Chapter XIII: Reign of Al-Hakem II (2)

A deep and mysterious significance has always attached to the celebration of the feast of Ramadhan in the Mohammedan world, but nowhere were its rules observed with such solemnity, and its ceremonies performed with such splendor, as in the capital of Mohammedan Spain. It corresponded in many respects to the Lent of the Christian Church. From dawn to dark not a mouthful of food, not a drop of water, could pass the lips of the consistent believer. After sunset he was, in a measure, recompensed for his privations during the day. Lamps were hung from tower and minaret. The tinkle of the mandolin and the mellow notes of the lute were heard from latticed balconies. The sounds of boisterous revelry rose faintly on the midnight air from retired court-yards and the distant apartments of majestic palaces. Crowds in the most picturesque of costumes swept through the streets. Dancing-girls and story-tellers, surrounded by appreciative audiences, plied their several vocations in the squares, under the glistening foliage of lemon- and orange-trees. The Koranic prohibition of indulgence in wine was too often forgotten, and the indignation of the abstemious Moslem was frequently aroused by the sight of transgressors in every stage of intoxication. On all sides were the evidences of joy, carelessness, and festivity.

Inside the Mosque a far different scene presented itself to the eye of the delighted spectator. From the lofty gallery of the minaret,--whose centre was veiled in obscurity, but whose gilded crest glittered with the magical play of a hundred colored lanterns,--the piercing voice of the muezzin was calling the people to prayer. Through every doorway an endless living stream poured into the temple. Among the worshippers, but keeping aloof from the surging mass, were numbers of strangely muffled figures, accompanied by gigantic blacks attired in robes of silk and gold. These were the ladies of the harems, whom the liberal ideas of Andalusian society usually permitted to dispense with the veil, but which, assumed on this occasion from choice, became a convenient disguise and an invaluable aid to intrigue. The interior suggested a vision of enchantment. Myriads of lights illumined every corner of the vast edifice, rivalling in their intolerable brilliancy the blinding glare of the meridian sun. Their rays were reflected and multiplied by the gleaming walls; by the ceiling, with its broad inscriptions and its bewildering arabesques; by the metallic foliage of a thousand capitals; by the portal of the Maksurah with its scales of polished gold. The air was heavy with the smoke of amber, aloes, and ambergris. Far away through long vistas of columns, the beautiful Mihrab, whose vitreous surface sparkled with the radiance of countless jewels of every conceivable hue, pointed out to the believer the location of the Kiblah. Following the example of the imam, visible from his lofty station in the mimbar, the innumerable multitude, as if actuated by a single impulse, raised its voice in prayer, and moved in unison through the repeated prostrations prescribed by the Mohammedan ritual. Of such a fascinating character was the sight to be witnessed during every night of the festival, in the most sumptuous temple of Islam, enriched by the munificence and the piety of the most enlightened sovereigns of the age, whose appointments surpassed, in their incredible magnificence, alike the boasted decorations of Pagan antiquity and the luxurious creations inspired by the wild imagination of the Orient; where gold and silver, where rare woods and precious gems were employed, like the commonest materials, in lavish profusion; where trophies of victory, ostentatiously displayed, reminded the zealot of the triumphs of the Faith; where the excited senses of the worshipper were soothed by the costliest odors from jewelled censers; and where, disposed in silver chandeliers and candelabras, rows upon rows of perfumed tapers diffused through the endless colonnades their lustre and their fragrance.

