Part 7
THE MOSQUE--A CUFIC INSCRIPTION IN THE PLACE APPROPRIATED TO THE PERFORMANCE OF ABLUTIONS.]
mingling of blue, red, green, gilded, and luminous points, or a very intricate embroidery, changing continually, with the greatest rapidity, both design and colouring. Only from the fiery and indefatigable imagination of the Arabs could such a perfect miracle of art emanate.”
But if the mere shell of this majestic edifice, this voiceless testimony to the glory of a world-power that has gone the way of all temporal empires is still eloquent in decay, and still a force to stir the imagination, what must it have been when the spirit of Moslemism filled its courts, and the temple resounded with praise and devotion? We can get some idea of the impressiveness of a Mohammedan service in the pages of Frederick Schack’s _Poetry and Art of the Arabs in Spain and Sicily_. The following vivid passage is a description of the mosque of Cordova on a solemn fête day: “On both sides of the pulpit wave two standards to signify that Islam has triumphed over Judaism and Christianity, and that the Koran has conquered the Old and New Testaments. The ‘Almnedian’ climb upon the gallery of the high minaret and intone the ‘salam’ or salutation to the Prophet. Then the nave of the mosque fills with believers, who, clothed in white and wearing a festive aspect, gather for the oration. In a few moments, throughout the edifice nothing is to be seen but kneeling people. By the secret way which joins the temple to the alcazar, comes the khalif, who seats himself in his elevated place. A reader of the Koran reads a Sura on the reading-desk of the Tribune. The voice of the Muezzin sounds again, inviting people to the noon-day prayers. All the faithful rise and murmur their prayers, making obeisances. A servant of the mosque opens the doors of the pulpit and seizes a sword, with which, turning towards Mecca, he admonishes all to praise Mohammed, while the Prophet’s name is being celebrated from the Tribune by the singing of the ‘mubaliges.’ After this the preacher ascends the pulpit, taking from the hand of the servant the sword, which recalls and symbolises the subjection of Spain to the power of Islam. It is the day on which ‘Djihad,’ or the holy war, is to be proclaimed, the call for all able-bodied men to descend into the battle-field against the Christians. The multitude listen with silent devotion to the discourse (woven from the head of the Koran) which begins like this:
“‘Praised be God, who has increased the glory of Islam, thanks to the sword of the champion of the Faith, and who, in his Holy Book, has promised aid and victory to the believer.
“‘Allah scatters his benefits over the world.
“‘If he did not impel men to dash armed against each other, the earth would be lost.
“‘Allah has ordered that the people be fought against until they know there is but one God.
“‘The flame of war will not be extinguished until the end of the world.
“‘The Divine benediction will fall upon the mane of the war-horse until the Day of Judgment.
“‘Be you armed from head to foot, or only lightly armed, rise, and take your departure.
“‘O, believers! what will become of you if, when you are called to battle, you remain with your face turned toward the ground?
“‘Do you prefer the life of this world to that of the future?
“‘Believe me: the gates of paradise stand in the shadow of the sword.
“‘He who dies in battle for the cause of God, washes with the blood he sheds all the stains of his sins.
“‘His body will not be washed like the other bodies, because in the Day of Judgment his wounds will send out a fragrance like musk.
“‘When the warriors shall present themselves at the Gates of Paradise, a voice from within will ask: “What have you done during your life?”
“‘And they will reply: “We have brandished the sword in the struggle for the cause of God.”
“‘Then the eternal Gates will open, and the warriors will enter forty years before the others.
“‘Up, then, O believers! Abandon women, children, brothers, and worldly possessions, and go forth to the holy war!
“‘And thou, O God, Lord of the present and future world, fight for the armies of those who recognise thy Unity! Destroy the incredulous, idolaters, and enemies of thy holy faith! Overthrow their standards, and give them, with all they possess, as booty to the Mussulmans!’”
The preacher, when he has finished his discourse, exclaims, turning towards the congregation: “Ask of God!” and prays in silence. All the faithful, touching the ground with their foreheads, follow his example. The “mubaliges” sing: “Amen! Amen, O Lord of all beings!” Like the intense heat which precedes the tempest, the enthusiasm of the multitude (restrained, up to this time, in a marvellous silence) breaks out in loud murmurs, which, rising like the waves of the sea, and inundating the temple, finally make the echo of a thousand united voices resound through the naves, chapels, and vaults in one single shout: “There is no God but Allah!”
