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Updated: May 15, 2025
The family of Omeyyad had given fourteen Khalifs to the Mahommedan empire from 661 to 750; at which time the then reigning Omeyyad was deposed, and the second dynasty of Khalifs commenced, called Abbaside, after Abbas, an uncle of the Prophet. Abd-er-Rahman was a Prince belonging to the deposed family of the Omeyyads.
As the landscape began to grow distinct in the gray, cloudy dawn, we saw before us Cordova, with the dark range of the Sierra Morena rising behind it. This city, once the glory of Moorish Spain, the capital of the great Abd-er-Rahman, containing, when in its prime, a million of inhabitants, is now a melancholy wreck.
It was a ground, too, which was rich in associations of history and romance, the arena of gallant struggle and heroic effort for many and many an age; a place that called up memories of Hannibal, with his conquering armies; of Rome, with her invincible legions; of Charlemagne, with his Paladins; of Abd-er-Rahman, with his brilliant Saracens; of the steel-clad Crusaders; of the martial hosts of Arragon; of the resistless infantry of Ferdinand and Isabella; of the wars of the Spanish succession; of the redcoats of Wellington; through all the ages down to the time of this story, when Don Carlos was standing among these northern mountains, as Pelajo stood more than a thousand years ago, leading on his hardy warriors to battle against all the rest of Spain.
But the empire had extended too far west to revolve about that distant pivot. Abd-er-Rahman perhaps remembering the old feud between his family and the Abbasides determined to assume the spiritual headship of the western part of the empire. And thereafter, the Mahommedan empire like the Roman had two heads, an Eastern Khalif at Baghdad, and a Western Khalif at Cordova.
For six days there was nothing but an occasional skirmish between small parties from both sides; but on the seventh day a great battle took place. Both Christians and Mohammedans fought with terrible earnestness. The fight went on all day, and the field was covered with the bodies of the slain. But towards evening, during a resolute charge made by the Franks, Abd-er-Rahman was killed.
As soon as the hand of Abd-er-Rahman I. was removed disintegration began. Clashing races, clans, and political parties had in a few years made such havoc that it seemed as if the Omeyyad dynasty was crumbling. It might have been an Arab who said "he cared not who made the laws of his country, so he could write its songs."
His Christian soul was mightily stirred by seeing an infidel kingdom set up in Andalusia; and when, in 777, the Saracen governor and two other Arab chiefs appealed to him for aid against the Omeyyad usurper, Abd-er-Rahman, he eagerly responded.
The work of Charlemagne in Spain was quickly undone; for Abd-er-Rahman, the leader of the Mohammedans who had come from Damascus, soon conquered almost all the territory south of the Pyrenees. For more than forty years Charlemagne was king of the Franks; but a still greater dignity was to come to him.
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