On the north side of the Court of the Oranges stood the stately minaret erected during the reign of Abd-al-Rahman III. A master-piece of architecture, and, in every respect, appropriate to the sumptuous building for whose use it was intended, it was universally conceded to be without a rival in the world. It was twenty-seven feet square and one hundred and eight feet high. Constructed of polished freestone brought from Africa, its sides were carved in elegant tracery, whose gilded patterns were projected upon a ground of ultramarine and vermilion. It was lighted by windows forming graceful arches, supported by diminutive columns of red and white jasper. Half of the windows had two openings, and the remainder, three, and disposed alternately amidst the maze of varied and brilliant decorative designs, they produced a charming effect. The interior contained two stairways, so contrived that a person ascending or descending either was invisible to any one upon the other. A gallery, eighty-one feet from the ground, was used by the muezzin for the duties of his sacred office. Another and a smaller structure, corresponding in style with the one upon which it was superimposed, rose to the additional height of twelve feet, and was furnished with battlements similar to those of the Mosque. Its summit was adorned with three huge balls, two of gold and one of silver, encircled by lilies of the latter metal, crowned with a pomegranate of burnished gold. Three hundred persons of all ranks--many of whom, like the servitors of the Kaaba, were eunuchs--were employed in the various offices of the Great Mosque, the menials being lodged within its walls. A guard was constantly maintained, day and night, in the vicinity of the Maksurah, under whose floor were vaults for the custody of the candlesticks and the various sacred vessels used in the ceremonies of festivals.

Such was the superb temple of Cordova, once the pride of Islam, and one of the noblest monuments of superstition and policy ever conceived by human genius or erected by human power. Its completion made possible the grand achievements of the Ommeyade dynasty, whose influence, acting indirectly upon Christian nations, greatly facilitated the emancipation of the human intellect, long confined by the galling bonds of ecclesiastical intolerance and heathen tradition. The inspiration of its architects was derived from many sources; in its plan it exhibited the conformation of the synagogue and the tabernacle; in its decoration were displayed the luxurious adornments of the Greek cathedral; its tapers and its incense recalled the Latin ceremonial, in its turn borrowed from the pompous ritual of Pagan sacrifice. Even in its present dilapidated state, the original purposes of its institution are apparent at every step; and nothing short of its entire destruction could eradicate the enthusiastic impressions excited by the first view of its singular interior, with its forest of columns, and its tarnished and mutilated vestiges of Oriental splendor. It is eminently typical of the civilization of a vanished race, whose deeds are written in something more enduring than brass or marble, and serves to indicate to posterity the sublimity of the spirit that could contrive, and the skill and resources that could execute, an undertaking of such grandeur and magnificence.

The health of Al-Hakem growing steadily worse, he made preparations to avoid, as far as possible, the evils incident to a disputed succession. He had only one son, Hischem, then fourteen years of age; but the history of his house abounded with instances of the unscrupulous ambition of royal claimants belonging to the collateral branches who had aspired to establish their pretensions by arms. Without declaring his object, a grand council of nobles, governors of provinces, generals of the army, and ministers of state was convened at Cordova. With bowed head and faltering gait, the feeble monarch ascended for the last time the steps of his throne. Through the vizier, he explained to the assembled officials the reason why he had called them together, and made the request--which was understood as a command--that all should attach their signatures to an instrument declaring Hischem the sole heir to the crown of the khalifate. This having been done, similar documents were despatched without delay into all the provinces of the empire, to be signed by the inferior officials of the government and even by the people, in order to secure, by every practical expedient, the permanence of the dynasty and the integrity of its succession, which had at last come to be recognized as dependent upon the law of primogeniture. We shall see, in the sequel, how far these elaborate and well-contrived precautions were successful.

The few months which remained to Al-Hakem after the investiture of his son with royal power were occupied in the performance of good works. His worldly affairs and the future of his empire had been committed to the hands of others. The condition of his mind and his failing eye-sight precluded him from the enjoyments and the consolations of literature. Conscious of his increasing infirmities, and admonished daily of his approaching end, he endeavored to employ his entire time in the fulfilment of the duties of a devout Mussulman. His life had been disgraced by no excesses, disfigured by no persecutions, stained with no crimes. He had ever been distinguished for the exercise of a broad and unostentatious charity. Calumny itself could neither accuse him of fanaticism nor impute to him even the suspicion of infidelity. The most precise and orthodox interpreters of the law and the boldest freethinkers had been equally welcome at his court, and had daily encountered each other in the great libraries of his capital. The absolute intellectual liberty which there existed was, indeed, considered a reproach by ignorant Moslems of less enlightened lands, who could not understand the association with heretics and the toleration of infidels; but in Spain, where a system of universal education had been established, and was enforced as well by law as by the influence of public opinion, this inestimable privilege was thoroughly appreciated.

