The ancient judicature was respected, and its regulations, subordinated to the legal procedure of the ruling power, were permitted to prevail among the vanquished, so far as they did not directly conflict with those of the Code of Islam. By its example of equity, toleration, and mercy, the new government rapidly gained the attachment of its subjects; the Jew prospered, the Christian forgot his bigotry, and the slave eagerly repeated the formula which released him from bondage and placed him on an equality with kings.
In the dark recesses of the cloister, without knowledge of the outer world, without gratitude for the clemency which permitted him to live, without appreciation of the increasing benefits of civilization, the surly friar, alone in his malice and his ignorance, nourished a spirit of sullen animosity, and with scourge and haircloth performed his frequent penance; listening, with a vague foreboding of even greater evil to his Church and order, to the muezzin’s daily repetition of that ominous monotheistic maxim—ever before the eyes of the fanatic Moslem, whether it appeared carved amidst the marble foliage of his temples, or, emblazoned upon his banners in letters of gold, it glittered in the van of his victorious armies—“There is no God but the Immortal, the Eternal, who neither begets nor was begotten, and who hath neither companion nor equal.”
CHAPTER VI
THE EMIRATE
713–755
Abd-al-Aziz—His Wise Administration—His Execution ordered by the Khalif—Ayub-Ibn-Habib—His Reforms—Al-Horr—Al-Samh—His Invasion of France—His Defeat and Death—Abd-al-Rahman—Feud of the Maadites and Kahtanites—Its Disastrous Effects—Anbasah-Ibn-Sohim—His Ability—He penetrates to the Rhone and is killed—Yahya-Ibn-Salmah—Othman-Ibn-Abu-Nesa—Hodheyfa-Ibn-al-Awass—Al-Haytham-Ibn-Obeyd—Mohammed-Ibn-Abdallah—Abd-al-Rahman—His Popularity—Proclaims the Holy War—Treason of Othman-Ibn-Abu-Nesa—The Emir attempts the Conquest of France—Character of Charles Martel—Battle of Poitiers—Death of Abd-al-Rahman—Abd-al-Melik—Okbah-Ibn-al-Hejaj—His Wisdom and Capacity—Charles Martel ravages Provence—Berber Revolt in Africa—Victory of the Rebels—Abd-al-Melik-Ibn-Kottam—Balj-Ibn-Beschr—Thalaba—Abu-al-Khattar—Condition of Western Europe—Unstable and Corrupt Administration of the Emirs—Importance of the Battle of Poitiers.
The principle of hereditary right, although it occupied no place in the polity of Mohammed, was denounced by the Koran, and repudiated by the Arabs of ancient times, had been, since the dynasty of the Ommeyades attained to power, to a certain extent tacitly recognized by the subjects of the khalifs. Although the latter dignity was among orthodox Mussulmans still elective, like the office of an Arab sheik, the Persian schismatics had, for some generations, accustomed themselves to consider the descendants of Ali as the only legal Successors of the Prophet, to whom had been transmitted the inalienable prerogatives of regal power and even the sacred attributes of divinity. The ambition of the sovereigns of Damascus had been occasionally gratified by the accession of their sons to the throne, a result not unfrequently accomplished by means of questionable character. When the loyalty of the nobles and the obsequious devotion of the multitude were not sufficient to enable him to attain the desired end, the Khalif did not hesitate to use bribery, threats, and even assassination, to perpetuate the coveted dignity in his family. From the monarch this natural principle—a species of hero-worship, so common as to be almost universal, and exhibiting its tendencies even in the administration of the greatest of modern republics—descended to the prominent officials of the empire and to their subordinates the walis, the governors of provinces and cities. For these reasons, the appointment by Musa of his three sons to be respectively emirs of East and West Africa and Spain was regarded by the Moslem population of those countries and by the army as the exercise of a prescriptive right which scarcely required the formal confirmation of the sovereign. Notwithstanding the ferocious and jealous temper of Suleyman, and the fact that he had heaped upon Musa injuries which were unpardonable, he, for some time, permitted the sons of the conqueror of Al-Maghreb and Andaluz to exercise without molestation the functions of their several emirates. Abd-al-Aziz, to whom had been assigned the difficult task of the political reorganization of the Peninsula,—a task which involved the erection of one system of government upon the ruins of another which had nothing in common with, and much that was hostile to, it,—entered upon his duties with all the energy and tact of an accomplished soldier and statesman. Some cities removed from the immediate influence of the conquerors had renounced their allegiance and refused the customary tribute. These were speedily reduced to submission. The convention of Musa with Theodomir, the Gothic tributary of Murcia, was solemnly ratified. Detachments under different commanders were despatched to the North and West, who carried the Moslem arms to the shores of Lusitania and the mountains of Biscay and Navarre. Castles were built for the protection of the frontiers, and garrisons of important towns placed under the command of experienced officers of tried fidelity. A Divan or Council was established. Receivers of taxes and magistrates were appointed to conduct the civil departments of the administration. Secure in the protection of their own laws and the enjoyment of their ancient religious privileges, the Mohammedan yoke was hardly felt by the Christian population, whose restrictions were confined to a show of outward respect for the institutions of their masters and the regular payment of tribute. All acts of violence and oppression were punished, and public confidence was restored. The peasants rebuilt their cottages; the labors of the agriculturist, interrupted by civil commotion and foreign encroachment, were resumed; the grass-grown thoroughfares of the cities once more echoed with the welcome sounds of traffic, and the sad traces of many successive years of warfare and devastation began to gradually disappear from the face of the Peninsula.
