The Moors in Spain

by Stanley Lane-Poole

Among the great architectural beauties of Cordova, the principal mosque held, and still holds, the first place. It was begun in 784 by the first Abd-er-Rahmān, who spent 80,000 pieces of gold upon it, which he got from the spoils of the Goths. Hishām, his pious son, completed it, in 793, with the proceeds of the sacking of Narbonne. Each succeeding Sultan added some new beauty to the building, which is one of the finest examples of early Saracenic art in the world. One put the gold on the columns and walls; another added a new minaret; another built a fresh arcade to hold the swelling congregations. Nineteen is the number of the arcades from east to west, and thirty-one from north to south; twenty-one doors encrusted with shining brass admitted the worshippers; 1,293 columns support the roof, and the sanctuary was paved with silver and inlaid with rich mosaics, and its clustered columns were carved and inlaid with gold and lapis-lazuli. The pulpit was constructed of ivory and choice woods, in 36,000 separate panels, many of which were encrusted with precious stones and fastened with gold nails. Four fountains for washing before prayer, supplied with water from the mountains, ran night and day; and houses were built at the west side of the mosque, where poor travellers and homeless people were hospitably entertained. Hundreds of brass lanterns, made out of Christian bells, illumined the mosque at night, and a great wax taper, weighing fifty pounds, burnt night and day at the side of the preacher during the month of fasting. Three hundred attendants burnt sweet-smelling ambergris and aloes wood in the censers, and prepared the scented oil which fed the ten thousand wicks of the lanterns. Much of the beauty of this mosque still remains. Travellers stand amazed among the forest of columns, which open out in apparently endless vistas on all sides. The porphyry, jasper, and marbles are still in their places; the splendid glass mosaics, which artists from Byzantium came to make, still sparkle like jewels on the walls; the daring architecture of the sanctuary, with its fantastic crossed arches, is still as imposing as ever; the courtyard is still leafy with the orange-trees that prolong the vistas of columns. As one stands before the loveliness of the Great Mosque, the thought goes back to the days of the glories of Cordova, the palmy days of the Great Khalif, which never will return.

Even more wonderful, though not more beautiful, was the city and palace of Ez-Zahrā, which Abd-er-Rahmān III. built as a suburb to Cordova. One of his wives, whose name was Ez-Zahrā, "the Fairest," to whom he was devotedly attached, once begged him to build her a city which should be called after her name. The Great Khalif, like most Mohammedan sovereigns, delighted in building, and he adopted the suggestion. He at once began to found a city at the foot of the mountain called the "Hill of the Bride," over against Cordova, and a few miles distant. Every year he spent a third of his revenues upon this building; and it went on all the twenty-five remaining years of his reign, and fifteen years of the reign of his son, who made many additions to it. Ten thousand workmen laboured daily at the task, and six thousand blocks of stone were cut and polished every day for the construction of the houses of the new city. Some three thousand beasts of burden were daily used to carry the materials to the spot, and four thousand columns were set up, many of which were presents from the Emperor of Constantinople, or came from Rome, Carthage, Sfax, and other places, besides the home marbles quarried at Tarragona and Almeria. There were fifteen thousand doors, coated with iron or polished brass. The Hall of the Khalifs at the new city had a roof and walls of marble and gold, and in it was a wonderful sculptured fountain, a present from the Greek Emperor, who also sent the Khalif a unique pearl. In the midst of the hall was a basin of quicksilver; at either side were eight doors set in ivory and ebony, and adorned with precious stones. When the sun shone through these doors, and the quicksilver lake was set quivering, the whole room was filled with flashes like lightning, and the courtiers would cover their dazzled eyes.