Thus, although the Khalif had no grave offences against morality to reproach himself with, he felt, like every truly conscientious man, that he had failed to comply with many of the injunctions of his creed. To atone, in a measure, for these deficiencies was now his only care. He dispensed great sums in charity. He diminished the taxes imposed upon the provinces of the empire by one-sixth, a measure most grateful to his subjects, and, at the same time, without detriment to the treasury, the country being at peace, and the revenues increasing under the wise and economical administration of the Vizier Moshafi. He emancipated and provided for large numbers of slaves. He directed that the rent of that quarter of the bazaar of the capital occupied by the saddlers--which was one of the perquisites of the crown--should hereafter, for all time, be set apart for the benefit of the schools maintained at public expense for the children of the poor. And, finally, knowing how much the happiness of a people is dependent on the character of their ruler, he constantly inculcated, and impressed by argument and parental authority upon the mind of his son, Prince Hischem, the duties and the grave responsibilities of a sovereign; the evils of war; the destructive consequences of ambition; the enduring benefits of peace; the necessity of a pure administration of justice; the value of continence; the pleasures to be derived from the acquisition of knowledge; the consolations arising from the observance of the precepts of virtue, and the practice of an enlightened morality.

At last, this great monarch, whose titles to distinction are derived from far more noble sources than those whence emanates the fame attaching to the sanguinary achievements of the conqueror, was gathered to his fathers. His son, whose gentle disposition inspired the hope that he would profit by the wise counsels and the pious example he had enjoyed, recited the burial-service, and the body of Al-Hakem was committed to the sepulchre. The bier was followed by a mighty concourse, whose tears and lamentations manifested their grief, and whose apprehensions of impending misfortune were betrayed by the cry, “Our Father is dead, and with him dies the sword of Islam, the support of the weak and the terror of the proud!”

The prominent features of the character of Al-Hakem were his love of learning, his profuse but always judicious liberality, and his profound reverence for the doctrines of the Koran and the laws of the empire. The few military operations he was called upon to direct showed no want of vigor, and suggested that in a less peaceful age he might have obtained the laurels of a successful general. His devotion to literature amounted to a passion. No monarch of whom history makes mention has equalled him in the extent of his knowledge or the number and diversity of his literary accomplishments. In every country of the world, in the foci of civilization, in the great capitals and commercial emporiums of the East, at Bagdad, Cairo, Damascus, Alexandria, Constantinople, his agents were stationed to secure books for his libraries. No price was too extravagant to pay, no difficulty was too arduous to surmount, in the acquisition of a work whose character made it a desirable addition to the vast collection of the palace of Cordova. The rarity of a volume was a special inducement to its purchase. Where the owner refused to part with a manuscript, he was, as a rule, easily prevailed upon to allow it to be copied, and his courtesy was always munificently rewarded. In the extensive libraries of the princes of the Orient, whose collections, however valuable, could not vie with the superb one of Al-Hakem, were constantly occupied the expert scribes and copyists of that accomplished, untiring monarch; investigators whose labors were never terminated, whose pens were never idle. A premium was offered to every writer of note whose productions should be first submitted to the Khalif, and the knowledge of this fact often procured for him the inspection of manuscripts long before they were made public in the country where they were composed. The emulation and the aspirations of distinguished authors caused their works to be transmitted to Cordova from the most distant lands, from Al-Maghreb, Egypt, Byzantium, Syria, and Persia, and the reward for a composition of unusual merit not infrequently reached the enormous figure of a thousand pieces of gold.

