The Moors in Spain

THE MOORS IN SPAIN, BY EDWARD H. ANDERSON, JR.

The term Moors properly applies to the Berbers of North Africa, but is used to signify Arabs and other Mohammedans who conquered and inhabited Spain. Previous to the sixth century after Christ, the Arabs were a wild and a savage people, composed of clans or tribes very similar to the tribes of the American Indians. About the middle of the sixth century, the Prophet Mohamet arose and began to preach the religion of Islam. This religion taught a belief in one God, with Mohamet for his prophet. It united all these clans into the Moslem peo-

ple,and filled them with a desire to conquer all mankind, and bring them to a knowledge of what they believed to be the truth. They began by conquering all the surrounding people, and then overran the northern part of Africa. There was one city,however, the Fortress of Ceuta, which they could not conquer until a quarrel arose between Count Julian, the gov- ernor of Ceuta, and Roderick, the king of Spain. Count Julian out of revenge to the king for bringing his daughter into dis- grace, determined to deliver Spain into the hands of the Mo- hammedans. He went to Musa, to the governor of North Africa and told him about all the wealth of Spain, and that all that he had to do was to go over and take the country, and Julian would loan him the ships to do it. Musa thought this was only a scheme to entrap him, so he sent out a small force of men to see if it was as Julian had said. When they returned they reported that all he had said was true.

THE MOORS IN SPAIN. 311

He then sent a force of 7,000 men under General Tarik who was afterwards reinforced by 5,000 Berbers. In 711 A. D. on the river Guadalit, in Spain, Tarik, the Moor, met King Roderick of Spain with a force of 72,000 men. But Roderick's men were not very true or brave for they had been made weak by over-indulgence, or lack of patriotism. The two armies fought a battle which lasted a week, the result of which really put the whole of Spain into the hands of Tarik, the Moor. After this battle Tarik divided his army into three parts and sent them through Spain to conquer all the cities. They found very little resistance, and the country was soon in the hands of the Mohammedans. The Moors pressed their con- quests northward to Tours, in France, where a battle was fought, in 721 A. D., which decided the great question as to whether Europe was to be Christian or Mohammedan. This, like Saratoga, was one of the great decisive battles of the world. There the Moors met no such emasculate race as the Spaniards, and after a sore defeat, they turned their attention to the development of the country which they had conquered. The people of Spain soon found that they had been ben- efitted by a change of masters. Never was this country so mildly, justly and wisely governed as by her Arab conquer- ors. They were left free to worship whom or what they pleased. Cities innumerable sprang up in the rich valleys. Art, literature, and science prospered as they then prospered nowhere else in the whole of Europe. Christian students flocked from France, Germany, and England, to gain the knowledge which was only to be received in the cities of the Moors. Cordova, Granada, Seville, became famous the world over. The surgeons and doctors of Spain became famous everywhere. Women were induced to devote them- selves to study, and among the physicians of that early day were to be found many women. Here is what a noted writer says: "Mathematics, as- tronomy and botany; history, philosophy and jurisprudence, were to be mastered in Spain, and in Spain alone. The practical work of the field, the scientific modes of irrigation, the arts of fortification and ship-building, the highest and most elaborate products of the loom, the graver and hammer,

were brought to perfection by the Spanish Moors. What- ever makes a kingdom great and prosperous, whatever tends to refinement and civilization, was found in Moslem Spain." We are told that the city of Cordova had a public library of half a million books. Their public baths were numerous, for, with them as with the Latter-day Saints, cleanliness was a part of their religion. But, as is too often the case, when peace was secured, jealousies and strifes frequently arose among them, and in the tenth century the Spaniards began the attempt to reconquer their country. But the Moors lived in Spain for nearly eight hundred years, and ruled the country, and brought it to a de- gree of refinement and civilization such as it had never known before, nor has seen since. Finally city after city gradually gave way before the Christians who pressed upon them from the north, till in 1492, under Ferdinand and Isabella, Granada, the last stronghold of the Moors, where stood the glorious castle of the Alhambra, like a beautiful paradise on a hill, was delivered over to the Spaniards, and the Moors were banished by millions to Africa. Here they roam to this day without a home or country. Here is a pretty and true passage from Stanley Lane Poole: "The Moors were banished; for a while Christian Spain shone like the moon, with a borrowed light; then came the eclipse, and in that darkness Spain has grovelled ever since. The true memorial of the Moors is seen in the desolate tracts of utter barrenness, where once the Moslem grew luxuriant vines and olives and yellow ears of corn; in a stupid, ignorant population, where once wit and learning flourished; in the general stagnation and degradation of a people which has hopelessly fallen in the scale of nations, and has deserved its humiliation." We should not forget that the effects of the Moorish con- quest are felt in all Europe and America to this day. These nations have carried out what they learned in Spain long years ago, while the Moors are now without a home, and while the Spaniards who drove them away are still living in ignorance and superstition. For it must be remembered that if we except the acts of Columbus, and perhaps Cortez,

THE MOORS IN SPAIN. 813

whose histories are so closely interwoven with the Ameri- can continent, Spain has not risen to a noble act since the Moors were exiled. What gloomy and sorrowful days fol- lowed after the Moors were driven away may be learned from the dark history of the Inquisition.