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The reception of these missions was usually signalized by a gorgeous display of the pomp of the court and the ceremonial on the arrival in 949 of the envoys of Constantine VII. of Constantinople, is described at length from Ibn Hayyan.
'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."
"No Moslem general had ever penetrated as far as that city, which is in an inaccessible position in the most remote part of Galicia, and is a sanctuary regarded by the Christians with veneration equal to that which the Moslems entertain for the Kaaba," but Al-mansur, supplied with provisions from a fleet which accompanied his march along the coast of Portugal, forced his way through the Galician defiles, and occupied the holy city without opposition all the inhabitants having fled, according to Ibn Hayyan, with the exception of an old monk who tended the tomb.
It is principally from Ibn Hayyan that Al-Makkari has copied the details of this marvellous structure, with its "15,000 doors, counting each flap or fold as one," all covered either with plates of iron, or sheets of polished brass; and its 4000 columns, great and small, 140 of which were presented by the Emperor of Constantinople, and 1013, mostly of green and rose-coloured marble, were brought from various parts of Africa.
In this manner it was preserved till the days of Abdurrahman II.; some say till the days of his son Mohammed, when the turban on the spear being decayed, the vizirs of that monarch, seeing nothing under it but a few rags twisted round the spear, gave orders for their removal, and the whole was thrown away.... 'From that time, remarks the judicious historian Ibn Hayyan, 'the empire of the Beni-Umeyyah began visibly to decline."
Ibun Hayyan, an Arabian chronicler, gives the following fanciful account of Pelayo and his feeble band. "The commencement of the rebellion happened thus: there remained no city, town, or village in Galicia but what was in the hands of the Moslems with the exception of a steep mountain, on which this Pelayo took refuge with a handful of men.
No fewer than twenty-seven insurgent leaders, in the reign of Abdullah alone, are enumerated in the translator's notes from Ibn Hayyan. The epithet of kelb, "dog," frequently applied to this leader, has led Condé into the strange error of creating for him a son, whom he calls Kalib Ibun Hafssun. The term Muwallad is said to be the origin of mulatto.
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