture. We shall see, in the sequel, how far these elaborate and well-contrived precautions were successful.

The few months which remained to Al-Hakem after the investiture of his son with royal power were occupied in the performance of good works. His worldly affairs and the future of his empire had been committed to the hands of others. The condition of his mind and his failing eye-sight precluded him from the enjoyments and the consolations of literature. Conscious of his increasing infirmities, and admonished daily of his approaching end, he endeavored to employ his entire time in the fulfilment of the duties of a devout Mussulman. His life had been disgraced by no excesses, disfigured by no persecutions, stained with no crimes. He had ever been distinguished for the exercise of a broad and unostentatious charity. Calumny itself could neither accuse him of fanaticism nor impute to him even the suspicion of infidelity. The most precise and orthodox interpreters of the law and the boldest freethinkers had been equally welcome at his court, and had daily encountered each other in the great libraries of his capital. The absolute intellectual liberty which there existed was, indeed, considered a reproach by ignorant Moslems of less enlightened lands, who could not understand the association with heretics and the toleration of infidels; but in Spain, where a system of universal education had been established, and was enforced as well by law as by the influence of public opinion, this inestimable privilege was thoroughly appreciated.

Thus, although the Khalif had no grave offences against morality to reproach himself with, he felt, like every truly conscientious man, that he had failed to comply with many of the injunctions of his creed. To atone, in a measure, for these deficiencies was now his only care. He dispensed great sums in charity. He diminished the taxes imposed upon the provinces of the empire by one-sixth, a measure most grateful to his subjects, and, at the same time, without detriment to the treasury, the country being at peace, and the revenues increasing under the wise and economical administration of the Vizier Moshafi. He emancipated and provided for large numbers of slaves. He directed that the rent of that quarter of the bazaar of the capital occupied by the saddlers—which was one of the perquisites of the crown—should hereafter, for all time, be set apart for the benefit of the schools maintained at public expense for the children of the poor. And, finally, knowing how much the happiness of a people is dependent on the character of their ruler, he constantly inculcated, and impressed by argument and parental authority upon the mind of his son, Prince Hischem, the duties and the grave responsibilities of a sovereign; the evils of war; the destructive consequences of ambition; the enduring benefits of peace; the necessity of a pure administration of justice; the value of continence; the pleasures to be derived from the acquisition of knowledge; the consolations arising from the observance of the precepts of virtue, and the practice of an enlightened morality.

At last, this great monarch, whose titles to distinction are derived from far more noble sources than those whence emanates the fame attaching to the sanguinary achievements of the conqueror, was gathered to his fathers. His son, whose gentle disposition inspired the hope that he would profit by the wise counsels and the pious example he had enjoyed, recited the burial-service, and the body of Al-Hakem was committed to the sepulchre. The bier was followed by a mighty concourse, whose tears and lamentations manifested their grief, and whose apprehensions of impending misfortune were betrayed by the cry, “Our Father is dead, and with him dies the sword of Islam, the support of the weak and the terror of the proud!”

The prominent features of the character of Al-Hakem were his love of learning, his profuse but always judicious liberality, and his profound reverence for the doctrines of the Koran and the laws of the empire. The few military operations he was called upon to direct showed no want of vigor, and suggested that in a less peaceful age he might have obtained the laurels of a successful general. His devotion to literature amounted to a passion. No monarch of whom history makes mention has equalled him in the extent of his knowledge or the number and diversity of his literary accomplishments. In every country of the world, in the foci of civilization, in the great capitals and commercial emporiums of the East, at Bagdad, Cairo, Damascus, Alexandria, Constantinople, his agents were stationed to secure books for his libraries. No price was too extravagant to pay, no difficulty was too arduous to surmount, in the acquisition of a work whose character made it a desirable addition to the vast collection of the palace of Cordova. The rarity of a volume was a special inducement to its purchase. Where the owner refused to part with a manuscript, he was, as a rule, easily prevailed upon to allow it to be copied, and his courtesy was always munificently rewarded. In the extensive libraries of the princes of the Orient, whose collections, however valuable, could not vie with the superb one of Al-Hakem, were constantly occupied the expert scribes and copyists of that accomplished, untiring monarch; investigators whose labors were never terminated, whose pens were never idle. A premium was offered to every writer of note whose productions should be first submitted to the Khalif, and the knowledge of this fact often procured for him the inspection of manuscripts long before they were made public in the country where they were composed. The emulation and the aspirations of distinguished authors caused their works to be transmitted to Cordova from the most distant lands, from Al-Maghreb, Egypt, Byzantium, Syria, and Persia, and the reward for a composition of unusual merit not infrequently reached the enormous figure of a thousand pieces of gold.

