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.
END OF THE OMAYYADS
[1023-1238 A.D.]
Muhammed II reaped the reward of his crime. His successor was Yahya, who perished in an ambuscade (1025). The next prince on whom the choice of the Cordovans fell, Hisham III, brother of Abd ar-Rahman al-Mortada, was naturally loth to accept a crown which had destroyed so many of its wearers. In the end, however, being rather forced than persuaded to relinquish his scruples, he left his retirement. Unhappily, he had but too much reason to find that neither private virtues nor public services have much influence over the bulk of mankind; and that the absolute king who has not the power to make himself feared will not long be suffered to reign. In 1031 a licentious mob paraded the streets of Cordova, and loudly demanded his deposition. He did not wait the effects of their violence; with unfeigned satisfaction he retired to private life, in which he passed unmolested the remainder of his days. The remembrance of his virtues long survived him; and by all the Arabic writers of his country he is represented as too good for his age.
The Alhambra
With Hisham III ended the caliphate of the West, and the noble race of the Omayyads. If the succession was interrupted by Ali, and Al-Kasim, and Yahya, who though descended from a kindred stock were not of the same family, that interruption was but momentary; especially as Abd ar-Rahman IV reigned at Jaen, while the last two princes were acknowledged at Cordova. From this period 1031 A.D. to the establishment of the kingdom of Grenada in 1238 A.D., there was no supreme chief of Mohammedan Spain, if we except the fleeting conquerors who arrived from Africa, the fabric of whose dominion was as suddenly destroyed as it was erected.
Vicious as is the constitution of all Mohammedan governments, and destructible as are the bases on which they are founded, the reader cannot fail to have been struck with the fate of this great kingdom. It can scarcely be said to have declined; it fell at once. Not thirty years have elapsed since the great Almansor wielded the resources of Africa and Spain, and threatened the entire destruction of the Christians, whom he had driven into an obscure corner of this vast peninsula. Now Africa is lost; the Christians hold two-thirds of the country; the petty but independent governors, the boldest of whom trembled at the name of Almansor, openly insult the ruler of Cordova, whose authority extends little further than the walls of his capital. Assuredly, so astounding a catastrophe has no parallel in all history. Other kingdoms, indeed, as powerful as Cordova, have been perhaps as speedily deprived of their independence; but if they have been subdued by invading enemies, their resources, their vigour, to a certain extent their greatness have long survived their loss of that blessing. Cordova, in the very fullness of her strength, was torn to pieces by her turbulent children.
INDEPENDENT KINGDOMS
[1031-1094 A.D.]
The decline and dissolution of the Mohammedan monarchy, or western caliphate afforded the ambitious local governors throughout the peninsula the opportunity for which they had long sighed—that of openly asserting their independence of Cordova and of assuming the title of kings.
But Cordova, however weakened, was not willing thus suddenly to lose her hold on her ancient subjects; she resolved to elect a sovereign who should endeavour to subdue these audacious rebels, and restore her ancient splendour. The disasters which had accompanied the last reigns of the Omayyad princes had strongly indisposed the people to the claims of that illustrious house. Jehwar ben Muhammed surrounded himself by a council which comprised some of the most distinguished citizens, and without the advice of which he undertook no one thing, not even the nomination to public offices. Of that council he was but the president, possessing but one vote like the remaining members; so that Cordova presented the appearance rather of a republic than of a monarchy. He introduced a degree of tranquillity and commercial activity unknown since the death of the great Almansor. But the same success did not attend him in his efforts to restore the supremacy of Cordova. Whatever might be the internal dissensions of the petty kings, the success of some, the failure of others, none thought of recognising his superiority. To recount the perpetually recurring struggles of these reguli for the increase of their states, their alliances, their transient successes or hopeless failures, or even their existence, would afford neither interest nor instruction to the reader. Such events only can be noticed as are either signal in themselves, or exercised more than a passing influence on the condition of the Mohammedan portion of the peninsula.
After triumphing over some neighbouring kings, who dreaded his increasing power, the sovereign of Seville prepared to invade the possessions of Jehwar; but death surprised him before those preparations were completed. His son, Muhammed Al-Mucteded, who succeeded him, was as ambitious as himself, but more luxurious. All southern Andalusia came into the power of Al-Mucteded, yet his ambition was far from satisfied. For some time he remained in alliance with Muhammed, the son and successor of Jehwar, in the throne of Cordova; but he gained possession of that ancient capital by stratagem. After many years of continued warfare, the king of Seville and Cordova became, not merely the most powerful, but almost the only independent sovereign of Mohammedan Spain.
Yahya al-Kadi, the son and successor of Ibn Dylnun on the throne of Toledo, inherited neither the courage nor the abilities of that prince. Sunk in the lowest sensuality, he regarded with indifference the growing success of Muhammed. He became at length so contemptible that his very subjects rose and expelled him. He applied for aid to the ally of his father, Alfonso VI king of Leon; but that prince, though under the greatest obligations to the memory of the father, was persuaded by the king of Seville to adopt a hostile policy towards the son. It seems, indeed, as if Muhammed and Alfonso, in the treaty which they concluded at the instance of the former, had tacitly agreed not to interrupt each other in the execution of the designs each had long formed. The victorious Alfonso triumphed over all opposition, and prosecuted the siege with a vigour which might have shown the misbelievers how formidable an enemy awaited them all, and how necessary were their combined efforts to resist him. But Muhammed, the only enemy whom the Christian hero had to dread, was no less occupied in deriving his share of the advantages secured by the treaty—in reducing the strong towns of Murcia and Granada. After a siege of three years, Toledo was reduced to the last extremity, and was compelled to capitulate. On the 25th of May, 1085 A.D., Alfonso triumphantly entered this ancient capital of the Goths, which had remained in the power of the misbelievers about 374 years.