The respect for women among the Moors of Spain was higher than it would be natural to expect in a land where Mohammed's influence was paramount. It is a tradition that the Prophet once declared: "I stood at the gate of Paradise and lo! most of its inmates were poor; and I stood at the gate of Hell and lo! most of its inmates were women." The Arabian nature was intuitive, ardent, impulsive. So the beauty of a beautiful woman awakened the feeling of love and chivalry. On the other hand, the women were warm-hearted, though custom required them to be dignified and self-contained. Among a people where generosity, courage, hospitality, and veneration for old age were conspicuous virtues, it is not strange that women should have received more than ordinary respect. And yet these very qualities, when abused, often degenerated into idleness, pride, ignorance, bigotry, and even the grossest sensuality. Chivalry, however, had its better side, for "Here gallants held it little thing for ladies' sake to die," as the old Spanish ballad tells us. The Cid stories of valor--like that of Antar in Arabian literature, Orlando in Italian, and Arthur in early English legend--brought this powerful influence upon the imaginations and conduct of both men and women: "For here did valor flourish and deeds of warlike might Ennobled lordly palaces in which was our delight." Spain was for centuries known for its gallantry. Indeed, "the Spaniards bore away the palm of gallantry from the French," and have in some respects perpetuated the influence stamped upon them by the Moorish women, even to this day. As Thomas Bourke says, in his _Moors in Spain_: "Much of the chivalrous manner of the Granadians is no doubt to be attributed to their women, who were exactly qualified to create and keep alive this spirit of gallantry among their countrymen and to occasion those excesses of love, of which so many examples, equally extraordinary as pleasing, occur both in Spanish and in Arabian history."