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Most of these conquests, however, were subsequently recovered by the Almohades. Being reinforced by a new army from Africa, the latter pursued their successes with greater vigor. They reduced Cordova, which was held by an ally of Alfonso; defeated, and forever paralyzed, the expiring efforts of the Almoravides; and proclaimed their Emperor Abdelmumen as sovereign of all Mahometan Spain.

But their adverse fortune, and the wide extent of the Mussulman empire, allowed an ample scope for every bold and artful imposture, who claimed affinity with the holy seed: the sceptre of the Almohades, in Spain and Africa; of the Fatimites, in Egypt and Syria; of the Sultans of Yemen; and of the Sophis of Persia; has been consecrated by this vague and ambiguous title.

As Africa, distracted by the long war of the Almoravides and the Almohades, was unable to offer any opposition to the progress of the Christians in Spain, these last, availing themselves of this condition of affairs, continued to extend their conquests in Andalusia.

After the disruption of the realm of the Almohades, the Moorish kingdom of Granada was established, and was held in vassalage to Castile, of which Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1474, became joint sovereigns.

So long, indeed, as the walis were eager only to preserve or to extend their authority, independent of each other and of every superior, this success need not surprise us we may rather be surprised that the Mahometans were allowed to retain any footing in the Peninsula. Probably they would at this time have been driven from it but for the seasonable arrival of the victorious Almohades.

The newly-created kingdom of Portugal, established by the military powers of Alphonso, was soon at war with that of Leon. Aragon and Castile, after many bloody quarrels, united in a league against Navarre. Sancho VIII., the sovereign of that little state, was forced to resort to Africa for assistance, and implore the aid of the Almohades.

Mohammed An-Nassir, the emperor of the Almohades, responded to the effort of the Pope by organizing a crusade in Moslem Africa. He proclaimed an Algihed, or Holy War, ordered a massacre of all the Christians in his dominions, and then led the fanatical murderers to Spain to join the forces there in arms.

At the close of the eleventh century, the Murābits or Almoravides, a Berber dynasty, imposed their authority over the greater part of North Africa and Spain, but gave place in the middle of the twelfth to the Muwahhids or Almohades, whose rule extended from the Atlantic to Tunis, and endured for over a hundred years.

Three centuries had passed since the Sultans of the race of Hafs had established their authority on the old Carthaginian site, upon the breaking up of the African empire of the Almohades.

The army of the Moors, said to contain three hundred thousand regular troops and seventy-five thousand irregulars, was drawn up in crescent shape in front of the imperial tent,—in the centre the vast host of the Almohades, the tribes of the desert on the wings, in advance the light-armed troops.