II.-The Fakihs.

The great body of Moslem devotees at Cordova, at the end of the eighth century, was largely recruited by Christian renegades, who found protection under the just rule of Abdur Rahman, and who acquired under his son Hisham, something of the old power and influence that had been enjoyed by the Christian priesthood under the later Visigothic kings. No priest, indeed, is known to the religious system of Islam, but the readers of the Koran, the students of Divinity, and the doctors of Mohammedan law, constituted a sacerdotal class, that congregated in ever increasing numbers and ever increasing importance around the great Mosque at Cordova.1 These Maulvis and Fakihs, the Scribes and Pharisees of Islam, were lodged in the beautiful suburb to the south of the city that was known to the Romans as Corduba Secunda; and they recognized as their spiritual chief and leader, the learned doctor Malik ben Anas of Medina, the founder of one of the four orthodox schools of Mohammedan theology. Students from Spain constantly repaired to the East to study under this egregious doctor of Islam. And of all his bold and bigoted disciples, few were more learned, none was more zealous than the Berber, Tahia ben Tahia of Cordova, a worthy successor of Leander and Julian.

The greatest theologian and the proudest Moor of Spain or Mauretania, this extraordinary man united many of the characteristics of a modern demagogue with those of a mediæval Pontiff; and he was reverenced and obeyed without question as the leader of the priestly party in Moslem Cordova. When Hisham, in 796, fulfilled by his death the predictions of the prophets, the entire power of the new Theocracy was devoted to the subjection of his son and successor Hakam. Suleiman and Abdullah, the brothers of the late king, who had been pardoned by Hisham after their rebellion at the beginning of his reign, now rose once more against their nephew; nor did they scruple to send envoys to Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle, entreating his assistance in their rebellion, and promising him their support in the destruction of the Moslem monarchy. But Charles remembered Roncesvalles, and contented himself with dispatching his son Louis

five hundred feet of ground. Seville Cathedral, which most nearly approaches it, not only in Spain but in Europe, encloses only one hundred and twenty five thousand feet. See post, chapter xxvii.

1 Gayangos, i., 899. Dozy, Histoire, ii., 56-59.

to stir up the Christians at a safe distance in Septimania. The rebel envoys returned dissatisfied to Spain, where Abdullah and Suleiman were soon afterwards defeated by their nephew Hakam. Suleiman was killed in battle. Abdullah was once more magnificently pardoned.

But

The

No

But if the rebellion was at an end, the Moslem ecclesiastics were not suppressed. They were roused on the contrary to new and vigorous action. The success of Charlemagne would have, no doubt, justified the reconversion of the renegades to Christianity of a peculiarly intolerant type. The success of the king's uncles would have been a direct victory for the Mosque. Smarting under their double disappointment, they were fain to take the matter into their own hands, and to stir up a popular revolt in Toledo. Hakam was more than a match for the militant clerks. revolt was suppressed. The rebels were dispersed. mercy was shewn to those who were taken in the city (805). Tahia, foiled once more in his endeavours, now offered the throne, quite after the good old Visigothic fashion, to one hen Shammas, a cousin-german of the king. But the conspiracy was betrayed by Shammas himself, and many of the conspirators were taken and executed (806). A still more serious insurrection1 at Toledo in 807 was repressed with still greater severity. Many hundreds of the conspirators were slain by order of the king in the ditch or fosse of the castle, and the massacre by which the revolt was terminated was long known and remembered as the day of the fosse.

For seven years after this dreadful example there was peace at home in southern Spain. And then the Cordovans, undeterred by the fate of the rebels at Toledo, rose once more at the bidding of the Bigots of the day. Tahia returned to the capital in the month of Ramadan (May, 814), and the preachers took advantage of the excitement of the populace at the season of the annual fast, to stir up their passions against the civil Government. Hakam was besieged in his palace. The city was in the hands of Tahia and the Fakihs. The people, mad with excitement, filled the streets, and demanded the life of the Caliph. The coolness of Hakam saved the fortunes of the day. Assembling within the palace walls a small force of faithful horsemen, he ordered them to cut their way through the crowd, press on to the suburb of Secunda, and to set fire to the houses of the principal ecclesiastics. The orders were faithfully executed. The rebel leaders, hastily returning to save their own property, left the people in confusion, and

1 1 Dozy, ubi supra, pp. 77-79.

Hakam, sallying out of the palace gate with his few remaining followers, was able to disperse the mutineers, and joining his forces to those which had done such good service in drawing away the leaders to the suburbs, completely subdued the insurrection, which was afterwards called, from the most striking incident in the struggle, "the day of the Suburbs " or of the Arrabal.

It was now at least clear to Hakam that an end must be put to this Ecclesiastical rebelry. The suburb was razed to the ground; and an immense number of the inhabitants were driven not only out of the city but out of the country. Eight thousand found a home in the rising city of Fez in Morocco, where their descendants were long to be found in the Andalusian quarter of the town while twice as many more were exiled to Egypt, and after a sojourn of some twelve years in Alexandria, found a permanent home in the island of Crete, where they built the town of Candia.1

III. Ziriab.

Hakam, the vigorous, died of fever in 821, and was succeeded by his son Abdur Rahman II. This amiable prince, without the superstition of his grandfather, had none of the severity, and little of the independence of his father. A poet, a musician, a lover of display; generous, mild and liberal; he devoted the greater part of his time and of his revenues to the embellishment of his capital; and he made Cordova at once the most beautiful and the most magnificent city, the most favoured home of art and science and liberal culture, of the medieval world.

