Christianity and Islam in Spain, A.D. 756-1031Haines, Charles Reginald
Islamic
Christianity and Islam in Spain, A.D. 756-1031
Haines, Charles Reginald
Christian martyrs -- Spain; Christianity -- Spain; Islam -- Spain
[7] In 896, on the capture of Cazlona by a renegade named Ibn
as Khalia, all the Christians were massacred.--Dozy, ii. p.
327.
Towards the close of his reign Abdallah was able to assert his
supremacy, though Omar and his followers still held out. Omar himself
did not die till 917, some years after Abdallah's death. The king's
successor, Abdurrahman III., was a different stamp of man from Abdallah,
and the reduction of Omar became only a question of time, though, in
fact, the apostasy of Omar from Islam had made the ultimate success of
the national party very doubtful, if not impossible. After Omar's death,
his son, Djaffar, thought to recover the support of the Spanish Moslems
by embracing Islam; but he thereby lost the confidence of the
Christians, by whom he was murdered. In 928 his brother Hafs
surrendered, with Bobastro, to the Sultan, and the great rebellion was
finally extinguished.
So ended the grand struggle of the national party, first under
the-direction of the Muwallads, and then of the Christians, to shake off
the Arab and Berber yoke. During the remainder of the tenth century the
strong administration of Abdurrahman III., Hakem II., and the great
Almanzor, gave the Christians no chance of raising the cry of "Spain for
the Spanish." The danger of a renewal of the rebellion once removed, the
position of the Christians does not seem to have been made any worse in
consequence of their late disaffection, and Abdurrahman, himself the
son of a Christian mother, treated all parties in the revolt with great
leniency, even against the wishes and advice of the more devout Moslems.
Almanzor, too, made himself respected, and even liked, by his Christian
subjects, and there is no doubt that his victories over the Christian
States in the North[1] were won very largely with the aid of Christian
soldiers. His death was the signal for the disruption of the Spanish
Khalifate, and from 1010-1031, when the khalifate was finally
extinguished, complete anarchy prevailed in Saracen Spain. The Berbers
made a determined effort to regain their ascendency, and their forces,
seconded by the Christians, succeeded in placing Suleiman on the throne
in 1013. A succession of feeble rulers, set up by the different
factions--Arab, Berber, and Slave--followed, until Hischem III. was
forced to abdicate in 1031, and the Umeyyade dynasty came to an end,
after lasting 275 years. By this time the Christians in the North had
gathered themselves together for a combined advance against the Saracen
provinces, never again to retrograde, scarcely even to be checked, till
in 1492 fell Granada, the last stronghold of the Moors in Spain.[2]
[1] Al Makkari, ii. p. 214.
[2] In 1630 there was not a single Moslem left in Spain.--Al
Makk., i. p. 74.
CHAPTER IX.
CHRISTIANS AND MOSLEMS IGNORANT OF ONE
ANOTHER'S CREED.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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