Under the influence of such potent agencies, it is not remarkable that great popularity was communicated to the study of every branch of human knowledge. Treatises replete with the stores of ancient wisdom were brought forth from dusty corners where they had lain neglected for centuries; the sages of Greece were translated into Arabic; and the philosophy of Aristotle and the problems of Euclid were publicly expounded for the benefit of the multitude. In a society where intellectual pre-eminence was a certain passport to official distinction, the study of letters soon became not only a popular and absorbing pursuit, but one of the most desirable of professions. The accumulation of books was the first employment of an aspirant to public consideration and political fame. In the house of almost every prosperous citizen a collection of volumes, not exhibited to display the wealth or pedantry of the owner, but with whose contents he was more or less familiar, was preserved. For the benefit of those whose means were too limited for the possession of such luxuries, as well as to afford every facility for the promotion of intelligence and the advancement of science, public libraries were founded in all the great cities of the Peninsula. With the growing demand for manuscripts, their value not only increased in the markets of the world, but, through the enormous prices they commanded, literary industry was stimulated to their search and reproduction. It was a well-known fact that no gift was so acceptable to the Khalif as a rare manuscript, or the first copy of a new work by an author of established reputation. The library of Al-Hakem II. was undoubtedly the greatest repository of learning which had up to that time existed in Europe. As a significant token of the estimation in which its volumes were held, the appointments and furniture of the building where they were deposited exhibited all the magnificence of a palace. The floor was of rare and costly marble, the walls and ceiling of alabaster and mosaic, the columns of jasper and verde-antique. The cases were of polished woods, some selected for their rarity, others for the delightful fragrance they exhaled. Inscriptions in characters of gold indicated the contents of the shelves, or inspired the student, by the repetition of the maxims of famous writers, to emulate the example of the wise and virtuous scholars of antiquity. The manuscripts in time became so numerous that the halls of the library, extensive as they were, could not contain them. In the scriptorium an army of binders and calligraphists was employed, and the finest books were gilded and illuminated with a taste and elegance that have never been equalled. The number of volumes in the collection of the Khalif is variously stated at from four hundred thousand to six hundred thousand. Forty-four volumes were required for the catalogue alone. With the contents of most of these works Al-Hakem is said to have been familiar, and, indeed, many of them were enriched with notes and comments written by his own hand. The title-page of each volume bore not only the name of the author but also his genealogy, as well as the dates of his birth and his death, all collected and preserved by the indefatigable industry of the royal scholar. His prodigious memory; his powers of acquisition; his critical acumen; his talents for composition; and the capacity which could abstract from the administration of the public affairs of a great monarchy sufficient time for literary undertakings that, under ordinary circumstances, could hardly be accomplished in a lifetime of constant study, are marvellous and incredible. For Al-Hakem was an historian of approved merit, as well as an impartial critic and a voluminous commentator. He wrote a history of Spain, now unhappily lost, which was considered a high authority in its time, and whose reputation was universally admitted to be independent of the prestige which it would naturally derive from the name and rank of the author. Such was his erudition that in knowledge on obscure points of genealogy and biography he was without a rival, even in the learned court of Cordova; and his fund of historical information was so profound, and his judgment so accurate, that his opinions were respected and unquestioned by the most accomplished scholars of the Mohammedan world. As may be conjectured, a prodigious impulse was imparted to education by this extraordinary patronage of letters. The accumulated wisdom of Africa, Asia, and Europe was to be found at Cordova. Reports of the munificence of Al-Hakem, and the fame of his splendid court, where literary attainments were a recommendation to royal favor, had been transmitted along the highways of commerce to the most isolated quarters of the globe. It was the ambition of every scholar to complete his studies in a society which offered such unrivalled advantages. A multitude of students of every nationality constantly thronged the streets of the capital. Education was reduced to a system, whose regulations were enforced with military precision. To invest the cause of instruction with additional prestige, the influence of royalty was invoked, and Al-Mondhir, the brother of the Khalif, was charged with the general supervision of the institutions of learning. The charity of Al-Hakem had founded at Cordova no less than twenty-seven schools, where the children of the poor received an education not inferior in thoroughness to that conferred by the best colleges of the empire.