But, however equitable was the civil administration of Abd-al-Aziz, its beneficent effects in the eyes of both Moslems and Christians were more than neutralized by the excesses and licentious violence of his private life. In the gratification of passions strong even for an Oriental, his conduct surpassed the ordinary limits of brutal tyranny. The fairest maids and matrons of the Gothic population crowded his seraglio; and even the homes of noble Arabians were not secure from the visitations of his eunuchs. Egilona, the queen of Roderick, having fallen into his hands, became first his concubine and afterwards his wife. She was indulged in the practice of her religion, an unusual privilege for one in her position; and, by the unbounded influence she soon acquired over her husband, succeeded in sensibly alleviating the miseries of her countrymen. Her beauty, her vast wealth, which she had secured by a timely submission and the payment of tribute, and her talents, which appear to have been of no mean order, added to the ambition once more to sit upon a throne, soon made themselves felt in the affairs of government. She began to direct the policy of the Emir, to the disgust and apprehension of the members of the Divan and the officers of the army. She imprudently attempted to introduce the ceremonial of the Visigothic court, which required the prostration of all who approached the throne of the monarch; a custom repugnant as yet both to the equality and independence recommended by the precepts of the Koran and to the proud spirit of the Arab. By her advice the treaty was concluded with Theodomir, who thereby acquired for life the sovereignty of the beautiful province of Murcia. The exercise of such authority was considered by pious Moslems as boding ill to the empire of Islam when enjoyed by a woman and an infidel. The rumor spread that Abd-al-Aziz, helpless under the fatal spell of this sorceress, was meditating apostasy and aspiring to independent power. These reports, which derived some color of probability from the universal belief of the multitude, the personal popularity and well-known ambition of the Emir, and his presumed desire to avenge the wrongs of his father, were communicated to the Khalif, who determined to at once remove all danger from any designs of the sons of Musa. Orders were accordingly despatched to five of the principal officers of the army of occupation in Spain to put Abd-al-Aziz to death. The first who opened and read the commands of the Khalif was Habib-Ibn-Obeidah, an old and valued friend of the family of Musa. His distress may be imagined; but the order was peremptory, and the ties of friendship, the sentiments of gratitude, the reminiscences of social intimacy, were not to be considered by the devout Moslem when was interposed the imperious mandate of the Successor of the Prophet of God. Having consulted with each other, the executioners, who feared the vengeance of the army, devoted as it was to its chief, determined to kill Abd-al-Aziz while at his devotions. It was the custom of the Emir to pass much of his time at a summer palace in the suburbs of Seville, attached to which was a private mosque. Here, while upon his knees reciting the morning prayer, he was attacked and despatched without resistance. His body was buried in the court of the palace, and his head—a sanguinary proof of the obedience of his assassins—was sent in a box filled with camphor to Suleyman at Damascus. Thus perished one of the most distinguished captains of the age, whose talents and dexterity promised a rapid solution of the difficult questions of policy which confronted the new rulers of Spain, and whose gentle and considerate treatment of the vanquished—conspicuous amidst the repulsive asperity of barbarian manners—proved his destruction. A few weeks elapsed, and his brethren, the emirs of Africa, followed him by the hand of the executioner. The fate of his unfortunate consort, Egilona, is unknown. In common with King Roderick and his conqueror Tarik, with Count Julian and the sons of Witiza, her future, after a remarkable career, passes into oblivion. It is not a little singular that so many of the most conspicuous personages of their time should all, one after another, without any apparent reason, have been thus abruptly dismissed by the chroniclers of the age.
