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Updated: May 24, 2025
The mighty conflict which ensued is very briefly dismissed by Al-Makkari "Al-mansur attacked and defeated them with great loss" but a far different account is given by the Christian chroniclers, who represent the Moslems as only saved from a total overthrow by the approach of night.
The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain. By AHMED IBN MOHAMMED AL-MAKKARI of Telemsan. Printed for the Oriental Translation Fund. 2 vols. 4to. 1840-43. "The second day was that when Martel broke The Mussulmen, delivering France opprest, And in one mighty conflict, from the yoke Of unbelieving Mecca saved the West." The Arab domination in Spain is the grand romance of European history.
He died in 852, leaving the crown to his son Mohammed, whose reign, as well as those of his two sons Almundhir and Abdullah, who filled the throne in succession, is but briefly noticed by Al-Makkari, though Señor de Gayangos has supplied some valuable additional matter in his notes.
His immediate successors, Al-hakem I., and Abdurrahman II., were almost constantly engaged in warfare, either against their own rebellious relatives and revolted subjects, or against the Christians of Galicia, who, by the middle of the ninth century, had advanced their frontier to the Douro and repeatedly repulsed the armies sent against them from Cordova; but we find no mention in the writers cited by Al-Makkari, either of the annual tribute of a hundred virgins, popularly said to have been exacted by the Moslems, or of the great victory in 846, by which King Ramiro redeemed his country from this degrading badge of vassalage.
The translator adduces strong grounds for believing that the battle was fought, not as usually held, in the plain of Xeres, on the south bank of the Guadalete, but "nearer the sea-shore, and not far from the town of Medina-Sidonia." This is not mentioned by the authors from whom Al-Makkari has drawn his materials, but is stated by Professor de Gayangos on the authority of Ibn Khaldun.
"But all this and more is recorded by orators and poets who have exhausted the mines of eloquence in the description," says Al-Makkari, who, after enlarging upon "the running streams, the luxuriant gardens, the stately buildings for the accommodation of the guards and high functionaries the throngs of soldiers, pages, eunuchs, and slaves, attired in robes of silk and brocade, moving to and fro through its broad streets and the crowds of judges, katibs, theologians, and poets, walking with becoming gravity through the spacious halls and ample courts of the palace," concludes with a burst of pious enthusiasm.
The martial spirit of the Spanish Moslems appears, from various anecdotes related by Al-Makkari, to have suffered great deterioration from the progress of luxury and decay of discipline; but the armies led by Al-mansur were mainly recruited from the fiery tribes of Barbary, and strengthened by numerous Christian slaves or Mamlukes, trained to serve their captors in arms against their own countrymen.
Scarcely had he entered upon office, when, not contented with exercising sovereign authority, like his father and brother, under an appearance of delegation from the Khalif, he persuaded or compelled the feeble Hisham, who had no male issue, to appoint him Wali-al-ahd, or heir-presumptive the deed of nomination is given at length by Al-Makkari, and is a curious specimen of a state-paper.
The reign of Al-hakem was the Augustan age of Andalusian literature; and besides the numerous learned men whom the fame of his father's and his own liberality, with the security of their rule, had attracted to Spain from other regions of Islam, we find in the pages of Al-Makkari an extensive list of native authors, principally in the departments of poetry, history, and philology, who are said to be "a few only of the most eminent who flourished during this reign" but none of their names, however noted in their own day, are known in modern Europe.
As an illustration of the character of his son Hisham, it is related by Al-Makkari, that on hearing that the people of Cordova said, that his only motive in restoring the great bridge over the Guadalquivir was to pass over it himself when he went out hunting, he bound himself by a solemn vow never to cross it again as long as he lived; but the reign of this beneficent prince lasted only eight years.
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