Under the influence of such potent agencies, it is not remarkable that great popularity was communicated to the study of every branch of human knowledge. Treatises replete with the stores of ancient wisdom were brought forth from dusty corners where they had lain neglected for centuries; the sages of Greece were translated into Arabic; and the philosophy of Aristotle and the problems of Euclid were publicly expounded for the benefit of the multitude. In a society where intellectual pre-eminence was a certain passport to official distinction, the study of letters soon became not only a popular and absorbing pursuit, but one of the most desirable of professions. The accumulation of books was the first employment of an aspirant to public consideration and political fame. In the house of almost every prosperous citizen a collection of volumes, not exhibited to display the wealth or pedantry of the owner, but with whose contents he was more or less familiar, was preserved. For the benefit of those whose means were too limited for the possession of such luxuries, as well as to afford every facility for the promotion of intelligence and the advancement of science, public libraries were founded in all the great cities of the Peninsula. With the growing demand for manuscripts, their value not only increased in the markets of the world, but, through the enormous prices they commanded, literary industry was stimulated to their search and reproduction. It was a well-known fact that no gift was so acceptable to the Khalif as a rare manuscript, or the first copy of a new work by an author of established reputation. The library of Al-Hakem II. was undoubtedly the greatest repository of learning which had up to that time existed in Europe. As a significant token of the estimation in which its volumes were held, the appointments and furniture of the building where they were deposited exhibited all the magnificence of a palace. The floor was of rare and costly marble, the walls and ceiling of alabaster and mosaic, the columns of jasper and verde-antique. The cases were of polished woods, some selected for their rarity, others for the delightful fragrance they exhaled. Inscriptions in characters of gold indicated the contents of the shelves, or inspired the student, by the repetition of the maxims of famous writers, to emulate the example of the wise and virtuous scholars of antiquity. The manuscripts in time became so numerous that the halls of the library, extensive as they were, could not contain them. In the scriptorium an army of binders and calligraphists was employed, and the finest books were gilded and illuminated with a taste and elegance that have never been equalled. The number of volumes in the collection of the Khalif is variously stated at from four hundred thousand to six hundred thousand. Forty-four volumes were required for the catalogue alone. With the contents of most of these works Al-Hakem is said to have been familiar, and, indeed, many of them were enriched with notes and comments written by his own hand. The title-page of each volume bore not only the name of the author but also his genealogy, as well as the dates of his birth and his death, all collected and preserved by the indefatigable industry of the royal scholar. His prodigious memory; his powers of acquisition; his critical acumen; his talents for composition; and the capacity which could abstract from the administration of the public affairs of a great monarchy sufficient time for literary undertakings that, under ordinary circumstances, could hardly be accomplished in a lifetime of constant study, are marvellous and incredible. For Al-Hakem was an historian of approved merit, as well as an impartial critic and a voluminous commentator. He wrote a history of Spain, now unhappily lost, which was considered a high authority in its time, and whose reputation was universally admitted to be independent of the prestige which it would naturally derive from the name and rank of the author. Such was his erudition that in knowledge on obscure points of genealogy and biography he was without a rival, even in the learned court of Cordova; and his fund of historical information was so profound, and his judgment so accurate, that his opinions were respected and unquestioned by the most accomplished scholars of the Mohammedan world. As may be conjectured, a prodigious impulse was imparted to education by this extraordinary patronage of letters. The accumulated wisdom of Africa, Asia, and Europe was to be found at Cordova. Reports of the munificence of Al-Hakem, and the fame of his splendid court, where literary attainments were a recommendation to royal favor, had been transmitted along the highways of commerce to the most isolated quarters of the globe. It was the ambition of every scholar to complete his studies in a society which offered such unrivalled advantages. A multitude of students of every nationality constantly thronged the streets of the capital. Education was reduced to a system, whose regulations were enforced with military precision. To invest the cause of instruction with additional prestige, the influence of royalty was invoked, and Al-Mondhir, the brother of the Khalif, was charged with the general supervision of the institutions of learning. The charity of Al-Hakem had founded at Cordova no less than twenty-seven schools, where the children of the poor received an education not inferior in thoroughness to that conferred by the best colleges of the empire.