Abd-er-Rahman I. was old when he commenced the building of the Mosque, and experienced in every description of architecture. His passion for building was as eager as that of his predecessors of the house of Omeyyad, who had made Damascus the envy of the world; and, during the frequent periods of peace, he had turned all his thoughts to the adornment of his capital by works which he had himself superintended. One of his first undertakings was to supply Cordova with water by means of an aqueduct, which came from the distant hills, and the vestiges of which are visible to this day. The water thus brought from the mountains was conveyed to the palace, and thence carried to every quarter of the city by means of conduits, from which it flowed into basins, as well as into lakes, enormous tanks, reservoirs and fountains. The sultan then planted a most delightful garden, to which he gave the name of Munyat-Arrissafah, in remembrance of a country seat near Damascus, which his grandfather, the Khalif Hisham, had built, and where he himself had spent the earliest years of his life. Finding the spot a very charming one, he erected in the middle of it a magnificent palace; and, moreover, made it his residence in preference to the old palace, inhabited by the former governors of Andalus. Having an ardent love of horticulture, he commissioned a botanist to procure for him in the East fruits and plants that could be easily naturalised in Andalus; and, in this manner, it is said, Abd-er-Rahman introduced the peach, and the particular kind of pomegranate, called “Safari,” into Spain. It is believed that this best species of pomegranate obtained its name from having been sent to Abd-er-Rahman by his sister, then residing in the East, and was called “Safari,” or “the Traveller,” from this circumstance. Other derivations of the name are given, all plausible enough. One thing is certain, the fruit is called to this day in Spain, “Granada Zafari,” and is considered the best of its kind in point of flavour, smallness of seed, and abundance of juice.
Abd-er-Rahman II. carried on the work of beautifying Cordova with gardens, palaces, and bridges, but it was the third sovereign of his name, the Great Khalif, Abd-er-Rahman III., who restored the Moslem supremacy in Spain, and won for himself the title of En-Nasir li-dini-llah (“The Defender of the Faith of God”), who placed the crown on Cordova’s beauty and splendour. Byzantium, perhaps, compared with it in the loveliness of her buildings, and the luxury and refinement of her life, but no other city of Europe could approach the “Bride of Andalusia.” “To her,” sang the old Arab writer, “belong all the beauty and the ornament that delight the eye and dazzle the sight. Her long line of Sultans form her crown of glory; her necklace is strung with the pearls which her poets have gathered from the ocean of language; her dress is of the canvas of learning well knit together by her men of science; and the masters of every art and industry are the hem of her garments.”
“The inhabitants of Cordova,” says Ahmed-El-Makkari, the great Arab historian, “are famous for their courteous and polished manners, their superior intelligence, their exquisite taste and magnificence in their meals, dress, and horses. There thou wouldst see doctors, shining with all sorts of learning; lords, distinguished by their virtue and generosity; warriors, renowned for their expeditions into the country of the infidels; and officers, experienced in all kinds of warfare. To Cordova came from all parts of the world students eager to cultivate poetry, to study the sciences, or to be instructed in divinity or law; so that it became the meeting-place of the eminent in all matters, the abode of the learned, and the place of resort for the studious; its interior was always filled with the eminent and the noble of all countries, its literary men and soldiers were continually vying with each other to gain renown, and its precincts never ceased to be the arena of the distinguished, the retreat of scholars, the halting place of the noble, and the repository of the true and virtuous. Cordova was to Andalus what the head is to the body, or what the breast is to the lion.”
To-day there is nothing left in Cordova but the mosque, the bridge, and the ruins of the alcazar to mark the spot where, in the time of Abd-er-Rahman III., a city, ten miles in length, lined the banks of the Guadelquivir with mosques and gardens and marble palaces. The royal palaces of the Great Khalif included the Palace of Lovers, the Palace of Flowers, the Palace of Contentment, the Palace of the Diadem, and the palace which the Sultan named Damascus, of which the Moorish poet sang, “All palaces in the world are nothing compared to Damascus, for not only has it gardens with the most delicious fruits and sweet-smelling flowers, beautiful prospects, and limpid running waters, clouds pregnant with aromatic dew, and lofty buildings; but its night is always perfumed, for morning pours on it her gray amber, and night her black musk.” The city contained over fifty thousand palaces of the nobles, and twice that number of houses of the common people, while seven hundred mosques and nine hundred public baths had close companionship among a community who made cleanliness co-ordinate with godliness.
But perhaps the greatest monument of Moorish architecture that was ever created in Spain, the most wonderful city and palace that has ever been constructed, is to-day a name and a memory of which not a trace is in existence. That marvellous suburb of Cordova, called Ez-Zahra, “the Fairest,” which was built at the suggestion of the favourite mistress of Abd-er-Rahman III., and was
forty years in the making, has been entirely obliterated. At the foot of the “Hill of the Bridge,” at a distance of three miles from Cordova, the foundation of the city was laid in A.D. 936. A third of the royal income was expended every year in the prosecution of the work. Ten thousand labourers and three thousand beasts of burden were employed continually, and six thousand blocks of stone were cut and polished each day for building purposes. Many of its four thousand columns came from Rome, Constantinople, and Carthage; its fifteen thousand doors were coated with iron and polished brass; the walls and roof in the Hall of the Khalif were constructed of marble and gold. A marble statue of Ez-Zahra, “the Fairest,” was erected over the principal gateway.
