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Nor was the gentler sex, as is usually the case in the lands of Islam, excluded from the general taste for letters; and one of our author's chapters is almost entirely filled with a catalogue of the poetesses who adorned Andalus at this and other periods of its history.
"This enlightened and never-vanquished Hajib" says Al-Makkali, with whom Al-mansur is a favourite hero "used continually to ask God to permit him to die in his service and in war against the infidels, and thus his desire was granted;... and after his death, the Mohammedan empire in Andalus began to show visible signs of decay."
Ah, such a damsel! Andalus from head to foot; from the rose in her hair, to the fairy shoe and lacework stocking; Andalus in every movement; in every undulation of the body: ripe, melting Andalus! But then so modest! so shy! ever, with downcast eyes, listening to the words of the padre; or, if by chance she let flash a side glance, it was suddenly checked and her eyes once more cast to the ground.
'Thus, says Ibn Hayyan, 'Abdurrahman collected an army of slaves and Berbers, amounting to upwards of 40,000 men, by means of whom he always remained victorious, in every contest with the Arabian tribes of Andalus."
Andalus from head to foot; from the rose in her hair, to the fairy shoe and lacework stocking; Andalus in every movement; in every undulation of the body: ripe, melting Andalus! But then so modest! so shy! ever, with downcast eyes, listening to the words of the padre; or, if by chance she let flash a side glance, it was suddenly checked and her eyes once more cast to the ground.
Nearly all the tribes of Arabia are enumerated by Al-Makkari as represented in Spain; and the feuds of the two great divisions, the Beni-Modhar or race of Adnan, and the Beni-Kahttan or Arabs of Yemen, gave rise to most of the civil wars which subsequently desolated Andalus. He is called by the Arabic writers Ludherik a name afterwards applied as a general designation to the kings of Castile.
"He made Andalus a great market for the literary productions of every clime ... so that rich men in Cordova, however illiterate they might be, rewarded writers and poets with the greatest munificence, and spared neither trouble nor expense in forming libraries."
The never-ceasing contest with the Christians was waged year by year; and the Princes of Oviedo, though often defeated in the plain and driven back into their mountains, when the forces of Andalus were gathered against them; yet surely, though slowly, gained ground against the provincial walis or viceroys.
"In the knowledge especially of history, biography, and genealogy, he was surpassed by no living author of his days: and he wrote a voluminous history of Andalus, in which was displayed such sound criticism, that whatever he related, as borrowed from more ancient sources, might be implicitly relied upon." Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella, i. 351.
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