The intellectual progress of the nation was greatly assisted by the freedom of thought which was universally prevalent. The study of philosophy was encouraged, and the promulgation of the most heretical opinions was neither prohibited by public sentiment, nor allowed to be interfered with by the fanaticism of the orthodox sects. By the incessant collision of opinions, by the comparison of authorities, and by the examination of antagonistic doctrines a general spirit of inquiry sprang up; and, in consequence of its dissemination, even the professors of the University were not wrongfully suspected of a leaning towards atheism.

The efforts of Al-Hakem had been early directed to the reformation of manners, an invidious task which might well exhaust the resolution and tact of the most politic and courageous sovereign. The example of the Orient, the possession of wealth, and the influence of luxury had introduced and promoted the demoralizing vice of drunkenness. The wines of Andalusia were then, as now, famous for their palatable as well as for their exhilarating qualities. The country was covered with vineyards, and the products of the wine-press formed no inconsiderable item of the commercial statistics of the Peninsula. Debauchery, at first carried on in secret, had grown bold with the open countenance of high officials and the increasing impunity with which it was practised; and it was hinted that even the ministers of religion did not hesitate to indulge in a vice so severely reprobated by the Koran. The prohibited beverages were not confined to wines, for inebriating liquors distilled from figs, dates, and other fruits were also consumed in large quantities. This pernicious habit was not confined to the wealthier class, but was almost universal; and the scenes of revelry, in which persons of both sexes participated at banquets and other festivities, rivalled, if they did not surpass, the scandalous orgies which had in the day of their splendor and their infamy disgraced the court and capital of Damascus. The Moslem casuists attempted to excuse these breaches of the law by alleging that the use of wine was necessary to the soldier, as it inspired him with courage and increased his powers of endurance, and that this indulgence should be at least conceded to those who habitually exposed themselves to the weapons of the enemy. Such sophistry, however, failed to impose upon the discerning mind of Al-Hakem. Determined to remove, if possible, the means of intoxication, he issued a peremptory order that all the vines in the Peninsula should be torn up and destroyed. His counsellors, however, having represented that such a sweeping measure would be productive of great financial loss and consequent suffering, and that intoxicating beverages could be, and were, even then, made from other fruits, he consented to withdraw the order, which had already caused wide-spread alarm among his subjects. But his sense of duty did not permit him to leave the evil unchecked. The imams were directed to declare from the pulpits of the mosques that the use of wine was forbidden at all social assemblies and public festivities; and the kadis were especially admonished that the penalties prescribed by the law for drunkenness must be enforced, regardless of the wealth, rank, or official station of the offender. The vice was, however, too deeply rooted to be abolished by the denunciations of theologians or the impotent threats of magistrates, themselves suspected of secret participation in the offences they affected publicly to condemn. The society of Cordova, and with it that of the entire khalifate, in a minor degree, had, in fact, become thoroughly epicurean. The philosopher, while observing a decent reverence for the national religion whose rites he openly practised in the character of a good citizen and privately ridiculed in the company of his friends, was deeply tinctured with the ancient pantheistic doctrines of India. Even the populace had ceased to exhibit the fanaticism which is the inseparable companion of ignorance. The system of universal education had gradually and insensibly removed many of those prejudices on whose perpetuity depend the importance and the power of the ministers of superstition. The example of their superiors was not lost on the multitude. The attendance at the mosques was not perceptibly diminished, but it became rather a matter of custom than an observance dictated by conscientious belief and a sense of religious duty. A skepticism pervaded the masses which surprised and alarmed the devout pilgrim from a far-distant country who visited the shrine of Cordova, in his eyes, second in holiness only to the temple of Mecca. Enjoyment of the present, indifference to the future, were the principles which guided the conduct and influenced the lives of the pleasure-loving subjects of Al-Hakem. Under such circumstances, the correction of public immorality, and the repression of a popular and prevalent vice was a difficult, if not a hopeless, undertaking. The edict of the Khalif against drunkenness was publicly observed and secretly disregarded. The epicurean tendency of the age was too general and too well established to be seriously affected by the proclamations or the example of princes.

