Note (return) — MOSLEM HISTORIES OF SPAIN.1

With the Arab, conquest the authentic history commences; and the accounts given from the Moslem writers of this memorable event, which first gave the followers of the Prophet a footing in Europe, differ in no material point from the eloquent narrative of Gibbon. Al-Makkari, however, does not fail to inform us, that predictions had been rife from long past ages, which foretold the invasion and conquest of the country by a fierce people from Africa; and potent were the spells and talismans constructed to ward off the danger, "by the Greek kings who reigned in old times." Several of these are described with due solemnity; and among them we find the tale of the visit paid by Roderic3 to the magic tower at Toledo, which has been rendered familiar by the pages of Scott and Southey. We shall not here recapitulate the well-known incidents of the wrongs and revenge of Count Yllan, or Julian, the first landing of Tarif at Tarifa, the second expedition sent by Musa under Tarik Ibn Zeyad, and the death or disappearance of the Gothic king on the fatal day of Guadalete.4 So complete was the discomfiture of the Christians, that the kingdom fell, without a second blow, before the victors of a single field; and was overrun with such rapidity, that from the inability of the conquerors to garrison the cities which surrendered, they were entrusted for the time to the guard of the Jews!—a singular circumstance, which, when coupled with the statement that many of the Berbers (of whom the invading army was almost wholly composed) were recent converts from Judaism,5 would apparently imply that the conquest was facilitated by a previous correspondence. The subjugation of the country was completed by the arrival of Musa himself, who reduced Seville and the other towns which still held out, and is even said to have crossed the Pyrenees and sacked Narbonne;6 but this is not mentioned by any Christian writer, and is referred by the translator to his invasion of Catalonia, which the Arabs considered as part of "the land of the Franks." After the first fury of conquest had subsided, the Christians who remained in their homes were permitted to live unmolested, on payment of the capitation-tax; but peculiar privileges were accorded to the Jews, and the hold of the Moslems on the country was strengthened by the vast influx of settlers, not only from Africa, but from Syria and Arabia, who were attracted by the reports of the riches and fertility of the new province. Nearly all the tribes of Arabia are enumerated by Al-Makkari as represented in Spain; and the feuds of the two great divisions, the Beni-Modhar7 or race of Adnan, and the Beni-Kahttan or Arabs of Yemen, gave rise to most of the civil wars which subsequently desolated Andalus.