The intellectual progress of the nation was greatly assisted by the freedom of thought which was universally prevalent. The study of philosophy was encouraged, and the promulgation of the most heretical opinions was neither prohibited by public sentiment, nor allowed to be interfered with by the fanaticism of the orthodox sects. By the incessant collision of opinions, by the comparison of authorities, and by the examination of antagonistic doctrines a general spirit of inquiry sprang up; and, in consequence of its dissemination, even the professors of the University were not wrongfully suspected of a leaning towards atheism.

The efforts of Al-Hakem had been early directed to the reformation of manners, an invidious task which might well exhaust the resolution and tact of the most politic and courageous sovereign. The example of the Orient, the possession of wealth, and the influence of luxury had introduced and promoted the demoralizing vice of drunkenness. The wines of Andalusia were then, as now, famous for their palatable as well as for their exhilarating qualities. The country was covered with vineyards, and the products of the wine-press formed no inconsiderable item of the commercial statistics of the Peninsula. Debauchery, at first carried on in secret, had grown bold with the open countenance of high officials and the increasing impunity with which it was practised; and it was hinted that even the ministers of religion did not hesitate to indulge in a vice so severely reprobated by the Koran. The prohibited beverages were not confined to wines, for inebriating liquors distilled from figs, dates, and other fruits were also consumed in large quantities. This pernicious habit was not confined to the wealthier class, but was almost universal; and the scenes of revelry, in which persons of both sexes participated at banquets and other festivities, rivalled, if they did not surpass, the scandalous orgies which had in the day of their splendor and their infamy disgraced the court and capital of Damascus. The Moslem casuists attempted to excuse these breaches of the law by alleging that the use of wine was necessary to the soldier, as it inspired him with courage and increased his powers of endurance, and that this indulgence should be at least conceded to those who habitually exposed themselves to the weapons of the enemy. Such sophistry, however, failed to impose upon the discerning mind of Al-Hakem. Determined to remove, if possible, the means of intoxication, he issued a peremptory order that all the vines in the Peninsula should be torn up and destroyed. His counsellors, however, having represented that such a sweeping measure would be productive of great financial loss and consequent suffering, and that intoxicating beverages could be, and were, even then, made from other fruits, he consented to withdraw the order, which had already caused wide-spread alarm among his subjects. But his sense of duty did not permit him to leave the evil unchecked. The imams were directed to declare from the pulpits of the mosques that the use of wine was forbidden at all social assemblies and public festivities; and the kadis were especially admonished that the penalties prescribed by the law for drunkenness must be enforced, regardless of the wealth, rank, or official station of the offender. The vice was, however, too deeply rooted to be abolished by the denunciations of theologians or the impotent threats of magistrates, themselves suspected of secret participation in the offences they affected publicly to condemn. The society of Cordova, and with it that of the entire khalifate, in a minor degree, had, in fact, become thoroughly epicurean. The philosopher, while observing a decent reverence for the national religion whose rites he openly practised in the character of a good citizen and privately ridiculed in the company of his friends, was deeply tinctured with the ancient pantheistic doctrines of India. Even the populace had ceased to exhibit the fanaticism which is the inseparable companion of ignorance. The system of universal education had gradually and insensibly removed many of those prejudices on whose perpetuity depend the importance and the power of the ministers of superstition. The example of their superiors was not lost on the multitude. The attendance at the mosques was not perceptibly diminished, but it became rather a matter of custom than an observance dictated by conscientious belief and a sense of religious duty. A skepticism pervaded the masses which surprised and alarmed the devout pilgrim from a far-distant country who visited the shrine of Cordova, in his eyes, second in holiness only to the temple of Mecca. Enjoyment of the present, indifference to the future, were the principles which guided the conduct and influenced the lives of the pleasure-loving subjects of Al-Hakem. Under such circumstances, the correction of public immorality, and the repression of a popular and prevalent vice was a difficult, if not a hopeless, undertaking. The edict of the Khalif against drunkenness was publicly observed and secretly disregarded. The epicurean tendency of the age was too general and too well established to be seriously affected by the proclamations or the example of princes.