In the prosecution of enterprises of public improvement and general utility, Al-Hakem exhibited no less taste and spirit than the most renowned of his predecessors. The largest cities and the most sequestered hamlets of the empire alike acknowledged the benefits of his discriminating liberality. He repaired the highways; furnished them with fountains at convenient intervals; and, in obedience to the law of the Koran, which inculcates the duties of hospitality, established, at the end of each day’s journey, a caravansary for the entertainment of travellers. Schools, almshouses, hospitals, rose in every town, a great portion of the funds required for the construction and endowment of these institutions being derived from the private purse of the Khalif. His devotion and family pride caused him to emulate the example of his ancestors by making additions to the Great Mosque of the capital. He largely increased the capacity of the building. He erected the Maksurah, where the Commander of the Faithful could enter, unperceived by the congregation, and perform his devotions apart from the other worshippers, in accordance with that practice of Oriental seclusion which from motives of prudence or mystery had, for three generations, been adopted by the Ommeyades of Spain. Before the reign of Al-Hakem, the basin where every devout Mussulman performed the ablution, symbolical of purification, incumbent on him before entering the Mosque, was small and inadequate to the necessities of the multitudes that daily frequented the second in renown and sanctity of the fanes of Islam. This receptacle was rude and primitive; the water frequently became stagnant; and the supply was, from time to time, renewed from a neighboring well by means of vessels borne by beasts of burden. The inconvenience and incongruity of this arrangement, amidst all the splendors that surrounded it, forcibly impressed itself upon the mind of the Khalif. At vast expense and with infinite labor, he caused four basins of stone to be constructed at the angles of the court of the Mosque, two for the use of men and two for the use of women. In the centre was a great monolithic reservoir of marble, from which rose a fountain that diffused its refreshing spray over the tropical vegetation with which the court was adorned. The blocks for these basins were quarried in the mountains, miles from Cordova, and the largest required the power of seventy oxen and an army of laborers to transport it to its destination. This gigantic undertaking consumed twelve days. An abundant supply of water was conveyed from the springs and rivulets of the sierra through the aqueduct, and the overflow passed by means of pipes into immense cisterns under the pavement of the court, available in case of siege and an ever-ready protection against fire. The aqueduct also supplied many other fountains throughout the city, which were increased in number and convenience by the provident care of the Khalif. The hydraulic works of Al-Hakem are almost intact to-day, after the vicissitudes of many eventful ages and the constant wear of more than nine hundred years. The marble reservoirs, where were once performed the lustrations of Moslem zealots from every land, now furnish with water the populace of Christian Cordova, whose squalid and repulsive appearance, whose brutal physical characteristics, whose profound ignorance of the history of the cleanly, intellectual, and polished race to which these splendid memorials of art and industry are to be ascribed, offer striking evidence of the instability of the highest civilization and of the constant tendency of man to retrograde to the condition of the savage; of his incapacity to appreciate or profit by the experience and the wisdom of the conquered when the latter belong to another creed or another sect; and of the stupendous power for evil that can be exerted by a hierarchy whose established policy is founded on the systematic debasement of the intellectual faculties of its slaves.

A pleasing story is related of Al-Hakem which strikingly illustrates his equanimity and his genial manners as well as that reverence for learning and its professors which was characteristic both of the man and the monarch. The imperious demands of despotic power, as we are accustomed to regard them, admit of no hesitation or compromise in their obedience. Yet such was the mild and forbearing disposition of this great sovereign that his subjects could venture, on occasions that seemed to justify it, to postpone for their own convenience compliance with orders that were peremptory. While the faqui Abu-Ibrahim, one of the greatest of the authorities on Mohammedan law whose talents adorned the University of Cordova, was lecturing one day to a large class of students in one of the mosques, he received, through a eunuch, a summons from the Khalif to attend him instantly at the palace.

