The possession of the territory once occupied by the khalifate did not satisfy the restless spirit of Ali, whose policy aspired to so vast and impracticable a scheme as the total annihilation of the Christian power. His ambition was seconded, and indeed largely prompted, by his zeal, which impelled him to the prosecution of incessant hostilities against the enemies of Islam. The occupation of Saragossa by Temim, the son of Yusuf and the governor of Valencia, was followed by an invasion of the dominions of Alfonso VI. and the siege of Ucles. A Castilian army sent to relieve that fortress encountered the Moslems a short distance from its walls. A bloody battle was fought; and the Christians, who far outnumbered their adversaries, underwent a crushing defeat. Sancho, the favorite son of the King by his Moorish wife or concubine, Zayda,--who was the daughter of Motamid, formerly Prince of Seville,--was killed in the action, and the grief of Alfonso was so intense that he only survived his bereavement a few months. To his genius as a soldier and a ruler has been justly attributed a large share of the greatness of the Castilian monarchy. He traversed the territory of his Moslem enemies from one extremity of the Peninsula to the other. In the course of his long and eventful reign he won thirty-nine battles. Great in all the popular qualities of the time, his deeds made a deep and lasting impression on the national character of Spain. The dissensions which followed the death of their sovereign seriously threatened the integrity of the kingdom. The activity of Temim carried dismay along the entire Christian frontier. Ocaña, Aurelia, Cuenca were again subjected to Moslem authority. The policy of Al-Mansur, which for a quarter of a century, without intermission, had maintained the Holy War, was renewed. Ali reinforced his brother with an army of a hundred thousand Africans, which, after desolating a large part of Castile, formed the siege of Toledo. Unable to make any impression upon that fortress, the invaders stormed and burned Talavera, Guadalajara, Madrid, and many other less important cities. Ibn-Abi-Bekr invaded Portugal and took Santarem and Lisbon. The remoteness of his capital, the restless and impulsive character of his subjects, the danger of sudden revolution, soon necessitated the return of Ali, whose enterprise could not be dignified by the name of a campaign, and was, in fact, nothing more than a gigantic foray. The number of Christian captives who followed in the train of his army exceeded any that had passed the strait since the invasion of Musa. Year after year the lieutenants of the Sultan carried their ravages into the enemy’s country. No quarter was given or expected in these expeditions. All prisoners not available as slaves were inhumanly butchered, and the women and children exhibited for sale in the markets of Al-Maghrab, Egypt, and Syria.