The Idea has its adornments: as in pioneering, they will be simplicity of living and of thought; violence, cruelty, intolerance for all that bars the goal; and the equally violent reflex from these--the narcotics of sleep and sensual relaxation. Islam’s Idea now comes in the land of Spain. And the Moslem hosts who bear it and live to nourish it, settle in the south where settling is easy. And having settled down, they build a culture whose like the world sees seldom and whose causal spirit is essentially opposed to the Idea of Islam. For the Idea of Islam cannot settle down. Mohammed and his captains knew no such world as this that sends its radiance from Córdoba. Nor would they have found it good. The Prophet would have thundered: “This is blasphemy and failure. This is turning from the commands of Allah. Rather than invent new forms of splendor for your mosques, ye would do well to push on. What? Ye consort with the Jew? Ye are tolerant with the Christian? suffering his monasteries to abide in Islam? Ye turn a peaceful back on the Frank and leave to the Christian Basques the holy labor of driving Charlemagne and Roland from Roncesvalles? And ye study Aristotle? when the Koran holds all wisdom? Ye tolerate schools who explain the creation of the world by natural laws? when I have taught ye of the Hand of Allah.” Mohammed was wise. He knew that the nature of the Arab, the Idea of Islam, the conduct of the people must be one, else the Idea would fall. But if Mohammed was wise, this kingdom of south Spain was luminous. Jews collaborated in government, science, art. Christians brought their mysteries and their music; and those who chose to pray in convents were not molested. An architecture was developed. Poetry and thought flourished like grass of the fields. What had happened to Islam? The Idea born of the desert had become detached from the life of the desert people, when it lay down in this smiling southland. Life relaxed from the stern rigor of the Faith and took unto itself new forms, consonant with its relaxation: Islam whose health was war desired peace. Meantime, Spain’s absorption of invading bloods went on. Christian, Arab, Berber, Copt--each with a past mingling--mingled. There lived soon again in southern Spain, one people: but there lived now three Ideas. The Christian was the least self-conscious, the least active; the Jewish was an insidious minority; the Moslem was dominant. These three Ideas were fleshed in human beings; and the human beings were virtually one. There were Moslem lords, whose ancestry counted Visigoths and Jews; there were Christian bishops in whose veins flowed Yemen and Berber blood; there were Jewish poets whose mothers had been reared in a Harem. Under all, there was the immemorial base outnumbering the rest. It had been pagan, Catholic, Arian, Catholic again. Now for a while, it was Moslem. Within a hundred years of the African invasion, Spain was once more inhabited by Spaniards.