“I hear with profound respect the order of the Commander of the Faithful,” replied Abu-Ibrahim. “Return to him, and say that thou hast found me in the House of God, surrounded by my pupils, whom I am instructing in the traditions relating to the Prophet. Tell him that the moment I have finished my lecture on this holy subject, by which my audience will fail to profit if I am interrupted, I will repair to him.” The eunuch, confounded by this reply, returned to the palace, and reported the result of the interview. In a short time he came back, and addressed Abu-Ibrahim as follows: “O Faqui, I have delivered thy answer to the Sultan, who applauds thy piety and appreciates the importance of the labors thou art daily performing for the benefit of our holy religion; he will await thy pleasure, and has directed me to remain until thy lecture is finished, that I may escort thee to his presence.” Not only did the complaisance of Al-Hakem, on this occasion as on many others, yield to the claims of learning, but it was also indulgent to the age and weakness of his friend. He caused the gate which was nearest the palace to be opened to accommodate the venerable professor, who walked with difficulty and whose infirmities prevented him from mounting on horseback; and when he arrived at the entrance he found a great number of officials and domestics assembled to do him honor, and waiting to conduct him, with the ceremony due to his reputation and the esteem in which he was held by his royal master, into the hall of audience. Thus could the placid and magnanimous nature of Al-Hakem subordinate the prerogatives of royalty to the demands of knowledge, and sacrifice for the benefit of the votaries of science that implicit obedience whose neglect is an evidence of treason, and whose instantaneous observance is one of the inseparable rights of arbitrary power. His greatness even rose superior to the paltry prejudices of rank and the requirements of custom; the intimacy in which he lived with the learned, the respectful familiarity which he encouraged from his favorites, offer a surprising contrast to the tyranny and impatience usually associated with the possession of despotic authority.

There have existed few examples of a ruler so perfectly identified with the spirit of his age and the genius of his people as was Al-Hakem, whose name most appropriately signifies The Wise. Nature had not bestowed upon him the consummate talents for organization, and the prophetic sagacity with which she had gifted the founder of his dynasty, Abd-al-Rahman I. He did not possess either the political tact or the military capacity of Abd-al-Rahman III. But in all the substantial acquirements of useful knowledge; in the appreciation of the works of genius, and the disposition to reward them; in the encouragement of every art which promotes happiness and alleviates suffering; in the practice of those virtues which reflect dignity on a subject and shine with still greater lustre when included in the attributes of royalty, he was certainly without a rival among all the Spanish Mohammedan princes. He was the worthy representative of the advanced culture, the scientific attainments, the poesy and the art of Hispano-Arab civilization, as contrasted with the intellectual darkness, the disgusting immorality, the revolting filth, the abject superstition, which characterized the contemporaneous society of Europe. His tireless industry and prodigious erudition were the marvel of his time. His devotion to literature was imitated by his subjects, who embraced with enthusiasm pursuits which both diminished the privations of the poor and contributed to the enjoyment of the favorites of fortune. The highest and most lucrative positions were the rewards of those who had attained to distinguished eminence in literary pursuits, without regard to their political antecedents, their nationality, or their ancestry.

The example of the Khalif, who often, with his own hands, cultivated his gardens, was followed by the kadis, the walis, the muftis, the nobles of the empire. He utilized to the utmost the natural resources of the Peninsula. Agriculture was brought to such excellence as seemed to make any further improvement impossible. The ships of Cadiz, Seville, Almeria, and Valencia boldly traversed the most dangerous seas. The merino sheep, whose migrations over the plains of Estremadura and Castile were made subject to laws which have been adopted by and are still in force among the Spaniards, amounted to millions. Valuable deposits of ore were opened and developed for the benefit of commerce and the arts. In short, the reign of Al-Hakem represents the golden age of Moslem history,--an age that with singular felicity had appropriated the wisdom and the experience of antiquity; whose wonderful progress in every branch of industry, in every department of knowledge, was the admiration of all nations, Christian and infidel; and whose inspiring genius was, in reality, the last, as he was the most accomplished, of a famous race of kings.