During the following year Martos experienced a similar fate, but its resistance was more obstinate, and the exasperated Moslems, entering the town by storm, massacred the inhabitants to a man. The prayers enjoined by the Koran were offered by the victors kneeling upon pavements reeking with the blood of the slain; the peasants, for a distance of many miles, were driven away into captivity; innumerable flocks and herds attested the activity of the Arab cavalry; and Ismail retraced his steps to his capital, which he entered with all the pomp of a conqueror. It was long since Granada had witnessed such a scene or extended such a welcome at the return of a victorious army. The streets were carpeted with flowers. Tapestries and hangings of silk and cloth-of-gold were suspended from the balconies. The air was fragrant with perfumes wafted from hundreds of censers. The beautiful city, given over to a holiday, had sent forth its entire population to celebrate the triumph of its sovereign. The acclamations of the people, rising in a prolonged and deafening roar, were heard beyond the walls. Vast throngs in holiday dress blocked the narrow thoroughfares. Peasants in the picturesque costumes of the Vega, sturdy mountaineers from the Sierra Nevada and the Alpujarras, the taciturn Jew in the distinctive yellow gaberdine of his sect, the pilgrim of Mecca clad in green, the cavalier in helmet and cuirass inlaid with gold, the ladies in gaudy silks and gleaming jewels, whose splendor contributed little to the native charms of their voluptuous beauty, enhanced the variety and charm of the spectacle.
But a threatening cloud, the more dangerous because unseen, hung over this gorgeous festival, which seemed to promise a long life of honor and renown to the recipient of a nation’s applause and gratitude. Three days after his triumph Ismail lay a corpse in the palace of the Alhambra.
Among the captives taken in the campaign of Martos was a girl of dazzling beauty. Her possession was disputed by several soldiers, whose hands, bloody with the carnage of a city taken by storm, were about to sacrifice her, when she was rescued by Mohammed-Ibn-Ismail, a cousin of the Emir. No sooner had the latter learned of the occurrence and of the extraordinary charms of the captive than he despatched the eunuchs to conduct her to the royal harem. The just remonstrances of Mohammed were treated with contempt. Not satisfied with the injury he had inflicted, Ismail ordered his cousin to leave the precincts of the court, and curtly informed him that his proper place was with the enemies of his sovereign. The exasperated prince, who had already signalized his valor in many a campaign, whose blood had been shed in defence of his country, whose birth exalted him to a level with the throne itself, and whose sense of justice revolted at the unprovoked outrage he had endured, had no inconsiderable following among the dignitaries of the palace and the officers of the army.
A few hours sufficed to mature a plot; the support of Othman, commander of the royal guard, was obtained, and the conspirators only awaited a moment favorable to the execution of their design. The Emir, walking with his vizier in the gallery of the Alhambra and wholly unsuspicious of danger, was stabbed by Mohammed; the resolute defence of the minister availed nothing in the face of superior numbers, and he perished by the side of his master, while the assassins, who had previously provided means of concealment, escaped in the general confusion.
The wounded monarch was borne into the palace, where he soon expired. His death was concealed—his injuries were even represented as trifling—until, in anticipation of a fatal result and to secure the succession, allegiance was sworn to his son, a youth of twelve years, who ascended the throne under the name of Mohammed IV. The diligence of the second vizier apprehended a number of the conspirators, whose heads were exposed on the battlements of the castle. The treacherous Othman was foremost in protestations of loyalty and devotion to the new ruler. The chief assassin fled to Malaga, and the ill-concerted and bloody enterprise dictated by wrong and accomplished by cowardice was productive of no other result than a change of rulers and an increased public attachment to the family of the murdered king.
The character of the latter was worthy of the great place he occupied and of the glorious traditions of his dynasty. His personal courage and success in war won for him the affectionate admiration of his people. His intervals of peace were diligently employed in the construction of mosques and palaces, of baths and fountains. He exercised with liberality and discrimination the distribution of alms, as enjoined by the Koran. The hanging gardens planted under his supervision were copied from those of ancient Babylon. The police regulations inaugurated by him established the safety of the streets and suburbs by day and night; for the better apportionment and collection of taxes the cities were divided into different quarters, and the alien tributaries designated by distinctive costumes. He sternly repressed the fanaticism of the theologians, ever a prolific source of public anxiety, disturbance, and confusion. The leisure moments of Ismail were passed in the society of the learned, in the tournament and the chase, in the pleasures of horticulture, in the construction of magnificent edifices.
The youth and inexperience of Mohammed IV. were supplied by the political sagacity of his vizier Al-Mahruk, a man of ability but of inordinate ambition, and absolutely unscrupulous in the means of gratifying it. His policy, solely directed to the centralization of power in himself, was the ultimate cause of his destruction. He lost no opportunity to humiliate the nobles. The brothers of the Emir were, in turn, removed from the court; one, upon some frivolous pretext, was imprisoned in Almeria, where he died; another was exiled to Africa; a third was forced to seek concealment in a remote village on the frontier. The jealous intolerance of the vizier endeavored to remove every possibility of a successful rival. The possession of eminent talents and virtues was a provocation of oppression; the most able and experienced statesmen and commanders, apprehensive of violence, left the capital, and a feeling of alarm and discontent became general in every quarter of the kingdom.