The Khalif, in his haste to destroy the family of Musa, had neglected to designate a successor to Abd-al-Aziz, and Spain remained for a short time without a governor. Realizing the dangers of a protracted interregnum among the heterogeneous elements of which the inhabitants of the Peninsula were composed, a number of the Moslems most eminent in rank and influence assembled, and, in accordance with the ancient custom of the Desert, elected Ayub-Ibn-Habib provisional Emir. Ayub was a captain of age and experience and the cousin of Abd-al-Aziz. His first act was to remove the seat of government from Seville to Cordova, on account of the more advantageous location of the latter city, destined to remain during the domination of the conquerors the Mecca of the Occident, the literary centre of the Middle Ages, the school of polite manners, the home of science and the arts; to be regarded with awe by every Moslem, with affectionate veneration by every scholar, and with mingled feelings of wonder and apprehension by the turbulent barbarians of Western Europe. For greater convenience in collecting the revenue and restraining the indigenous population, the country had been divided into numerous districts, governed by walis, inferior officials responsible to the Emir. The lives of these magistrates, passed amidst the turmoil of revolution, the sack of cities, and the slaughter of infidels, rendered them but ill qualified to administer the affairs of a nation in time of peace. The acts of cruelty and extortion perpetrated by these petty tyrants, far removed from the eye of the court, had become an intolerable grievance. It devolved on Ayub to investigate their official conduct, and many of them were deposed and punished. The new Emir travelled through his dominions, correcting abuses, building fortresses, repairing the decaying walls of cities, encouraging the development and cultivation of fields long since abandoned by the farmer, redressing grievances without distinction of creed or nationality, and by every means promoting the welfare of his grateful subjects. In those provinces which had been depopulated, he established colonies of immigrants and adventurers from Africa and the East. In others, where the Christians preponderated, he settled numbers of Jews and Moslems, whose presence might curb the enthusiasm and check the aspirations of the implacable enemies of the Mohammedan faith. The watch-towers which crowned the summits of the Pyrenees and defended the passes leading to Narbonnese Gaul—that region of mystery which the imperfect geography of the Arab had designated the Great Land, and the imagination of the Oriental had peopled with giants and fabulous monsters—were strengthened and garrisoned with troops whose activity and vigilance had been tested in many a scene of toil and danger. Scarcely had the administration of Ayub been fairly established, before the vindictive spirit of the Khalif demanded his removal. Mohammed-Ibn-Yezid, Emir of Africa, was ordered to deprive of office all members of the tribe of Lakhm, to which Musa had belonged, and Al-Horr-Ibn-Abd-al-Rahman was invested with the precarious dignity of Viceroy of the Peninsula. Four hundred representatives of the proudest of the Arabian nobility, whom zeal for the faith, the love of adventure, or the hope of renown had attracted to the shores of Africa, accompanied him; warriors, many of whose descendants were destined to attain to distinction in every rank of civil and military life—even to the royal dignity itself—and to become the most prominent members of the Moslem aristocracy of Spain.
