Taking into consideration the ardent religious feeling that animated the mass of the Spanish Muslims and the provocation that the Christians gave to the Muhammadan government through their treacherous intrigues with their co-religionists over the border, the history of Spain under Muhammadan rule is singularly free from persecution. [[141]]With the exception of three or four cases of genuine martyrdom, the only approach to anything like persecution during the whole period of the Arab rule is to be found in the severe measures adopted by the Muhammadan government to repress the madness for voluntary martyrdom that broke out in Cordova in the ninth century. At this time a fanatical party came into existence among the Christians in this part of Spain (for apparently the Christian Church in the rest of the country had no sympathy with the movement), which set itself openly and unprovokedly to insult the religion of the Muslims and blaspheme their Prophet, with the deliberate intention of incurring the penalty of death by such misguided assertion of their Christian bigotry.
This strange passion for self-immolation displayed itself mainly among priests, monks and nuns between the years 850 and 860. It would seem that brooding, in the silence of their cloisters, over the decline of Christian influence and the decay of religious zeal, they went forth to win the martyr’s crown—of which the toleration of their infidel rulers was robbing them—by means of fierce attacks on Islam and its founder. Thus, for example, a certain monk, by name Isaac, came before the Qāḍī and pretended that he wished to be instructed in the faith of Islam; when the Qāḍī had expounded to him the doctrines of the Prophet, he burst out with the words: “He hath lied unto you (may the curse of God consume him!), who, full of wickedness, hath led so many men into perdition, and doomed them with himself to the pit of hell. Filled with Satan and practising Satanic jugglery, he hath given you a cup of deadly wine to work disease in you, and will expiate his guilt with everlasting damnation. Why do ye not, being endowed with understanding, deliver yourselves from such dangers? Why do ye not, renouncing the ulcer of his pestilential doctrines, seek the eternal salvation of the Gospel of the faith of Christ?”[47] On another occasion two Christians forced their way into a mosque and there reviled the Muhammadan religion, which, they declared, would very speedily bring upon its followers the destruction of hell-fire.[48] Though [[142]]the number of such fanatics was not considerable,[49] the Muhammadan government grew alarmed, fearing that such contempt for their authority and disregard of their laws against blasphemy, argued a widespread disaffection and a possible general insurrection, for in fact, in 853 Muḥammad I had to send an army against the Christians at Toledo, who, incited by Eulogius, the chief apologist of the martyrs, had risen in revolt on the news of the sufferings of their co-religionists.[50] He is said to have ordered a general massacre of the Christians, but when it was pointed out that no men of any intelligence or rank among the Christians had taken part in such doings[51] (for Alvar himself complains that the majority of the Christian priests condemned the martyrs[52]), the king contented himself with putting into force the existing laws against blasphemy with the utmost rigour. The moderate party in the Church seconded the efforts of the government; the bishops anathematised the fanatics, and an ecclesiastical council that was held in 852 to discuss the matter agreed upon methods of repression[53] that eventually quashed the movement. One or two isolated cases of martyrdom are recorded later—the last in 983, after which there was none as long as the Arab rule lasted in Spain.[54]
But under the Berber dynasty of the Almoravids at the [[143]]beginning of the twelfth century, there was an outburst of fanaticism on the part of the theological zealots of Islam in which the Christians had to suffer along with the Jews and the liberal section of the Muhammadan population—the philosophers, the poets and the men of letters. But such incidents are exceptions to the generally tolerant character of the Muhammadan rulers of Spain towards their Christian subjects.
One of the Spanish Muhammadans who was driven out of his native country in the last expulsion of the Moriscoes in 1610, while protesting against the persecutions of the Inquisition, makes the following vindication of the toleration of his co-religionists: “Did our victorious ancestors ever once attempt to extirpate Christianity out of Spain, when it was in their power? Did they not suffer your forefathers to enjoy the free use of their rites at the same time that they wore their chains? Is not the absolute injunction of our Prophet, that whatever nation is conquered by Musalman steel, should, upon the payment of a moderate annual tribute, be permitted to persevere in their own pristine persuasion, how absurd soever, or to embrace what other belief they themselves best approved of? If there may have been some examples of forced conversions, they are so rare as scarce to deserve mentioning, and only attempted by men who had not the fear of God, and the Prophet, before their eyes, and who, in so doing, have acted directly and diametrically contrary to the holy precepts and ordinances of Islam which cannot, without sacrilege, be violated by any who would be held worthy of the honourable epithet of Musulman.… You can never produce, among us, any bloodthirsty, formal tribunal, on account of different persuasions in points of faith, that anywise approaches your execrable Inquisition. Our arms, it is true, are ever open to receive all who are disposed to embrace our religion; but we are not allowed by our sacred Qurʼān to tyrannise over consciences. Our proselytes have all imaginable encouragement, and have no sooner professed God’s Unity and His Apostle’s mission but they become one of us, without reserve; taking to wife our daughters, and being employed in posts of trust, honour and profit; we [[144]]contenting ourselves with only obliging them to wear our habit, and to seem true believers in outward appearance, without ever offering to examine their consciences, provided they do not openly revile or profane our religion: if they do that, we indeed punish them as they deserve; since their conversion was voluntarily, and was not by compulsion.”[55]
This very spirit of toleration was made one of the main articles in an account of the “Apostacies and Treasons of the Moriscoes,” drawn up by the Archbishop of Valencia in 1602 when recommending their expulsion to Philip III, as follows: “That they commended nothing so much as that liberty of conscience, in all matters of religion, which the Turks, and all other Muhammadans, suffer their subjects to enjoy.”[56]
What deep roots Islam had struck in the hearts of the Spanish people may be judged from the fact that when the last remnant of the Moriscoes was expelled from Spain in 1610, these unfortunate people still clung to the faith of their fathers, although for more than a century they had been forced to outwardly conform to the Christian religion, and in spite of the emigrations that had taken place since the fall of Granada, nearly 500,000 are said to have been expelled at that time.[57] Whole towns and villages were deserted and the houses fell into ruins, there being no one to rebuild them.[58] These Moriscoes were probably all descendants of the original inhabitants of the country, with little or no admixture of Arab blood; the reasons that may be adduced in support of this statement are too lengthy to be given here; one point only in the evidence may be mentioned, derived from a letter written in 1311, in which it is stated that of the 200,000 Muhammadans then living in the city of Granada, not more than 500 were of Arab descent, all the rest being descendants of converted Spaniards.[59] Finally, it is of interest to note that even up to the last days of its power in Spain, Islam won converts to the faith, for the historian, when writing of events that occurred in the year 1499, seven years after the fall of Granada, draws attention to the fact that among the Moors were a few Christians who had lately embraced the faith of the Prophet.[60] [[145]]