In the prosecution of enterprises of public improvement and general utility, Al-Hakem exhibited no less taste and spirit than the most renowned of his predecessors. The largest cities and the most sequestered hamlets of the empire alike acknowledged the benefits of his discriminating liberality. He repaired the highways; furnished them with fountains at convenient intervals; and, in obedience to the law of the Koran, which inculcates the duties of hospitality, established, at the end of each day’s journey, a caravansary for the entertainment of travellers. Schools, almshouses, hospitals, rose in every town, a great portion of the funds required for the construction and endowment of these institutions being derived from the private purse of the Khalif. His devotion and family pride caused him to emulate the example of his ancestors by making additions to the Great Mosque of the capital. He largely increased the capacity of the building. He erected the Maksurah, where the Commander of the Faithful could enter, unperceived by the congregation, and perform his devotions apart from the other worshippers, in accordance with that practice of Oriental seclusion which from motives of prudence or mystery had, for three generations, been adopted by the Ommeyades of Spain. Before the reign of Al-Hakem, the basin where every devout Mussulman performed the ablution, symbolical of purification, incumbent on him before entering the Mosque, was small and inadequate to the necessities of the multitudes that daily frequented the second in renown and sanctity of the fanes of Islam. This receptacle was rude and primitive; the water frequently became stagnant; and the supply was, from time to time, renewed from a neighboring well by means of vessels borne by beasts of burden. The inconvenience and incongruity of this arrangement, amidst all the splendors that surrounded it, forcibly impressed itself upon the mind of the Khalif. At vast expense and with infinite labor, he caused four basins of stone to be constructed at the angles of the court of the Mosque, two for the use of men and two for the use of women. In the centre was a great monolithic reservoir of marble, from which rose a fountain that diffused its refreshing spray over the tropical vegetation with which the court was adorned. The blocks for these basins were quarried in the mountains, miles from Cordova, and the largest required the power of seventy oxen and an army of laborers to transport it to its destination. This gigantic undertaking consumed twelve days. An abundant supply of water was conveyed from the springs and rivulets of the sierra through the aqueduct, and the overflow passed by means of pipes into immense cisterns under the pavement of the court, available in case of siege and an ever-ready protection against fire. The aqueduct also supplied many other fountains throughout the city, which were increased in number and convenience by the provident care of the Khalif. The hydraulic works of Al-Hakem are almost intact to-day, after the vicissitudes of many eventful ages and the constant wear of more than nine hundred years. The marble reservoirs, where were once performed the lustrations of Moslem zealots from every land, now furnish with water the populace of Christian Cordova, whose squalid and repulsive appearance, whose brutal physical characteristics, whose profound ignorance of the history of the cleanly, intellectual, and polished race to which these splendid memorials of art and industry are to be ascribed, offer striking evidence of the instability of the highest civilization and of the constant tendency of man to retrograde to the condition of the savage; of his incapacity to appreciate or profit by the experience and the wisdom of the conquered when the latter belong to another creed or another sect; and of the stupendous power for evil that can be exerted by a hierarchy whose established policy is founded on the systematic debasement of the intellectual faculties of its slaves.

A pleasing story is related of Al-Hakem which strikingly illustrates his equanimity and his genial manners as well as that reverence for learning and its professors which was characteristic both of the man and the monarch. The imperious demands of despotic power, as we are accustomed to regard them, admit of no hesitation or compromise in their obedience. Yet such was the mild and forbearing disposition of this great sovereign that his subjects could venture, on occasions that seemed to justify it, to postpone for their own convenience compliance with orders that were peremptory. While the faqui Abu-Ibrahim, one of the greatest of the authorities on Mohammedan law whose talents adorned the University of Cordova, was lecturing one day to a large class of students in one of the mosques, he received, through a eunuch, a summons from the Khalif to attend him instantly at the palace.