Arabian chroniclers have exhausted their eloquence in attempting to do justice to the wonders of Medinat-Ez-Zahra, and the result is so monotonous a surfeit of superlatives that even the beauty that inspired them can scarcely reconcile us to the repetition. But the historians occasionally drop into prose in recounting the marvels of the palace, and then we learn that “the number of male servants employed by the khalif has been estimated at thirteen thousand seven hundred and fifty, to whom the daily allowance of flesh meat, exclusive of fowls and fish, was thirteen thousand pounds; the number of women of various kinds and classes, comprising the harem of the sultan or waiting upon them, is said to have amounted to six thousand three hundred and fourteen. The Slav pages and eunuchs were three thousand three hundred and fifty, to whom thirteen thousand pounds of flesh meat were distributed daily, some receiving ten pounds each, and some less, according to their rank and station, exclusive of fowls, partridges, and birds of other sorts, game, and fish. The daily allowance of bread for the fish in the pond of Ez-Zahra was twelve thousand loaves, besides six measures of black pulse, which were every day macerated in the waters.” It is small wonder that travellers from distant lands, men of all ranks and professions in life, following various religions--princes, ambassadors, merchants, pilgrims, theologians, and poets--all agreed that they had never seen in the course of their travels anything that could be compared to it.
“Indeed,” writes one Moorish chronicler, “had this palace possessed nothing more than the terrace of polished marble overhanging the matchless gardens, with the golden hall and the circular pavilion, and the works of art of every sort and description--had it nothing else to boast of but the masterly workmanship of the structure, the boldness of the design, the beauty of the proportions, the elegance of the ornaments, hangings, and decorations, whether of shining marble or glittering gold, the columns that seemed from their symmetry and smoothness as if they had been turned by lathes, the paintings that resembled the choicest landscapes, the artificial lake so solidly constructed, the cistern perpetually filled with clear and limpid water, and the amazing fountains, with figures of living beings--no imagination, however fertile, could have formed an idea of it.” So at least it struck the Moorish author, and the sight inspired him to ejaculate: “Praise be to God Most High for allowing His humble creatures to design and build such enchanting palaces as this, and who permitted them to inhabit them as a sort of recompense in this world; and in order that the faithful might be encouraged to follow the path of virtue, by the reflection that, delightful as were these pleasures, they were still far below those reserved for the true believer in the celestial Paradise!”
The effect of all this massed splendour upon the mind,
even of those whose position and duties made familiar with the treasures of Abd-er-Rahman’s palaces, is illustrated by one of the ambassadors of the Greek Emperor. The khalif received Constantine’s emissaries in the great hall of the palace of Ez-Zahra, which was specially arranged for the occasion. The richest carpets and rugs, and the most gorgeous silk awnings, covered the floor, and veiled the doors and arches, and in the midst of the apartment was set up the royal throne, overlaid with gold, and glittering with precious stones. On the right and left of the throne stood the khalif’s sons, beside them were the viziers, and behind them, in the order of their rank, were ranged the chamberlains, the nobles, and officers of the household. The ambassadors were awed and amazed by the magnificence of the scene, and the orator, charged with the office of delivering the speech of welcome, was literally struck dumb by the splendour of the spectacle. With wide, staring eyes and speechless lips he stood spellbound, caught in a maze of wonder. This man, who had grown accustomed to superb beauty, who had seen splendour piled upon splendour under the directing hand of his master, was paralysed by the effect it produced. His brain reeled, and, without uttering a word, he fell senseless to the ground. A second orator took the embossed scroll, and faced the august assemblage, but the witchery of the scene hypnotised his senses, and he, too, hesitated, faltered, and broke down.
The mere outward and visible aspect of this “brightest splendour of the world,” as the nun Hroswitha described it, fired the imagination of man, and deprived the practised orators of speech. But the mind of Cordova at this period of its history was as beautiful as its frame. It was the fountain-head of learning, the well-spring of art, the scientific centre of Europe. Literature became the study of every class, poetry was the common language of the people. The potters, the silk weavers, the glass blowers, the jewellers, swordmakers, and brass workers of Cordova were renowned throughout Europe--in all that appertained to art she was acknowledged to stand pre-eminent. The greatest doctors, the most skilled surgeons, had their homes in Cordova; and astronomers, geographers, chemists, philosophers, and scientists of every kind resorted thither to study and prosecute their researches.