The Arabian authors delight in telling of the wonders of this "City of the Fairest," Medinat-Ez-Zahrā, as it was called, after the Khalif's mistress. "We might go to a great length were we only to enumerate all the beauties, natural as well as artificial, contained within the precincts of Ez-Zahrā," writes one: "the running streams, the limpid waters, the luxuriant gardens, the stately buildings for the household guards, the magnificent palaces for the high functionaries of State; the throng of soldiers, pages, and slaves, of all nations and religions, sumptuously attired in robes of silk and brocade, moving to and fro through its broad streets; or the crowd of judges, theologians, and poets, walking with becoming gravity through the magnificent halls and ample courts of the palace. The number of male servants in the palace has been estimated at thirteen thousand seven hundred and fifty, to whom the daily allowance of flesh meat, exclusive of fowls and fish, was thirteen thousand pounds; the number of women of various kinds and classes, comprising the harīm of the Khalif, or waiting upon them, is said to have amounted to six thousand three hundred and fourteen. The Slav pages and eunuchs were three thousand three hundred and fifty, to whom thirteen thousand pounds of flesh meat were distributed daily, some receiving ten pounds each, and some less, according to their rank and station, exclusive of fowls, partridges, and birds of other sorts, game and fish. The daily allowance of bread for the fish in the pond of Ez-Zahrā was twelve thousand loaves, besides six measures of black pulse which were every day macerated in the waters. These and other particulars may be found at full length in the histories of the times, and recorded by orators and poets who have exhausted the mines of eloquence in their description; all who saw it owned that nothing similar to it could be found in the territories of Islam. Travellers from distant lands, men of all ranks and professions in life, following various religions,—princes, ambassadors, merchants, pilgrims, theologians, and poets—all agreed that they had never seen in the course of their travels anything that could be compared to it. Indeed, had this palace possessed nothing more than the terrace of polished marble overhanging the matchless gardens, with the golden hall and the circular pavilion, and the works of art of every sort and description—had it nothing else to boast of but the masterly workmanship of the structure, the boldness of the design, the beauty of the proportions, the elegance of the ornaments, hangings, and decorations, whether of shining marble or glittering gold, the columns that seemed from their symmetry and smoothness as if they had been turned by lathes, the paintings that resembled the choicest landscapes, the artificial lake so solidly constructed, the cistern perpetually filled with clear and limpid water, and the amazing fountains, with figures of living beings—no imagination however fertile could have formed an idea of it. Praise be to God Most High for allowing His humble creatures to design and build such enchanting palaces as this, and who permitted them to inhabit them as a sort of recompense in this world, and in order that the faithful might be encouraged to follow the path of virtue, by the reflection that, delightful as were these pleasures, they were still far below those reserved for the true believer in the celestial Paradise!"

In the palace of Ez-Zahrā the Khalif received the Queen of Navarre and Sancho, and gave audience to great persons of State. Here he sat to welcome the ambassadors which the Greek Emperor sent to his court at Cordova:

"Having appointed Saturday the eleventh of the month of Rabi' el-Awwal, of the year 338 [A.D. 949], and fixed upon the vaulted hall in his palace of Ez-Zahrā as the place where he would receive their credentials, orders were issued to the high functionaries of State and to the commanders of the forces to prepare for the ceremony. The hall was beautifully decorated, and a throne glittering with gold and sparkling with gems was raised in the midst. On either hand of the throne stood the Khalif's sons; next to them the vizirs, each in his post to the right and left; then came the chamberlains, the sons of vizirs, the freedmen of the Khalif, and the officers of the household. The court of the palace was strewn with the richest carpets and most costly rugs, and silk awnings of the most gorgeous kind were thrown over the doors and arches. Presently the ambassadors entered the hall, and were struck with astonishment and awe at the magnificence displayed before them and the power of the Sultan before whom they stood. Then they advanced a few steps, and presented a letter of their master, Constantine, son of Leo, Lord of Constantinople, written in Greek upon blue paper in golden characters."

Abd-er-Rahmān had ordered the most eloquent orator of the court to make a suitable speech upon the occasion; but hardly had he begun to speak, when the splendour of the scene, and the solemn silence of the great ones there assembled, so overawed him, that his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and he fell senseless on the floor. A second essayed to fill his place, but he had not got very far in his address when he too suddenly broke down.

So interested was the Great Khalif in building his new palace that he omitted to go to the mosque for three successive Fridays; and when at last he made his appearance, the preacher threatened him with the pains of hell for his negligence.

