A certain chieftain, Yahya-Ibn-Ibrahim, belonging to the tribe of Djidala, a subdivision of the Lamtounah, and a zealous but ignorant Moslem, performed, through motives of curiosity and devotion, about the year 1036, the pilgrimage to the Holy Cities of Arabia enjoined upon his sect, but rare among his countrymen. The simple pilgrim, to whom the world outside of the limited area of the Desert was even by report wholly unknown, was astonished and delighted with the revelations and experiences of civilized life. While on his return, he attended the lectures of a learned and celebrated theologian and scholar, named Abu-Amram, whose eloquence daily attracted great audiences in the court of the principal mosque of Kairoan. The enraptured attention of the new disciple awakened the curiosity of the lecturer; he inquired the nationality, the sect, and the tribe of the attentive auditor; and learned with surprise and regret of the religious ignorance of the countrymen of the latter, whose credulity and favorable disposition seemed, on the other hand, to promise an easy and enduring conversion. Inspired by the fervent zeal of a proselyte, Yahya requested of his teacher that one of his followers might be selected to accompany him to expound to the benighted tribes of the Sahara the doctrines and the duties of Islam. The proposal was made to the assembly; but the perils of the journey and the uncertainty of its issue caused even the most zealous to hesitate; while the exaggerated ferocity of the Berbers, to whom the most shocking cruelties were popularly attributed, caused the students of Kairoan to shrink from exposure to the sufferings and glories of voluntary martyrdom. But in the distant province of Sus-al-Aksa, where Yahya repaired under the instructions of Abu-Amram, a missionary was found who signified his willingness to penetrate the unknown region, at the risk of liberty and life and to brave the prejudices of a race of savages, for the sake of imparting the sacred instructions of the Koran. The name of this zealot was Abdallah-Ibn-Jahsim. Possessed of great erudition, an eloquent orator, a practised controversialist, he was, in all respects, admirably qualified for the task he had undertaken. His familiarity with the various dialects of the Berber tongue and his knowledge of human nature obtained by travel in many lands, combined with a graceful address and winning manners, at once gained for him the attention and the esteem of his new associates. His discourses were listened to with mingled curiosity and veneration. His disciples multiplied by thousands. The most influential chieftains were charmed by his eloquence; and the fame of the accomplished messenger of Islam soon extended from the Mediterranean and the Atlantic to the outermost limits of the Desert. His calling, and the amazing success with which it was prosecuted among a people naturally credulous, were not long in investing him with mysterious and supernatural attributes; the intimate association of divine inspiration and royal authority always existing in the minds of the nomads of Africa and Asia raised him still higher in the public estimation; while the voluntary allegiance of tribal dignitaries, and the fanatical devotion of multitudes of proselytes, heralded the foundation of a new spiritual and temporal empire.
The example of his Prophet could not fail, under the circumstances, to suggest to the mind of the reformer the most flattering dreams of ambition. By every expedient of political ingenuity he tightened his grasp upon the superstitious myriads who already adored him. His rigid austerities edified the devout. The simplicity of his attire, the plainness of his table, and the regularity of his habits served to effectually disguise the lofty aspirations which he cherished in secret. He boldly assumed the hazardous authority of appointing the sheiks of the various tribes, an office heretofore elective and jealously guarded by the barbarians as an essential indication and guaranty of independence. He aroused the cupidity and fanaticism of his auditors by enumerating the spoils to be obtained from the infidel, by representing the merits of perpetual warfare, and by delineating, with all the embellishments of Oriental hyperbole, the sensual pleasures of the Mohammedan paradise. At length the desired consolidation of the tribes of the Desert was complete. The portentous union of implicit faith and unhesitating obedience had been accomplished; and, for hundreds of leagues throughout the Sahara, hosts of redoubtable and eager warriors impatiently awaited the signal for action. Their numbers were enormous. Their fanaticism was blind, furious, irresistible. Their strength and dexterity were so great that it was a trifling feat for one of them to completely transfix a horse with a lance or to cleave his rider to the saddle with a single blow of the scimetar. With such potent auxiliaries it was not impossible to conquer a world.
The denizens of the Atlas were the first to experience the power of the newly-organized empire. The courage of these mountaineers and the natural defences of their country had enabled them to repulse the cavalry of Musa, and that skilful general had been compelled to tolerate the presumption of a race which the experience of military commanders had for centuries pronounced invincible. But the mountain tribes were unable to sustain their well-merited reputation in the face of the followers of Abdallah. They were driven from the plains. Their haunts were invaded, and fastnesses heretofore considered inaccessible were penetrated by the swarming legions of the Desert. Their flocks were swept away. Their families were borne into slavery. Finally, broken in spirit, they acknowledged the divine mission of the reformer; repeated with superstitious and unmeaning reverence the formula of the Mussulman creed; accepted with meek submission the political superiority of the Lamtounah; and contributed a considerable reinforcement to the already formidable army of the conqueror.