Under Hakam II., the Royal library at Cordova became the largest and most celebrated collection of books in the world; and under Almanzor, the powerful minister who ruled Spain for the Khalif Hisham, the beauty of the Imperial city was jealously maintained. But the end of the Omeyyad dynasty was even then in sight, the sun of Cordova’s glory was already commencing to set. After the death of Almanzor
“Sultan after Sultan with his pomp Abode his destin’d hour and went his way,”
the puppet khalifs were enthroned and deposed at the will of successive prevailing factions. Anarchy had broken out again, the mob was Sultan, and the work of pillage and plunder was begun. The overthrow of the Almanzor order was followed by the wrecking of the Almanzor palace, which was ransacked and burned to the ground. For four days the work of riot, robbery, and massacre went on unchecked. Palace after palace was reduced to ruins, gardens were devastated, the public squares ran with blood. The brutal, savage Berbers captured the beautiful city of Ez-Zahra (A.D. 1010) by treachery, and put its garrisons to the sword, while the flying inhabitants were chased into the sacred precincts of the mosque and butchered without mercy.
Ez-Zahra, “the city of the fairest,” was pillaged; its palaces and mosques were thrown down, and the walls were given to the flames. To-day its site alone remains, and its glories exist only in name.
SEVILLE
The beginning of the history of Seville is buried, with the date of its foundation, in oblivion. It has its place in mythology as the creation of Hercules; its origin being more reasonably credited to the Phœnicians, who colonised the mineral-yielding region of Andalusia, which is watered by the Guadalquivir, and called it Tartessii. Strabo states that they built the town of Tartessus; and some authorities favour the conclusion that Seville stands on the site of that Phœnician stronghold. In 237 B.C. Hamilcar Barca conquered Andalusia, and his son-in-law founded Carthagena, which was seized by Publius Cornelius Scipio, or Scipio Africanus, during the second Punic War. Scipio founded Italica, which was to serve as a sanatorium for his invalided soldiers, and for awhile its importance eclipsed that of the neighbouring city of Seville. Honoured by the gifts of three Roman emperors born within its walls, and adorned with the splendid edifices raised by Trajan, Adrian, and Theodosius, Italica was advanced to the first rank among the Roman cities of the Peninsula. Julius Cæsar restored the balance of power to Seville in 45 B.C., when he made it his capital, and changed its name to Julia Romula. The city was fortified and protected by walls, which have been variously described as from five to ten miles in length. To-day the remains of the great aqueduct, the two high granite columns in the Alameda de Hercules, and the beautiful fragments of capitals and statues in the Museo Arqælogico, are the only existing relics of the Roman sway in Seville, while on the opposite bank of the Guadalquivir a ruined, grass-grown amphitheatre is all that is left of the once mighty town of Italica. In 584 Leovigild repaired the walls of Italica when he was beseiging Seville, and less than two centuries later those walls were greatly injured by the Moors, who further fortified and enlarged Seville with the stones brought from Italica.
In 711 Tarik captured Cordova, and in the following year Musa, the Governor of Africa, appeared before Seville with an army of 18,000 warriors. In a few weeks the city had fallen, and for 536 years the “Pearl of Andalusia” remained in the possession of the Moors. The conquerors abandoned Italica to its fate, or, rather, they used the remains of the city as a quarry, while some of the sculpture of the deserted capital, which appealed to the Arabs by its surpassing beauty, was removed to Seville. Despite the injunctions contained in the Koran, the sculptures were not destroyed, and a statue of Venus was long preserved in one of the public baths of the city. El-Makkari, writing in the sixteenth century, and quoting from an early Moorish manuscript, records that “there was once found a marble statue of a woman with a boy, so admirably executed that both looked as if they were alive; such perfection human eyes never beheld. Indeed, some Sevillians were so much struck with its beauty as to become deeply enamoured of it.” An anonymous poet, a native of Seville, made a set of verses about it, which have been translated by Don Pascual de Gayangos as follows:
“Look at that marble statue, beautiful in its proportions, surpassing everything in transparency and smoothness.
“She has with her a son, it is true, but who her husband was I cannot tell, neither was she ever in labour.
“Thou knowest her to be but a stone, but yet thou canst not look at her, for there is in her eyes something that fascinates and confounds the beholder.”
It has been said that the Sevillians pretend to regard Hercules as the builder of the city, and the _Puerta de la Carne_ is inscribed with the following distich:
“_Condidit Alcides--renovavit Julius urbem, Restituit Christo Fernandus tertius heros._”
This has been paraphrased in an inscription over the Puerta de Xerex:
“Hercules me edificó Julio Cesar me cercó De muros y torres altas; Un Rey godo me perdió, El Rey Santo me ganó, Con Garci Perez de Vargas.”
Hercules built me; Julius Cæsar encircled me with walls and lofty towers; a Gothic king (Roderick) lost me; a saint-like king (St. Ferdinand), assisted by Garci Perez de Vargas, regained me.