HE south-western part of Asia consists of a large tract of country,bounded by the Red Sea on the west, and the Persian Gulf on the east, forming the peninsula of Arabia, which, with Syria on its northern confines, has formed the theatre of many remarkable events. From the time of the patriarch Abraham, this peninsula-composed of extensive deserts, relieved and variegated by stripes of extraordinary fertility has been inhabited by a roving and restless race, leading a pastoral and commercial life, and distinguished from the rest of man

kind by the primitive simplicity of their manners, and their unconquerable love of independence. Through all the dynasties and revolutions of ancient history, these wandering sons of Ishmael preserved their freedom, defying every attempt made to subjugate them. Their deserts even afforded an hospitable asylum to refugees from other nations. On the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, thousands of the scattered Jews spread themselves over Arabia; and during the first centuries of the Christian era, many European Christians, either fired with missionary zeal, or expelled from their own countries on account of their Arian tenets, mingled with the Arab population. Hence arose a strange and chaotic condition of society, and an inextricable jumble of discordant customs and creeds. The Arabs, a poetical and imaginative people, professed originally that Oriental kind of paganism which is so frequently described in the Old Testament: they worshipped the heavenly luminaries, nowhere so beautiful as when shining silently at night over the Arabian desert. Upon this star-worship were ingrafted a multitude of Jewish cere

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monies and Christian ideas; and the consequence was, that, in the seventh century, the prevailing religion of the Arabs was a mongrel system of Polytheism, fatal alike to political unity and to individual morality. In the beginning of the seventh century, however, Mohammed effected his astounding revolution among the Arabs. Born at Mecca in the year 570, this extraordinary man commenced in his fortieth year, and, before his death in 632, accomplished, an entire social and religious reorganisation of his countrymen-binding together the various scattered tribes which occupied the peninsula, shattering the old Polytheism, and setting up a new religion, compounded of various elements, the central idea of which was, "There is only one God, and Mohammed is the last and greatest of all his prophets." Under the impulse of Mohammedanism, the Arabs suddenly began to perform a conspicuous part in the world's history. One of the prophet's doctrines was that of the duty of conquest-of propagating and extending the true religion by the edge of the sword. Mohammed set the example of obedience to this precept before his death; and his successors, the caliphs, followed it up by a remarkable series of conquests. Before the beginning of the eighth century, the whole of Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia on the one side, and the whole of the northern coast of Africa, from Egypt to the Straits of Gibraltar, on the other, had been overrun by Mohammedan armies, and annexed to the Arabian empire. This vast extent of territory was governed by numerous officers or lieutenants, dependent on the caliph or supreme head of the Mohammedan empire, whose seat of government was Damascus, in Syria.

Having pushed their conquests along the coast of Africa, as far as the district to which the Romans had given the name of Mauritania, the Arabs next attempted to invade Europe by crossing the Mediterranean. The point at which they entered was the Spanish peninsula, lying so invitingly near to their own country. Invading Spain in the year 711, these Arabs-known usually by the name of Moors or Mauri, denoting that they came immediately from Mauritania in Africa, sometimes also by the name of Saracens, marking their eastern origin-kept partial possession of the peninsula for eight centuries. As a preliminary to our narrative of their proceedings there, it will be necessary to glance at the condition of Spain at the date of their invasion.

SPAIN PREVIOUS TO THE INVASION OF THE ARABS

DOMINION OF THE VISIGOTHS.

At a remote period of history, Spain was inhabited by a population called the Iberians. Another race, called the Celts, mingling with them, the two together received the name of the Celtiberians. Both were ultimately conquered by the Romans, and Spain became one of the most important provinces of the Roman empire.

Like other portions of this great empire, Spain was overrun by Alans, Suevi, and Vandals, in the beginning of the fifth century. This great invasion, in 404, was followed by an invasion of Visigoths, who finally attained the ascendancy. The kingdom of the Goths or Visigoths thus established in Spain lasted for more than two centuries and a half, ruled over by a series of monarchs whose names it would be useless to mention. The only circumstance worth noticing with respect to the period of the Gothic rule in Spain, is the remarkable struggle which was then carried on between Catholic Christianity and that form of belief which was called Arianism-a struggle which then divided the whole Christian world, but of which Spain, in particular, seems to have been the principal scene. Yet even this great struggle it would be tiresome and profitless to describe; and it need only be stated that the Arians were subdued, and Spain became, what it has continued to be ever since, a stronghold of the Roman Catholic faith.

Passing over this fierce religious commotion, we come to the year 672, when a noble Goth named Wamba ascended the Spanish throne. It was in his reign that the Moors or Arabs of Mauritania first began to harass the Spanish coasts. This formidable enemy attempting to land in his dominions, Wamba assembled a great naval force, attacked their fleet, and after a desperate engagement, defeated them, taking a vast number of prisoners, and, it is said, no fewer than two hundred and seventy vessels of all sizes. This was the first collision between the Moors and the Visigoths. The fourth in succession from Wamba on the Spanish throne was Roderic, the last of the Goths. It was in his reign, in the year 711, that the Arab invasion took place.

Our readers will now perceive that the history which we are about to relate, is the history of a conflict of two conquering races rushing against each other from opposite directions, and fired by opposite sentiments-of the Visigoths from the north, a German race recently converted to Christianity; and of the Arabs from the east and south, a people of hot Asiatic temperament, burning with zeal for the religion of Mohammed. The issue which depended on the struggle was the possession of Europe, and the arena on which the shock took place was the peninsula of Spain.