From the beginning, the arbitrary measures of the Emir carried distress and anxiety into every town and hamlet of the country. His rapacity knew no bounds. Under pretext of a deficiency in the collection of tribute, the officials charged with that duty were imprisoned and put to the torture. In the infliction of punishment no distinction of religious belief was recognized; Moslem and Christian alike felt the heavy hand of the tyrant; and even the oldest and most renowned officers of the army, veterans who had served in Syria and Africa, the companions of Tarik and Musa, were not exempt from the exactions of his insatiable avarice. So intolerable did these oppressions become, that the cause of Islam was seriously endangered; proselytism ceased; no official, however high in rank, was secure in the possession of liberty, property, and life; and the unfortunate Jews and Christians were exposed to all the evils of the most cruel persecution. As the Emir of Africa evinced a remarkable apathy when the removal of Al-Horr was demanded by the outraged people of Spain, application was made to the Khalif Omar in person, who at once deposed the offensive governor, and appointed as his successor Al-Samh, the general commanding the army of the northern frontier. This appointment did credit to the discernment of the Khalif, for it proved eminently wise and judicious. The first efforts of Al-Samh were directed to the correction of irregularities in the administration of the revenue. Formerly the large cities, where was naturally collected the most of the wealth of the kingdom and hence the bulk of property liable to taxation, had been required to contribute only one-tenth of their income towards the expenses of government, while the villages and the cultivated lands had been assessed at one-fifth. This inequality was due originally to a desire to favor the Jews, whose love of traffic had induced them to establish themselves in the principal towns, offering, as the latter did, better facilities for the encouragement of commerce and the rapid accumulation of property. In addition to this much-needed reform, the able viceroy collected the bands of Moors and Berbers,—whose nomadic habits and predatory instincts, inherited from a long line of ancestors, had resisted former attempts at colonization,—settled them upon unoccupied lands, and, by every possible inducement, tried to impress upon the minds of these savage warriors the importance and the superior advantages of civilization. He caused a census to be taken of all the inhabitants of the Peninsula, and with it sent to Damascus elaborate tables of statistics, in which were carefully described the various towns, the topography of the coast, the situation of the harbors, the wealth of the country, the nature of its products, the volume of its commerce, and the extent of its mineral and agricultural resources. The restoration of the magnificent bridge of Cordova, constructed in the reign of Augustus, is of itself an enduring monument to his fame. But the energies of Al-Samh were not expended solely in the monotonous but beneficial avocations of peace. As the friend and associate of Tarik he had seen service on many a stoutly contested field, and now, when his dominions were tranquil and prosperous, he received, with the exultation of an ardent believer, the order of the Khalif to carry the Holy War beyond the Pyrenees.
The province of Narbonnese Gaul, once a part of the Visigothic empire, and hitherto protected from the incursions of its dangerous neighbors by the lofty mountain rampart which formed its southern boundary, continued to cherish the traditions and to observe the customs of its ancient rulers. It embraced the greater portion of modern Languedoc, that smiling region which, watered by the Rhone, the Garonne, and their numerous tributaries, had, through the fertility of its soil and the advantages of its semi-tropical climate, early attracted the attention of the adventurous colonists of Greece and Italy. The high state of civilization to which this region attained, and its progress in the arts, are manifested by the architectural remains which still adorn its cities,—remains which, in elegance of design and imposing magnificence, are unequalled by even the far-famed ruins of the Eternal City. No structures in any country illustrate so thoroughly the taste and genius of classic times as the arch of Orange, the Pont du Gard, the temples and the amphitheatre of Nîmes, whose graceful proportions and wonderful state of preservation never fail to elicit the enthusiastic admiration of the traveller. The inhabitants also have retained, through the vicissitudes of centuries of warfare and foreign domination, the traits and features of their classic ancestry. In the vainglorious pride of the Provençal and his neighbor the Gascon are traceable the haughty demeanor of the Roman patrician; while the women of Arles, in their symmetry of form, their faultless profiles, and their statuesque grace, recall the beauties of the age of Pericles.
This territory was known to the Goths by the name of Septimania, from the seven principal cities, Narbonne, Nîmes, Agde, Lodève, Maguelonne, Béziers, and Carcassonne, included within its borders, and was still governed by the maxims of the Gothic polity which formerly prevailed in the Peninsula. Although divided into a number of little principalities, whose chieftains promiscuously indulged their propensities to rapine without fear of the intervention of any superior power, it had for years preserved the appearance of a disunited but independent state. In the North, the anarchy accompanying the bloody struggles of the princes of the Merovingian dynasty, which preceded the foundation of the empire of Pepin and Charlemagne, removed, for the time, all danger of encroachment from that quarter. But the Gothic nobles, since the battle of the Guadalete, had cast glances of anxiety and dismay upon the distant summits of the Pyrenees. Innumerable refugees from Spain had sought safety among their Gallic kinsmen, and the tales which they related of the excesses of the invaders lost nothing in their recital by these terror-stricken fugitives. Too feeble of themselves to entertain hopes of successful resistance, the Goths suspended for a time their hereditary quarrels, and, to avoid the impending ruin, acknowledged the sovereignty of Eudes, the powerful Duke of Aquitaine.