Abdallah did not long enjoy the substantial fruits of his victories. He was killed in a skirmish twenty-two years after the commencement of his public career as a missionary, and the government and destiny of the Berber nation devolved on Abu-Bekr-Ibn-Omar, Emir of the Lamtounah, whose appointment had been dictated by the authority of Abdallah himself. Abu-Bekr, while not aspiring to the divine character assumed by his predecessor, was none the less fortunate in prosecuting his designs of conquest. He invaded and subdued the ancient kingdom of the Edrisites, and incorporated it into his vast dominions. He occupied, in turn, the capitals of Fez and Mequinez, and, dissatisfied with their surroundings, or craving distinction in a new field, he began the construction of the city of Morocco as a residence for the dynasty he had founded. Summoned unexpectedly to the borders of the Desert to suppress a rebellion, he left the administration of the empire in the hands of his cousin, Yusuf-Ibn-Tashfin. This chieftain, destined to enduring celebrity as the deliverer and conqueror of Spain, had already passed the term of middle life. His person was agreeable, his manners fascinating, his reputation for valor and capacity unsurpassed. He constantly practised, without effort or ostentation, the abstemious habits of his nomadic ancestry. The devout and the indigent received with grateful acknowledgments the frequent tokens of his charity and benevolence. In the high station which his birth and talents had secured for him he had always acted as a wise and discriminating ruler. His character was, however, obscured by many degrading vices, and, under the mask of a political ascetic, he concealed the sinister designs of a calculating and unscrupulous ambition. The opportunity for personal advancement now offered him was eminently congenial with the dark and perfidious maxims of policy which regulated his conduct. By judicious donations he courted and secured the favor of the army. The populace was profoundly edified by the sight of their prince working daily, like a common laborer, on the mosque of the rising capital. The fame of the new city, the extent of its plan, the rapidity of its construction, the splendor of its edifices, the abundance of its waters, the beauty of its gardens, attracted from every quarter of Northern Africa a numerous and enterprising population. On a commanding eminence at the northern extremity stood the palace and citadel, fortified by all the art of foreign engineers. The protracted absence of Abu-Bekr by degrees obliterated the remembrance of his rights from the minds of a people to whom his person was unfamiliar; and his authority was soon eclipsed by the increasing popularity and influence of an ambitious subordinate who aspired to absolute independence. Not content with despoiling his cousin of his throne, Yusuf even appropriated his favorite wife; and the lovely Zeinab, a woman of great talents and beauty, not unwilling to exchange the neglect of an absent lord for the immediate prospect of love and empire, passed without a sigh into the harem of the daring usurper. Aware of the vital importance of preserving the affection of his followers, Yusuf lavished upon them the most expensive garments, horses, and armor; his bodyguard, equally composed of Christian captives and negro slaves, resplendent in silks and jewels, was daily exercised in the rapid and bewildering evolutions peculiar to the cavalry of the Desert; and less than one year after the departure of Abu-Bekr, a hundred thousand warriors, impelled by a blind fanaticism and who revered their leader almost as a divinity, stood ready, at an instant’s notice, to respond to his call to arms.
