 | The works of Washington Irving |  |
REFLECTIONS
ON
THE MOSLEM DOMINATION IN
SPAIN.
One of my favourite resorts is the
balcony of the central window of the
Hall of Ambassadors, in the lofty tower
of Comares. I have just been seated
there, enjoying the close of a long brilliant
day. The sun, as he sank behind
the purple mountains of Alhama, sent a
stream of effulgence up the valley of the
Darro, that spread a melancholy pomp
over the ruddy towers of the Alhambra;
while the Vega, covered with a slight
sultry vapour that caught the setting
ray, seemed spread out in the distance
like a golden sea. Not a breath of air
disturbed the stillness of the hour, and
though the faint sound of music and
merriment now and then arose from the
gardens of the Darro, it but rendered
more impressive the monumental silence
of the pile which overshadowed me. It
was one of those hours and scenes in
which memory asserts an almost magical
power; and, like the evening sun beaming
on these mouldering towers, sends
back her retrospective rays to light up
the glories of the past.
As I sat watching the effect of the
declining day-light upon this Moorish
pile, I was led into a consideration of
the light, elegant, and voluptuous character,
prevalent throughout its internal
architecture; and to contrast it with the
grand but gloomy solemnity of the gothic
edifices, reared by the Spanish conquerors.
The very architecture thus bespeaks
the opposite and irreconcilable natures of
the two warlike people who so long battled
here for the mastery of the peninsula.
By degrees, I fell into a course of
musing upon the singular fortunes of the
Arabian or Moresco-Spaniards, whose
whole existence is as a tale that is told,
and certainly forms one of the most
anomalous, yet splendid episodes in history.
Potent and durable as was their
dominion, we scarcely know how to call
them. They are a nation, as it were,
without a legitimate country or a name.
A remote wave of the great Arabian
inundation, cast upon the shores of Europe,
they seemed to have all the impetus
of the first rush of the torrent.
Their career of conquest, from the rock
of Gibraltar to the cliffs of the Pyrenees,
was as rapid and brilliant as the Moslem
victories of Syria and Egypt. Nay, had
they not been checked on the plains of
Tours, all France, all Europe, might
have been overrun with the same facility
as the empires of the East, and the crescent
might at this day have glittered on
the fanes of Paris and of London.
Repelled within the limits of the Pyrenees,
the mixed hordes of Asia and
Africa, that formed this great eruption,
gave up the Moslem principle of conquest,
and sought to establish in Spain a
peaceful and permanent dominion. As
conquerors, their heroism was only
equalled by their moderation; and in
both, for a time, they excelled the nations
with whom they contended. Severed
from their native homes, they
loved the land given them as they supposed
by Allah, and strove to embellish
it with every thing that could administer
to the happiness of man. Laying the
foundations of their power in a system
of wise and equitable laws, diligently
cultivating the arts and sciences, and
promoting agriculture, manufactures, and
commerce, they gradually formed an
empire unrivalled for its prosperity by
any of the empires of Christendom; and
diligently drawing round them the
graces and refinements that marked the
Arabian empire in the East, at the time
of its greatest civilisation, they diffused
the light of Oriental knowledge through
the Western regions of benighted Europe.
The cities of Arabian Spain became
the resort of Christian artisans, to instruct
Universities of Toledo, Cordova, Seville,
and Granada, were sought by the pale
student from other lands, to acquaint
himself with the sciences of the Arabs,
and the treasured lore of antiquity; the
lovers of the gay sciences resorted to
Cordova and Granada, to imbibe the
poetry and music of the East; and the
steel-clad warriors of the north hastened
thither to accomplish themselves in the
graceful exercises and courteous usages
of chivalry.
If the Moslem monuments in Spain, if
the mosque of Cordova, the alcazar of
Seville, and the Alhambra of Granada,
still bear inscriptions fondly boasting of
the power and permanency of their domination,
can the boast be derided as
arrogant and vain? Generation after
generation, century after century, had
passed away, and still they maintained
possession of the land. A period had
clapsed longer than that which has passed
since England was subjugated by the
Norman Conqueror, and the descendants
of Musa and Taric might as little anticipate
being driven into exile across the
same straits, traversed by their triumphant
ancestors, as the descendants of
Rollo and William, and their veteran
peers, may dream of being driven back
to the shores of Normandy.
With all this, however, the Moslem
empire in Spain was but a brilliant exotic,
that took no permanent root in the
soil it embellished. Severed from all
their neighbours in the West, by impassable
barriers of faith and manners, and
separated by seas and deserts from their
kindred of the East, they were an isolated
people. Their whole existence was
a prolonged, though gallant and chivalric
struggle, for a foothold in a usurped
land.
They were the outposts and frontiers
of Islamism. The peninsula was the
great battle-ground where the Gothic
conquerors of the North, and the Moslem
conquerors of the East, met and strove
for mastery; and the fiery courage of
the Arab was at length subdued by the
obstinate and persevering valour of the
Goth.
Never was the annihilation of a people
more complete than that of the Moresco.
Spaniards. Where are they? Ask the
shores of Barbary and its desert places.
The exiled remnant of their once powerful
empire disappeared among the barbarians
of Africa, and ceased to be a
nation. They have not even left a distinct
name behind them, though for
nearly eight centuries they were a distinct
people. The home of their adoption
and of their occupation for ages,
refuses to acknowledge them, except as
invaders and usurpers. A few broken
monuments are all that remain to bear
witness to their power and dominion, as
solitary rocks left far in the interior,
bear testimony to the extent of some vast
inundation. Such is the Alhambra. A
Moslem pile, in the midst of a Christian
land; an Oriental palace amidst the
Gothic edifices of the West; an elegant
memento of a brave, intelligent, and
graceful people, who conquered, ruled,
and passed away.
| The works of Washington Irving | |