United States or Norfolk Island ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
You have not, perhaps heard of the daggers of the Almohades?" "Never." "Ah, they are Eastern daggers of a great age and of a singular shape, with the hilt like what you call a stirrup. I am a curiosity dealer, you understand, and that is why I have come to England from Smyrna, but next week I go back once more.
On the side of the land, they were pressed by the Almohades, the fanatic princes of Morocco, while the sea-coast was open to the enterprises of the Greeks and Franks, who, before the close of the eleventh century, had extorted a ransom of two hundred thousand pieces of gold.
The throne of the Almohades, or Unitarians, was founded on the blindest fanaticism, and their extraordinary rigor might be provoked or justified by the recent victories and intolerant zeal of the princes of Sicily and Castille, of Arragon and Portugal.
The tribunals of the civil and temporal powers of the Eastern Jewish community were in perpetual collision, so that this singular state was weakened internally by its own dissensions. The schools were closed. Many of the learned fled to Spain, where the revulsion under the Almohades had not yet taken place; all were dispersed.
But despite some notable failures, he did meet with considerable success; and since he got so much, it is not surprising that he aimed at more. Perhaps the greatest disappointment of his life was the failure of the Fourth Crusade. Innocent found some compensation in the great victory won by the united chivalry of Spain and France over the Almohades on the field of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212.
"A parcel of London traders, eh?" He spoke a few words to the Moor who rode next him, in another language. "This is the domain of Yusuf of the Almohades," he went on, "and we make no terms with the enemies of God. Yet we condemn no man to starve. Ye shall have food and lodging so long as ye remain with us. Doubtless ye are honest and will pay, but in this barbarous land there are many thieves.
To-day my wife fell down in a faint in the room in which I keep my wares, and she cut her lower lip upon this cursed dagger of Almohades." "I see," said Douglas Stone, rising. "And you wish me to dress the wound?" "No, no, it is worse than that." "What then?" "These daggers are poisoned." "Poisoned!" "Yes, and there is no man, East or West, who can tell now what is the poison or what the cure.
He was, beyond doubt, the greatest and best of the Almohades. The character of Mahomet Abu Abdallah, surnamed Alnassir, was very different from that of his great father. Absorbed in effeminate pleasures, he paid little attention to the internal administration of his empire or to the welfare of his people.
That of the infidels lay in the neighborhood of Baeza, and extended to the Sierra Morena. On July 12th, A.H. 608, the crusaders reached the mountainous chain which divides New Castile from Andalusia. They found not only the passes, but the summits of the mountains, occupied by the Almohades.
Morocco, an immense and unwieldly remnant of the monarchies formed by the Saracens, or first Arabian conquerors of Africa, has had a series of dynasties terminating in that of the Shereefs. 1st. The dynasty began in A.D. 789, and continued to 908. 2nd. 3rd. 4th. Their dynasty terminated in 1149. 5th. The Almohades. These are supposed to be sprung from the Berber tribes.
Word Of The Day