Having again an interval of peace, Abderahman devoted himself to the education of his children. Suleiman, the eldest, he appointed wali, or governor, of Toledo; Abdallah, the second, was intrusted with the command of Merida; but the third son, Hixem, was the delight of his heart, the son of Howara, his favorite sultana whom he loved throughout life with the utmost tenderness. With this youth, who was full of promise, he relaxed from the fatigues of government; joining in his youthful sports amidst the delightful gardens of Cordova, and teaching him the gentle art of falconry, of which the king was so fond that he received the name of the Falcon of Coraixi.
While Abderahman was thus indulging in the gentle propensities of his nature, mischief was secretly at work. Muhamad, the youngest son of Yusuf, had been for many years a prisoner in the tower of Cordova. Being passive and resigned, his keepers relaxed their vigilance, and brought him forth from his dungeon. He went groping about, however, in broad daylight, as if still in the darkness of his tower. His guards watched him narrowly, lest this should be a deception, but were at length convinced that the long absence of light had rendered him blind. They now permitted him to descend frequently to the lower chambers of the tower, and to sleep there occasionally during the heats of summer. They even allowed him to grope his way to the cistern, in quest of water for his ablutions.
A year passed in this way, without anything to excite suspicion. During all this time, however, the blindness of Muhamad was entirely a deception; and he was concerting a plan of escape, through the aid of some friends of his father, who found means to visit him occasionally. One sultry evening in midsummer the guards had gone to bathe in the Guadalquivir, leaving Muhamad alone, in the lower chambers of the tower. No sooner were they out of sight and hearing, than he hastened to a window of the staircase, leading down to the cistern, lowered himself as far as his arms would reach, and dropped without injury to the ground. Plunging into the Guadalquivir, he swam across to a thick grove on the opposite side, where his friends were waiting to receive him. Here, mounting a horse which they had provided for an event of the kind, he fled across the country, by solitary roads, and made good his escape to the mountains of Jaen.
The guardians of the tower dreaded for some time to make known his flight to Abderahman. When at length it was told to him, he exclaimed,—“All is the work of eternal wisdom; it is intended to teach us that we cannot benefit the wicked without injuring the good. The flight of that blind man will cause much trouble and bloodshed.”
His predictions were verified. Muhamad reared the standard of rebellion in the mountains; the seditious and discontented of all kinds hastened to join it, together with soldiers of fortune, or rather wandering banditti, and he had soon six thousand men, well armed, hardy in habits, and desperate in character. His brother Casim also reappeared about the same time, in the mountains of Ronda, at the head of a daring band, that laid all the neighboring valleys under contribution.
Abderahman summoned his alcaids from their various military posts, to assist in driving the rebels from their mountain fastnesses into the plains. It was a dangerous and protracted toil, for the mountains were frightfully wild and rugged. He entered them with a powerful host, driving the rebels from height to height, and valley to valley, and harassing them by a galling fire from thousands of cross-bows. At length a decisive battle took place near the river Guadalemar. The rebels were signally defeated; four thousand fell in action; many were drowned in the river, and Muhamad, with a few horsemen, escaped to the mountains of the Algarves. Here he was hunted by the alcaids from one desolate retreat to another; his few followers grew tired of sharing the disastrous fortunes of a fated man, one by one deserted him, and he himself deserted the remainder, fearing they might give him up, to purchase their own pardon.
Lonely and disguised, he plunged into the depths of the forests, or lurked in dens and caverns like a famished wolf, often casting back his thoughts with regret to the time of his captivity in the gloomy tower of Cordova. Hunger at length drove him to Alarcon, at the risk of being discovered. Famine and misery, however, had so wasted and changed him, that he was not recognized. He remained nearly a year in Alarcon, unnoticed and unknown, yet constantly tormenting himself with the dread of discovery, and with groundless fears of the vengeance of Abderahman. Death at length put an end to his wretchedness.
A milder fate attended his brother Casim. Being defeated in the mountains of Murcia, he was conducted in chains to Cordova. On coming into the presence of Abderahman, his once fierce and haughty spirit, broken by distress, gave way; he threw himself on the earth, kissed the dust beneath the feet of the king, and implored his clemency. The benignant heart of Abderahman was filled with melancholy, rather than exultation, at beholding this wreck of the once haughty family of Yusuf a suppliant at his feet, and suing for mere existence. He thought upon the mutability of Fortune, and felt how insecure are all her favors. He raised the unhappy Casim from the earth, ordered his irons to be taken off, and, not content with mere forgiveness, treated him with honor, and gave him possessions in Seville, where he might live in state conformable to the ancient dignity of his family. Won by this great and persevering magnanimity, Casim ever after remained one of the most devoted of his subjects.
All the enemies of Abderahman were at length subdued; he reigned undisputed sovereign of the Moslems of Spain; and so benign was his government, that every one blessed the revival of the illustrious line of Omeya. He was at all times accessible to the humblest of his subjects; the poor man ever found in him a friend, and the oppressed a protector. He improved the administration of justice, established schools for public instruction, encouraged poets and men of letters, and cultivated the sciences. He built mosques in every city that he visited; inculcated religion by example as well as by precept; and celebrated all the festivals prescribed by the Koran with the utmost magnificence.
As a monument of gratitude to God for the prosperity with which he had been favored, he undertook to erect a mosque in his favorite city of Cordova that should rival in splendor the great mosque of Damascus, and excel the one recently erected in Bagdad by the Abbassides, the supplanters of his family.