This state of affairs, so dangerous to the stability of government and the maintenance of peace, lasted until the young prince arrived at the age of sixteen years, when Moslem custom permitted his assumption of the reins of government. One of his first acts was the degradation and imprisonment of the obnoxious minister. In his place was appointed Ibn-Yahya, who enjoyed the respect and confidence of all classes, and whose judicious counsels were well calculated to guide the career of a young, ambitious, and inexperienced sovereign. Othman, the former commander of the royal guard, whom disappointed ambition, a consciousness of guilt, and the fear of detection had driven from Granada, now planned a new enterprise to retrieve his fallen fortunes. At his instigation the peasantry of the rugged district of Andarax rose in rebellion. The insurgents were defeated by the forces of the Emir, but the mountainous region they infested, and whose fastnesses the royal troops were unable to penetrate, prevented their dispersion. The intrigues of Othman obtained at once the interference of the Castilians and of the Emir of Morocco. Again the aid of foreign enemies was invoked to revive the hopes of a defeated faction; the patriotic ardor which might have preserved the declining empire was sacrificed to the gratification of private resentment; and the ablest of the Moors, unwilling to profit by the melancholy lessons taught by the history of the khalifate, renounced every noble impulse for the sake of avenging their private injuries.
In the vicinity of Cordova the army of Mohammed sustained a disastrous defeat; the survivors retreated to Granada; and the Emir, infuriated by the reflection that the imprisoned vizier Al-Mahruk was indirectly responsible for the misfortunes which afflicted the commencement of his reign, commanded his immediate execution. The efforts of Mohammed to counteract the African influence enlisted by the rebels met with no better success. Algeziras was stormed and taken, and the vizier Ibn-Yahya was killed in the assault. Ronda and Marbella fell into the hands of the rebels, who soon threatened the city of Granada itself. Consternation seized the inhabitants of the capital; and Mohammed, assembling the remains of his defeated army and attended by the principal cavaliers of the court, went forth to meet the enemy. Gallantly seconded by his nobles, at the head of a force insignificant in numbers but remarkable for courage and resolution, he speedily recovered his prestige and his influence. All the cities captured by the Africans were retaken. The stronghold of Baena surrendered. The walls of Casares were destroyed by artillery. Within sight of the latter city the Moslems, in a bloody encounter, destroyed a Christian force sent to relieve it. Thus, within the space of a few months, Mohammed counteracted the effect of the recent disasters to his arms, restored to his dominions the territory of which treason had deprived him, and acquired new renown by a victory gained over an army superior in numbers and thoroughly versed in all the stratagems and resources of regular and partisan warfare. These military exploits firmly established his reputation. No prince of the Alhamares, of his years, ever achieved such celebrity. Nature had bestowed upon him every gift of mind and person which could elicit the approbation of the wise or arouse the enthusiasm of the multitude. His face was handsome, his stature above the middle height, his limbs models of athletic symmetry. Skilled in every exercise, he delighted in those passages of arms so popular among the Moorish chivalry. Prominent in a nation of bold and dexterous horsemen, he was universally accounted the finest lance in the Moslem army. Grave in demeanor, pleasing in address, elegant in manners, his attractive exterior only served to enhance the noble traits of a virtuous and enlightened mind. He was a friend of letters; and learned men accompanied him during his expeditions, who could observe the course of events and perpetuate the remembrance of such facts as might contribute to the profit of the country and the glory of its king.
In the ever-changing panorama of the Reconquest there frequently appears the Moslem of Africa, descendant of the Almoravide or the Almohade dynasties; proud of the fame of his ancestors, and perpetual claimant of the legacy of their valor; as ambitious of the regaining of Cordova and the purification of its desecrated temple as were his contemporaries, the crusaders, of the conquest of Jerusalem and the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre. The Emirs of Fez, of the family of the Merynites, had risen to great distinction among the rulers of Africa. Their dominions included the entire northern portion of that continent. Their capital was the resort of all that was intelligent and accomplished among the Mussulman nations. In the incessant political disorders of the Peninsula, hundreds of merchants, scholars, philosophers, had sought amidst the quiet and security of distant regions that refuge from incessant revolution and Castilian conquest no longer to be enjoyed at Granada. Not a few of these found their way to Fez. Picturesque in its situation, the taste and liberality of its rulers had made it a beautiful city. Its gardens, planted with every variety of tropical plants and flowers, and refreshed by innumerable fountains, offered a vision of Paradise to the tired and thirsty wayfarer who had toiled for many leagues through the stifling heat and drifting sands of the desert. A high degree of civilization had been attained by the people of Morocco, who, with the natural inclination of the Arab mind to scientific investigation and mathematical studies, had made considerable progress in astronomy, chemistry, botany, and medicine. Their efforts were materially aided by the precious manuscripts once part of the great library of the khalifs, and the treasures of private collections rescued from barbarian ignorance and Christian bigotry during the destruction of the Ommeyade empire. To Fez, where it was revered as a priceless relic, and where perhaps to this day it is still preserved, was transported by the Almohades the famous Koran, partly written by the hand of the martyred Othman, which was formerly exposed for the veneration of the faithful in the Kiblah of the Great Mosque of Cordova. Heedless of the change in national conditions, of the decline of religious enthusiasm, of the decay of that martial spirit which renders the fanatical soldier invincible, the Emirs of Morocco never lost sight of their favorite project, the recovery of Spain. Their repeated efforts for that end were rendered inoperative by the religious feuds between their subjects and the Andalusian Moslems; the resources of both kingdoms, which might have been profitably exerted against the infidel, were wasted in the infliction of mutual injuries; and the Castilian sovereigns, taking advantage alternately of the animosities of either faction as best suited their purposes, directed their arms against each other for their common ruin.