Beautiful as were the palaces and gardens of Cordova, her claims to admiration in higher matters were no less strong. The mind was as lovely as the body. Her professors and teachers made her the centre of European culture; students would come from all parts of Europe to study under her famous doctors, and even the nun Hroswitha, far away in her Saxon convent of Gaudersheim, when she told of the martyrdom of St. Eulogius, could not refrain from singing the praises of Cordova, "the brightest splendour of the world." Every branch of science was seriously studied there, and medicine received more and greater additions by the discoveries of the doctors and surgeons of Andalusia than it had gained during all the centuries that had elapsed since the days of Galen. Albucasis (or Abu-l-Kāsim Khalaf, to give him his proper name) was a notable surgeon of the eleventh century, and some of his operations coincided with the present practice. Avenzoar (Ibn Zohr) a little later made numerous important medical and surgical discoveries. Ibn Beytar, the botanist, travelled all over the East to find medicinal herbs, on which he wrote an exhaustive treatise; and Averroes, the philosopher, formed the chief link in the chain which connects the philosophy of ancient Greece with that of mediæval Europe. Astronomy, geography, chemistry, natural history—all were studied with ardour at Cordova; and as for the graces of literature, there never was a time in Europe when poetry became so much the speech of everybody, when people of all ranks composed those Arabic verses which perhaps suggested models for the ballads and canzonettes of the Spanish minstrels and the troubadours of Provence and Italy. No speech or address was complete without some scrap of verse, improvised on the spur of the moment by the speaker, or quoted by memory from some famous poet. The whole Moslem world seemed given over to the Muses; Khalifs and boatmen turned verses, and sang of the loveliness of the cities of Andalusia, the murmur of her rivers, the beautiful nights beneath her tranquil stars, and the delights of love and wine, of jovial company and stolen meetings with the lady whose curving eyebrows had bewitched the singer.

In the arts Andalusia was pre-eminent; such buildings as the "City of the Fairest," or the mosque of Cordova, could not have been erected unless her workmen had been highly skilled in their handicrafts. Silk weaving was among the most cherished arts of Andalusia; it is said that there were no less than one hundred and thirty thousand weavers in Cordova alone; but Almeria had the greatest name for her silks and carpets. Pottery was carried to great perfection, and it was from the island of Majorca, where the potters had attained to the art of producing a ware shining with iridescent gold or copper lustre, that the Italian pottery obtained its name of Majolica. Glass vessels, as well as others of brass and iron, were made at Almeria, and there are some beautiful specimens of delicate ivory carvings still in existence, which bear the names of great officers of the court of Cordova. These arts were no doubt imported from the East, but the Moorish workmen became apt pupils of their Byzantine, Persian, and Egyptian masters. In jewellery an interesting relic of the son of the Great Khalif is preserved on the high altar of the cathedral of Gerona; it is a casket, plated with silver gilt, and adorned with pearls, bearing an Arabic inscription invoking blessings upon the Prince of the Faithful, Hakam II., which reads rather curiously upon a Christian altar. The sword-hilts and jewels of the Moors were very elaborate, as the sword of Boabdil, the last King of Granada, shows. The Saracens were always renowned for their metal work, and even such small things as keys were beautifully ornamented. How exquisitely the Spanish Moors could chase bronze is proved by the engraving in chapter xi. of the beautiful mosque lamp which was made for Mohammed III. of Granada, and is still to be seen at Madrid. The delicacy of the open filigree work is only surpassed by similar work made at Damascus and Cairo. Over and over again we read the same Arabic inscription, the motto of the kings of Granada, "There is no conqueror but God." We have already spoken of the brass doors of the palaces of Cordova; and some remains of these are still to be seen in the Spanish cathedrals. Every one has heard of the Toledo sword-blades, and though the tempering of steel is older in Spain than the invasion of the Arabs, the skill of the Toledo armourers was fostered by the Khalifs and Sultans of Cordova. Almeria, Seville, Murcia, and Granada were also famous places for armour and weapons. The will of Don Pedro in the fourteenth century runs: "I also endow my son with my Castilian sword, which I had made at Seville, ornamented with stones and gold." In arts, sciences, and civilization generally, the Moorish city of Cordova was indeed "the brightest splendour of the world."