At length, after many months, Abu-Bekr returned to his capital. Long before he reached it, his ears were saluted with the rumors of the quiet revolution which had virtually deprived him of his consort and his crown. The satisfaction he derived from the triumphant issue of the expedition, the fond anticipations he cherished of the joyous acclamations of his subjects and of the affectionate embraces of his wife, were obscured by sad and gloomy apprehensions. He heard with wonder of the prodigious growth and opulence of the city he had so recently founded. His credulity was taxed by the marvellous accounts of its mansions and its suburbs; of the vast revenues collected and expended by the imperial treasury; of the magnificence of the court; of the numbers and equipment of the army. Soon the emissaries of Yusuf secretly penetrated his camp. His soldiers were corrupted with rich bribes and the assurance of booty or promotion, and, their loyalty once shaken, they awaited with impatience the signal for desertion or mutiny. These intrigues and their inevitable tendency could not be concealed from the unfortunate Abu-Bekr. Aware that resistance or reproach would cost him his life, he wisely resolved to dissemble his feelings and accept his fate. By a public and solemn abdication he renounced his rights in favor of Yusuf, and, broken-hearted, retired with a few trusty followers to the solitude of the Desert. The title of the new Sultan of Africa having been thus confirmed by every requisite of inherited prestige and legal authority, he continued to increase the area of his already immense dominions. Far from being satisfied with the growth of his empire, he was scarcely seated on the throne before he began to meditate the invasion of the Spanish Peninsula. The example of Tarik, the demoralized condition of his co-religionists beyond the strait, the menacing attitude of the Christian powers, the prospect of political aggrandizement, the hope of military distinction, the merit of protecting the faith of which he was now the most distinguished exponent,—all these considerations, and others far less praiseworthy, urged the energetic Yusuf to a more glorious career. As a prelude to future operations, he stormed the cities of Tangier and Ceuta, repaired or rebuilt their fortifications, constructed within their walls great magazines and arsenals, and garrisoned them with large bodies of veterans of tried courage and fidelity. His dominions now reached from the eastern boundary of Tunis to the Atlantic, from the Mediterranean to the burning regions of Senegal. No African potentate had ever before wielded such enormous power. No Moslem prince had ever exercised jurisdiction over so extensive a territory. In area and population it greatly exceeded, in civilization and intelligence only was it inferior to, the mighty domination of Carthage. Such was the ruler, and such the empire whose potent aid the distressed Moslems of Andalusia were about to invoke.
It was only after much deliberation that the Hispano-Arab princes determined to adopt the desperate expedient of appealing to Yusuf. The imams and the other ecclesiastical authorities had from the beginning urged this step, foreseeing, through its acceptance, a certain accession to their professional importance and a probable augmentation of their political power. But the sovereigns, who cared more for the possession of their thrones, precarious though that might be, than for the reformation of their faith or the exaltation of its ministers, were loath to admit into their dominions a conqueror flushed with victory and supported by the vast treasures and the innumerable hordes of Northern and Central Africa. But, unhappily, no other alternative remained. Rumors of the great preparations of Alfonso increased day by day, and at length the question was decided by Motamid, who resolutely declared, when the danger of inviting the Berbers was enlarged on by his courtiers, “If it is the will of Allah that I should be deprived of my kingdom and become the slave of a foreigner, I would far rather be a camel-driver in Africa than a swineherd in Castile.”
The preponderating influence of the lord of Seville overcame the indecision of the other Moorish princes, and the kadis of Granada, Badajoz, and Cordova, duly empowered to act as ambassadors with the vizier of Motamid, repaired to the court of Yusuf. The enterprise was agreeable to the ambitious designs of the Sultan of Africa, but he insisted upon the transfer of the island of Algeziras as an indispensable condition of the alliance. This the envoys having neither the authority nor the inclination to grant, matters remained in suspense until the influence of his religious advisers, who exercised a singular ascendant over the mind of Yusuf, urged him to seize the island if its possession was refused to him. A hundred vessels suddenly set sail from Ceuta, and a great force landed at Algeziras. The possession of the place was peremptorily demanded by the general of the African army; the governor refused compliance; and hostilities were only prevented by a timely order from Seville requiring the evacuation of the city by the Moorish commander. Yusuf soon arrived with his guards; the citadel was put in the best possible condition for defence; the magazines were replenished; and every means adopted for the strengthening and preservation of a fortress so essential to secure reinforcements or to protect the retreat of an invading army. Under such sinister auspices did the Almoravides, or Wearers of the Veil, first set foot on Spain. The occupation of Algeziras, recognized by both Moor and Berber as permanent and equivalent to the practical surrender of the key of Andalusia to a foreign government, portended even to the most careless observer the speedy dissolution of the Saracen power.
Yusuf was received near Seville by Motamid with the honors due to his exalted rank; and the treasury of the latter was almost exhausted by the splendid gifts with which he endeavored to propitiate the favor and secure the attachment of his dangerous ally. Such was his liberality that every soldier of the Almoravide army received a present, a proceeding which, in view of the weakness of the government and the exaggerated idea of its resources which it conveyed, was, to say the least, highly impolitic.
