Saracens proved quite fruitless. It was only under the Spanish rule that conversions were made by force, or persecution and annihilation followed persistent refusal. § 95.2. =Islam in Spain.=--The times of Abderrhaman III., A.D. 912-961, and Hacem II., A.D. 961-976, were the most brilliant and fortunate of the =Ommaiadean= khalifate. After the death of the latter the chamberlain Almansor, who died in A.D. 1002, reigned in the name of Khalif Hescham II., who was little more than a puppet of the seraglio, and his rule was glorious, powerful and wise. But interminable civil contentions were the result of this disarrangement of government, and in A.D. 1031, in consequence of a popular tumult, Abderrhaman IV., the last of the Ommaiades, took to flight, and voluntarily resigned the crown. The khalifate was now broken up into as many little principalities or emirships as there had been governors before. Amid such confusions the Christian princes continued to develop and increase their resources. Sancho the Great, king of Navarre, A.D. 970-1035, by marriage and conquest united almost all Christian Spain under his rule, but this was split up again by being partitioned among his sons. Of these Ferdinand I., who died in A.D. 1065, inherited Castile, and in A.D. 1037 added to it Leon by conquest. With him begins the heroic age of Spanish knighthood. His son Alfonso IV., who died in A.D. 1109, succeeded in A.D. 1085 in taking from the Moors Toledo and a great part of Andalusia. The powerful leader of the =Almoravides=, Jussuf from Morocco, was now called to their aid by the Moors. On the plain of Salacca the Christians were beaten in A.D. 1086, but soon the victor turned his arms against his allies, and within six years all Moslem Spain was under his government. His son Ali, in a fearfully bloody battle at Ucles in A.D. 1107, cut down the flower of the Castilian nobility; this marked the summit of power reached by the Almoravides, and now their star began slowly to pale. Alfonso I. of Arragon, A.D. 1105-1134, conquered Saragossa in A.D. 1118, and other cities. Alfonso VII. of Castile, A.D. 1126-1157, whose power rose so high that most of the Christian princes in Spain acknowledged him as sovereign, and that he had himself formally crowned emperor of Spain in A.D. 1135, conducted a successful campaign against Andalusia, and in A.D. 1144 forced his way down to the south coast of Granada. Alfonso I. of Portugal, drove the Moors out of Lisbon; Raimard, count of Barcelona, conquered Tortosa, etc. At the same time too the government of the Almoravides was being undermined in Africa. In A.D. 1146 Morocco fell, and with it North-western Africa, into the hands of the =Almohades= under Abdelmoumen, while his lieutenant Abu Amram at the same time conquered Moslem Spain and Andalusia. Abdelmoumen’s son Jussuf himself crossed over into