Part 7

A Mohammedan author of the twelfth century of our era, Al-hijárí, Abu Mohammed, wrote a description of Cordova in a volume called _Al-mishab_, ‘The Chatterer,’ in which he describes the glories of the city. ‘Cordova,’ says he, ‘was, during the reign of the Beni-Merwan, the cupola of Islam, the convocation of scholars, the court of the Sultans of the family of Omeyyah, and the residence of the most illustrious tribes of Yemen. Students from all parts of the world flocked thither at all times to learn the sciences of which Cordova was the most noble repository, and to derive knowledge from the mouths of the doctors and _ulemas_ who swarmed in it. Cordova is to Andalus what the head is to the body. Its river is one of the finest in the world, now gliding slowly through level lawns, or winding softly across emerald fields sprinkled with flowers, and serving it for robes; now flowing through thickly planted groves, where the song of birds resounds perpetually in the air, and now widening into a majestic stream to impart its waters to the numerous wheels constructed on its banks, communicating fresh vigour to the land.’

The extent of ancient Cordova has been differently stated, owing, no doubt, to the rapid increase of its population and the expansion of the buildings under the Sultans of the dynasty of Merwan on the one hand, and on the other, to the calamities and disasters by which it was afflicted under the last sovereigns of that house. Cordova is further described by Mohammedan writers as a city which never ceased augmenting in size, and increasing in importance from the time of its subjugation by the Moslems until A.D. 1009-10, when, civil war breaking out within it, the capital fell from its ancient splendour, gradually decaying and losing its former magnificence until its final destruction A.D. 1236, when it fell into the hands of the Christians.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] It is said that many of the pillars were brought from the plunder of Narbonne, the French town on the Mediterranean.

[2] The new Christian Church was dedicated to SS. Faustus and Marcial. The priests quitted their Cathedral peacefully, bearing in procession the relics and images of the saints.

[3] _The maksurrah_ is a screen or enclosure surrounding the _mih-rab_, with a sort of throne or platform where the Sultan sits, elevated above the level of the Mosque. The whole of that space which was taken up by the _maksurrah_ is now occupied by the chapel of St. Estevan.

[4] The _mih-rab_ is a recess having a cavity within one of its walls, wherein stood that copy of the Koran held in highest veneration. The cavity also marked that point of the compass towards which stands the _Ka’bah_, the object of veneration at Mecca.

[5] The four columns are yet in place in what is now the chapel of St. Peter. Behind the mih-rab at Cordova was a room where other copies of the Koran were kept. Both the sanctuary, and the mih-rab room, now form part of St. Peter’s Chapel, which the inhabitants vulgarly call La Capilla del Zancarron--the chapel of the shin-bone--from a popular belief that the shin-bone of the Prophet was there preserved.

[6] _Foseyfasa._--Gayangos tells us that the word is not in the dictionaries, but that, according to an old Arabian writer, it is a substance of glass and small pebbles crushed and baked together, uniting, with great variety of colour, great brilliancy and beauty; it is sometimes mixed with silver and gold. One of the conditions of peace granted to the Emperor of Constantinople by the Khalif Al-walid was that the Emperor should provide a certain quantity of _foseyfasa_ or enamelled work for the great Mosque at Damascus. Idrísí, in his description of the Mosque of Cordova, says that the enamel which covered the walls of the _mih-rab_ came from Constantinople.

[7] Merwan, the last Khalif at Damascus of the Beni Omeyyah dynasty, was the ancestor of Abd-er-Rahman I.