Tahia, a second Leander, who had fled from the just wrath of Hakam, was welcomed on his return to Cordova by the gentle Abdur Rahman, who abandoned to him the entire government of the State. But in personal influence over the young king, Tahia was fain to accept a divided empire with Ziriab, a poet, musician, and a virtuoso, who had been driven from the court at Bagdad by the jealousy of a rival singer, more sure of the favour of the Caliph Haroun al Rashid. Ziriab received a magnificent welcome at the Court

1 In spite of many attacks they maintained themselves in Egypt until 826, when they were forced to evacuate the country. They sailed for Crete, ill defended by the Imperial troops, and possessed themselves of the entire island; and their Spanish Moslem leader, Âl Baluti, a native of Cordova, founded a dynasty which enjoyed the dominion of Crete until the year 961, when the island passed once more under the sway of the Roman Emperor at Constantinople. Dozy, ubi supra, pp. 76, 77. Gibbon, ch. lii.

of Cordova, and made himself in a very short time entirely indispensable to Abdur Rahman.1 The versatility of his genius, indeed, was so astounding that it could only be explained by the theory of possession, for Ziriab not only wrote verses and sang them to the king, he planned palaces, he invented dishes, he designed costumes. His conversation is said to have been brilliant beyond the possibility of description. In architecture, in astronomy, in geography, in literature, in science, in cookery, in all things Ziriab set the fashion, and gave the tone to the court at Cordova. The proportions of a bath, the decoration of a dinner table, the fashion of a headdress, the reception of an ambassador, the beauty of a slave, the doubtful wisdom of a move at chess, customs and costumes, poems and perfumery-everything was submitted to his judgment, and in all things his opinion was accepted as final. His royal pension or allowances amounted to a yearly income of not less than ten thousand pieces of gold. Nor does his genius as an artist appear to have been more remarkable than his prudence as a Favourite. The king was never tired; the ecclesiastics were never offended; the courtiers were never jealous; the people were never indignant. And by a good fortune, unique, perhaps, in the history of courts, this intelligent Epicurean retained during his lifetime the affection and respect of the king, of the courtiers, and of the people; and his name was long held in honour by succeeding generations of Spanish Moslems, among those of the most illustrious of the heroes of Cordova.

Nor did he play his part in life to an uncritical or unappreciative audience. Of the wonderful aptitude of the Cordovans for science and philosophy, of their love of books, and their care for education, of their powers of memory, and of their felicity in repartee, we may read in every contemporary history. Yet their wit and their erudition, their love of science, and their love of literature, were even less remarkable than their wonderful aptitude for poetry.

The Mosque asserted its influence only by the prohibition of the study of astrology and natural philosophy; but in every other department, a wide and wise liberality, as well as a generous encouragement of study distinguished both the Government and the people. The richer citizens, moreover, even when they were illiterate, rewarded poets and scholars with the greatest munificence, and spared neither trouble nor

1 On le considérait comme un modèle pour tout ce qui concernait le bon ton ; et sous ce rapport il devint le législateur de l'Espagne arabe. Les innovations qué' il fit, furent hardies et innombrables. Dozy, Histoire, ii., 88 and 95. See also Gayangos, ii., 119-121.

expense in the formation of large collections of books.1 Of such was the court of the second Abdur Rahman.

But his personal devotion to the gentler arts of life, and even his political submission to the authority of the Mosque did not serve to spare the king from the miseries of internal dissention and civil discord. An insurrection, headed by the irrepressible Abdullah, his great uncle, was suppressed soon after his accession to the throne, and the old rebel was once more pardoned after defeat. The citizens of ever turbulent Merida, intriguing with Louis le Debonnaires were constantly in a state of revolt. Toledo for eight years maintained a species of independence. For seven years there was civil war in Murcia; and a powerful band of brigands ravaged the neighbouring country. At length even the gentleness of Abdur Rahman was roused to action. Toledo was taken by storm on the 16th of June, 837; tne brigand chief was slain; the city and the country were pacified and reduced to subjection. The Toledans were treated with a noble clemency; and the king was content to receive the submission of the citizens, who once more owned his sovereignty.

The Spanish historians speak of a second invasion of north-west Spain by the Franks from Aquitania in 823, and a second rout of their forces at Roncesvalles in 824, by the Basques of Navarre, assisted by some troops dispatched from Cordova by Abdur Rahman, whose alliance was sought by the Christians to the south of the Pyrenees, against their still more hated Christian foes to the north. But the whole story is usually considered to be apocryphal. What is more certain is that no less than two embassies were received by Abdur Rahman from the Emperor Theophilus at Constantinople, praying the aid of the Ommeyad Caliph of Cordova against the Abbaside Caliph of Bagdad, who was threatening the Empire in the east.

In the perpetual conflicts with the Christians in the north of the Peninsula, Abdur Rahman was more successful than his predecessors. Neither Alfonso nor Ramiro gained any advantage over the Moslem commanders, and the Christian

1 The Caliphs maintained in all the great towns of Egypt, Syria, Arabia, North Africa, and even far away Persia, Residents whose duty it was to transmit to Cordova copies of all important works either of literature or of science that were to be procured in the country where they resided, as well as to inform the Spanish Moslem Government of any interesting discoveries, or scientific or industrial progress. -Viardot, Essais, p. 100, 101. Gayangos, i., 139-167.

2 He had even assigned to him the government of Tadmir, where he lived peacefully until his death.

3 España Sagrada, XIII., p. 416.

4 See Lafuente, iii., 273-275.

5 Al Mutassim (833-842).