The rulers of the various states of Andalusia contributed all the troops which could possibly be spared from their small and ill-appointed armies, and the allied forces, amounting to nearly twenty thousand men, proceeded northward in search of the enemy. Meanwhile, the King of Castile had not been idle. The siege of Saragossa, which had for months engaged his attention and consumed the energies of his impatient followers, was hastily raised. Orders were despatched to every vassal to repair with his retainers to an appointed rendezvous. The bold peasantry of the Pyrenees were exhorted by religious emissaries to imitate the glorious example of their ancestors, who had preserved, amidst the most discouraging circumstances, their national faith and their political liberties. A formidable contingent of French cavaliers, whom the prospect of booty and the love of adventure had attracted to the Castilian standards, materially strengthened by their numbers and their prowess the confidence and the enthusiasm of the Christians. On the plain of Zallaca, in the province of Badajoz, the hostile forces were marshalled in menacing array. The devout prejudices of the Catholic king were insulted by an imperious summons from Yusuf to renounce his belief or pay tribute to the representative of Islam. A lengthy answer couched in the grandiloquent style of the age and ending with an expression of defiance was returned to this menacing epistle; the armies encamped within sight of each other; and, in compliance with the practice of those chivalrous times, the day of battle was appointed by mutual consent. The messengers of Alfonso suggested the second day from that date, which would be Saturday; the choice was approved by the unsuspecting Africans; but the astuteness of the experienced officers of Motamid detected in this plausible arrangement the evidences of a deep-laid and dangerous stratagem. The Andalusians, who formed the advance-guard, were, in such an event, most exposed to a surprise, and the fate of the entire army depended, in fact, on their vigilance. No precaution was overlooked. The sentinels were doubled. Patrols made frequent rounds along the lines. The soldiers were admonished to sleep upon their arms. Reconnoitring parties were sent to report the slightest signs of unusual activity in the enemy’s camp. It was not without cause that a universal feeling of anxiety pervaded the Moslem army. Upon the result of the impending conflict hung all that was dear to the soldiers of Islam,—their fortunes, their liberties, their lives, and their religion. The prospect was far from encouraging. The enemy had the advantage in numbers, in organization, in discipline. Their forces, sixty thousand in all, exceeded those of the Mussulmans in the overwhelming proportion of three to one. The Castilians were superior in the strength of their horses, in the character of their weapons, in the weight and temper of their armor. Conspicuous among them were the French knights completely sheathed in glittering steel. The Christians were, to a man, warriors tried in many a bloody fray; they were animated by a common purpose and obedient to a single commander; and they considered the enterprise in which they had embarked as one peculiarly favored by Heaven. Their zeal was inflamed daily by distinguished prelates, whose presence imparted additional sanctity to a crusade nominally waged for the glory and the propagation of the Faith. On the eve of battle, these ecclesiastical counsellors, in all the splendor of full canonicals, harangued the ranks of the soldiery; and not infrequently were they to be found, like the members of the ancient Visigothic hierarchy, contending with carnal weapons in the heat and peril of deadly conflict, where their words of sympathy brought composure and hope to the dying, and their consecrated hands performed, with its impressive ceremonial, the last solemn rites of the Church for the dead. Despite the weakness of faith characteristic of the military profession, and especially marked in the minds of soldiers of fortune, the exhortations and labors of the Spanish clergy played no inconsiderable part in the Reconquest. No matter how skeptical a Castilian prince might be on inconvenient points of doctrine,—and few in that age were sincerely devout,—they rarely neglected the punctilious observance of the ritual of the Church, and, what was even more indispensable in the eyes of the clergy, the constant and liberal support of its ministers.
Among the Moslems, on the other hand, there was far less of that unity and confidence which contribute so much to the certainty and ease of victory. The generals of the Andalusians distrusted their troops; the sovereigns suspected each other. It was no secret that public sentiment had been hostile to the enlistment of the Africans, and that their presence was only the last resort of a desperate emergency. The Spanish Arabs regarded the Berbers rather as intruders than as allies, while the intrepid warriors of the Desert looked down with contempt on an effeminate soldiery unpractised in arms, arrayed in the silken vestments formerly allotted to women, who were not strong enough to endure the fatigues of an ordinary campaign, whose courage was doubtful, and who had long since demonstrated their incapacity to even partially recover the prestige or to defend the remains of a once magnificent empire. The defiant seizure of Algeziras had raised the most alarming apprehensions as to the ultimate designs of Yusuf. The ambition of that prince was known in every city of Spain. Moorish traders and spies had brought back from the court of Morocco accounts of menaced invasion, descriptions of fortresses equipped to cover a possible retreat, mysterious hints of a prospective gigantic Hispano-African monarchy. Each Andalusian, as he viewed the swarthy and ferocious legions of the invader, reflected, with terror, that he might even then, by increasing the power of his allies, be indirectly contributing to the subjugation of his country and the enslavement of himself.