[1012-1023 A.D.]
But Suleiman refused to recognise the grandson of the great Abd ar-Rahman. Having formed an alliance with Obaid Allah, the son of Muhammed and wali of Toledo, he aimed at nothing less than the deposition of the king. At first his efforts were unpromising; his ally was defeated, made prisoner, and beheaded. Fortune favoured him in other respects. Suleiman marched on Cordova. In vain did the hajib Khairan, the successor of Uhada, whom Hisham in a fit of suspicion had put to death, attempt to defend the city. The inhabitants opened one of the gates; the Africans entered, fought, and conquered; their chief was a second time saluted as king, and Hisham forever disappeared from the stage of royalty—probably at the same moment from that of life.
Suleiman began his reign—for so long as Hisham lived he cannot be properly ranked among the kings of Cordova—by rewarding his adherents in the most lavish manner. He confirmed them, as he had promised, in the hereditary possession of their fiefs; thus engrafting on a strangely foreign stock the feudal institution of more northern nations. This was the signal for the creation of numerous independent sovereignties, and consequently for the ruin of Mohammedan Spain. The strength of the misbelievers had consisted in their unity under the religious sway of their caliphs; when this strong bulwark was dissolved the scattered fragments of their empire might for a moment resist the eager assaults of the Christians; but these must inevitably be swept away in the end by the overwhelming flood.
The hajib Khairan, who had escaped to his government of Almeria, swore to be revenged on this new usurper. As, however, no forces which he could bring into the field could contend for a moment with those of Suleiman, he passed over to Ceuta to interest the governor, Ali ben Hammud, in his project. Suleiman was forsaken by most of the walis, his allies—they can no longer be called subjects; his troops deserted to swell the ranks of his enemy; and in a battle near Seville, his Andalusian adherents turned against him, and thereby decided his fate.
Ali was proclaimed king of Mohammedan Spain, but not until search had been vainly made for Hisham. The crown was not destined to sit more lightly on his head than on that of his immediate predecessor. He found an enemy where he least expected one; he was stifled in the bath by his Slavonic attendants, and the report circulated that his death was natural.
Al-Kasim ben Hammud, brother of the deceased king, seized on the throne. A powerful conspiracy was formed to dethrone him. His palace was assailed; and though, by the valour of his guards, it held out fifty days, at the end of that time most of them fell in an attempt to effect their escape. Some of the more humane of the assailants secretly conveyed Kasim beyond the walls and provided him with a small escort of cavalry, which conveyed him to Xeres. When this intelligence was known at Cordova, the Alameris, or party of the family of the great Almansor, which acted a conspicuous part in all these commotions and which adhered to the fortunes of the Omayyads, proclaimed as king Abd ar-Rahman ben Hisham, brother of the usurper Muhammed.
Muhammed ben Abd ar-Rahman, cousin of the king, a man of boundless wealth, succeeded in corrupting the chief nobles of the city. In the silence of night he armed a resolute band of his creatures, who hastened to the palace, and massacred the soldiers on duty. After a reign of only forty-seven days, the king’s bedchamber was entered and he was pierced with a thousand wounds.