With Merwan’s death the last support to the unity of the kingdom was removed. Weak and unpopular as were many of the rulers of the Omayyad dynasty, their sway nevertheless extended from the Indus and the Iaxartes to the western coast of the Pyrenean peninsula, and from the Caucasus to the Bay of Aden. Sole founders and perpetuators of the Islamite kingdom in the three divisions of the ancient world, the early fame of the Omayyads served to gloss over many a fault in their later representatives, lending a lustre to their names which according to their contemporaries did not rightfully belong to them. Now that Abul-Abbas had become established in Damascus, the central point round which the whole political life of the Moslems had revolved was lost; and Islamism was henceforth to break up into ever widening smaller circles in which each unit was free to develop individually, until the Mohammedan world should be again reduced to that condition of dismemberment which had at first prevailed among the tribes of the Arabian peninsula. There were indeed among the caliphs of Damascus some to whom virtues and the ability to rule were not denied by later writers. Omar II’s piety and love of justice, and the court life of Yazid II, bright with all the lustre that benevolence, poetry, and brilliant feasts could shed upon it, received full meed of praise from poets and true believers. By borrowing from the Byzantines their methods of administration and their Greek-Roman culture, by attracting to their court physicians, architects, and mathematicians, and enriching the simple life of the inhabitants of the desert with the arts and conveniences of civilisation, they showed future rulers how to weld together native and foreign constituents so that great results might be obtained, to unite many and diverse elements into one specific whole. But a stain rested upon the name of the Omayyads that, in the opinion of true believers, could never be wiped away. The blood of Ali and his family still dyed their hands, they had driven the sacred line of Mohammed from the seat of honour, and they had covered the head of Hosein with ridicule and contempt. These sins could not be expiated by any single act; they constituted a perpetual curse that must descend from one generation to another of the race, dividing families by dissensions and internal feuds until the whole dynasty should finally be overthrown.[d]
CHAPTER VII. THE ARABS IN EUROPE
[711-961 A.D.]
In the progress of conquest from the north and south, the Goths and the Saracens encountered each other on the confines of Europe and Africa. In the opinion of the latter, the difference of religion is a reasonable ground of enmity and warfare. As early as the time of Othman, their piratical squadrons had ravaged the coasts of Andalusia; nor had they forgotten the relief of Carthage by the Gothic succours. In that age, as well as in the present, the kings of Spain were possessed of the fortress of Ceuta; one of the columns of Hercules, which is divided by a narrow strait from the opposite pillar or point of Europe. A small portion of Mauretania was still wanting to the African conquest; but Musa, in the pride of victory, was repulsed from the walls of Ceuta by the vigilance and courage of Count Julian, the general of the Goths. From his disappointment and perplexity Musa was relieved by an unexpected message from the Christian chief, who offered his place, his person, and his sword, to the successors of Mohammed, and solicited the disgraceful honour of introducing their arms into the heart of Spain.
[711 A.D.]
If we inquire into the cause of his treachery, the Spaniards will repeat the popular story of his daughter La Cava, of a virgin who was seduced, or ravished, by her sovereign; of a father who sacrificed his religion and country to the thirst of revenge. The passions of princes have often been licentious and destructive; but this well-known tale, romantic in itself, is indifferently supported by external evidence; and the history of Spain will suggest some motives of interest and policy more congenial to the breast of a veteran statesman. After the decease or deposition of Witiza, his two sons were supplanted by the ambition of Roderic, a noble Goth, whose father, the duke or governor of a province, had fallen a victim to the preceding tyranny. The monarchy was still elective; but the sons of Witiza, educated on the steps of the throne, were impatient of a private station. Their resentment was more dangerous, as it was varnished with the dissimulation of courts; their followers were excited by the remembrance of favours and the promise of a revolution; and their uncle Oppas, archbishop of Toledo and Seville, was the first person in the church, and the second in the state. It is probable that Julian was involved in the disgrace of the unsuccessful faction; that he had little to hope and much to fear from the new reign; and that the imprudent king could not forget or forgive the injuries which Roderic and his family had sustained. Too feeble to meet his sovereign in arms, he sought the aid of a foreign power; and his rash invitation to the Moors and Arabs produced the calamities of eight hundred years. In his epistles, or in a personal interview, he revealed the wealth and nakedness of his country; the weakness of an unpopular prince; the degeneracy of an effeminate people.
The Goths were no longer the victorious barbarians who had humbled the pride of Rome, despoiled the queen of nations, and penetrated from the Danube to the Atlantic Ocean. Secluded from the world by the Pyrenean Mountains, the successors of Alaric had slumbered in a long peace; the walls of the cities were mouldered into dust; the youth had abandoned the exercise of arms; and the presumption of their ancient renown would expose them in a field of battle to the first assault of the invaders. The ambitious Saracen was fired by the ease and importance of the attempt; but the execution was delayed till he had consulted the commander of the faithful; and his messenger returned with the permission of Walid to annex the unknown kingdoms of the West to the religion and throne of the caliphs. In his residence of Tangier, Musa, with secrecy and caution, continued his correspondence and hastened his preparations. But the remorse of the conspirators was soothed by the fallacious assurance that he should content himself with the glory and spoil, without aspiring to establish the Moslems beyond the sea that separates Africa from Europe.