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Africa, after having been separated from the vast empire of the Caliphs of the East by the Fatimite caliphs, and being, during three centuries of civil war, the prey of a succession of conquerors more ferocious and sanguinary than the lions of their deserts, was now subjected to the family of the Almoravides, a powerful tribe of Egyptian origin.
But even under such circumstances the sense of the ridiculous survives a thing to be carefully concealed in those who are fortunate enough to possess it Ascher has no sense of the ridiculous. He sees men and women clad in long, stately robes moving through life with grave dignity like Arab chiefs or caliphs of Bagdad.
Then he thought that he might as well rule over Syria also, and he accordingly marched his army there and took possession of the country. His ambition increased with his conquests, and at last he resolved, if he could, to mount the throne of the caliphs.
The old people hoped to find tranquillity under the sway of one supreme chieftain, descended from their ancient caliphs; the young men were rejoiced to have a youthful warrior to lead them on to victories; and the populace, charmed with his freshness and manly beauty, his majestic yet gracious and affable demeanor, shouted: "Long live Abderahman ben Moavia Meramamolin of Spain!"
Then it was conquered by Alexander the Great, who died in Babylon in 323. It was also a part of the Roman Empire at two different times. "In 650 the successors of Mohammed overthrew the Persian monarchy, and the province was the seat of the caliphs till A.D. 1258. On the Tigris in this region is the city of Bagdad, the capital of a province of the same name.
The caliph's fleets were dominant in the Mediterranean. He was mild in his policy towards Jews and Christians. In the eleventh century the caliphs gave themselves up to luxury, and the control of their forces was in the hands of the viziers. He took the city of Leon, and plundered the church of St. James of Compostella, the patron saint of Spain.
* It does not, I think, appear, that these historians had any written accounts to appeal to more ancient than the Sonnah; which was a collection of traditions made by order of the Caliphs two hundred years after Mahomet's death. Mahomet died A.D. 632; Al-Bochari, one of the six doctors who compiled the Sonnah, was born A.D. 809; died 869. Prideaux's Life of Mahomet, p. 192, ed. 7th.
Then came the fanatical innovation of the Carmathians, who pretended to a divine mission to complete the religion of Mahomet, as Mahomet had completed Christianity. They relaxed the duties of ablution, fasting, and pilgrimage; admitted the use of wine, and protested against the worldly pomp of the Caliphs.
The distrust which the caliphs felt for the emirs of their court, whose claims they were only able to appease by making vassals of them, caused them to commit the grave error of confiding in these alien slaves, who, barbaric and illiterate as they were, now living in the midst of princes, soon acquired a knowledge of Muhammedanism, the sciences, and, above all, the politics of the country.
He achieved the independence of Moslem Spain, freeing it from subjection to the caliphs; he united its jarring parts under one government; he ruled over it with justice, clemency, and moderation; his whole course of conduct was distinguished by wonderful forbearance and magnanimity; and when he died he left a legacy of good example and good counsel to his successors.
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