INVASION AND COLONISATION OF SPAIN BY THE MOORS.

Roderic, the last of the Goths, ascended the throne of Spain in 709, in consequence of a popular revolution against Witiza, whose conduct had rendered him odious to his subjects. While a civil war was going on in Spain between the superseded sovereign and his rival, the Saracens of Mauritania were eagerly watching for an opportunity to revenge themselves for the defeat they had sustained from Wamba, and to effect a landing in the peninsula. The caliph who then ruled over the immense Arabic empire, residing generally at Damascus, in Syria, was Walid I., a man who

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inherited the spirit of conquest which had distinguished more or less all the successors of Mohammed. His lieutenant in the African province of Mauritania was Muza Ben Nosair, and to him was committed the trust of superintending the invasion of Spain. It was not long before Muza found an opportunity of executing his master's intentions. A Gothic nobleman, Count Julian, whose daughter had suffered a grievous insult at the hands of Don Roderic, entered into a conspiracy with the Saracen viceroy to admit his troops into the southern promontory of Spain, where he held command. Having once effected a landing, their own indomitable courage, then supe riority in arms, assisted by the distracted state of the Spanish kingdom, and especially by the co-operation of the Jews, who had suffered too much persecution under the Goth's not to be willing to welcome a change of inatthese causes would insure their progress in the peninsula. Accordingly, on the fifth day of the moon of Rejeb, in the year of the Hejira 92, corresponding to the 30th of April 711 of our calendar, Tarik Ibn Zeyad, a freed man of the Mauritanian viceroy, sailed, by his master's orders, with a small band of followers for the Spanish coast. He landed at the foot of the rock of Calpe, to which, accordingly, was given the name of Jebal Tarik, or the Mountain of Tarik, a name softened by time into Gibraltar.

Sleeping at the foot of the rock the night after his landing, Mohammed, say the Arabian historians, appeared in a vision to Tarik, and assured him of the conquest of Spain. Indeed victory had so constantly attended the Mohammedan arms wherever they had yet appeared, that Tarik and his followers must have anticipated the subjugation of Spain as a matter of course. Reinforced by fresh troops sent over from Mauritania, they gradually spread themselves over the country adjoining Gibraltar, taking possession of all the villages and places of strength. Their arrival had been so unexpected, that Roderic and his Visigoths were at first quite unprepared to repel them. At length, however, seeing the land so rapidly filling with Moors, Roderic assembled all the forces he could command, and staked his kingdom on a great battle with the Moors, fought at Xeres de la Frontera, on the banks of the Guadalete, a few miles from Cadiz. The exact date of the battle cannot be fixed, but it was probably fought in the year 712. It terminated the rule of the Visigoths in Spain. The Moors gained a complete victory. Roderic and his Goths were totally defeated. The fate of the Visigoth king remains to this day a mystery. His horse and cloak were found after the battle, the saddle ornamented, it is said, with gold and emeralds; but his body could not be seen. The Arab historians, indeed, say that he was killed by Tarik's spear, and that his head was cut off and sent to Muza, and by him to the caliph at Damascus, preserved in camphor; the Spaniards, however, maintain that he escaped; and the adventures of Don Roderic subsequent

to the battle of the Guadalete, form the theme of many a fanciful legend. ra

Tarik and his victorious army now ranged at large through Spain, meeting with almost no resistance. Seville, Cordova, and other towns quickly yielded, and in a short time the Moors were masters of Spain as far north as Toledo. Meanwhile Muza, wishing to reserve for himself the honour of having added such a fair country as Spain to the dominions of the caliph, had left Mauritania to superintend the new conquest in person. He and Tarik, once his freedman, but now his rival, pursued their career of glory together, not without mutual animosity; and before the year 715, the entire peninsula, as far as the Pyrenees, with the exception of the mountainous district of Asturias, was reduced under the Moorish yoke. The only opposition of consequence which the conquerors experienced, was in the district since known as the kingdom of Murcia, where a Gothic baron named Theodomir kept possession of the town of Orihuela against the Moslem army, and only yielded after obtaining from Abdalaziz, the son of Muza, very favourable terms.

Probably few conquests that have ever taken place, certainly not the Norman conquest of England, and much less the conquest of America by the Spaniards, have been conducted with so much moderation and so little wanton cruelty as the Moorish conquest of Spain. Miseries, doubtless, inseparable from a conquest, were experienced by the Gothic-Roman population, and scenes of atrocity may have occurred during the progress of the Mohammedan armies over the peninsula; but the sufferings endured by the conquered were not, upon the whole, greater than those which necessarily resulted from the forcible addition of so many souls to the population. Tribute was exacted to the amount of one-tenth, or in some cases one-fifth, of the annual income of the conquered classes; but they were left in the peaceable enjoyment of their own laws, without any other restriction than that every sentence of death should be submitted, before being executed, to the Mohammedan authorities for their sanction; they were also permitted to practise religious worship according to their own forms, provided, however, the doors of their churches were regularly closed during the ceremony, and provided also that no new churches should be built. Such were the conditions awarded to the Christian portion of the Spanish population by their Saracen masters. To the Jews, who, if they had not directly assisted the invasion, had at least welcomed it, conditions still more favourable were granted, and sentiments of mutual good-will sprung up between the children of Moses and the followers of Mohammed, which were not extinguished during the whole period of the Moorish dominion in Spain.

To return now to Tarik and Muza. Information of the addition of a new province to his vast dominions-a country rivalling Syria in beauty and fertility, Yemen the Happy for its balmy

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