SAADIANS

Meanwhile, behind all the Berber turmoil a secret work of religious
propaganda was going on. The Arab element had been crushed but not
extirpated. The crude idolatrous wealth-loving Berbers apparently
dominated, but whenever there was a new uprising or a new invasion it
was based on the religious discontent perpetually stirred up by
Mahometan agents. The longing for a Mahdi, a Saviour, the craving for
purification combined with an opportunity to murder and rob, always gave
the Moslem apostle a ready opening; and the downfall of the Merinids was
the result of a long series of religious movements to which the European
invasion gave an object and a war-cry.

The Saadians were Cherifian Arabs, newcomers from Arabia, to whom the
lax Berber paganism was abhorrent. They preached a return to the creed
of Mahomet, and proclaimed the Holy War against the hated Portuguese,
who had set up fortified posts all along the west coast of Morocco.

It is a mistake to suppose that hatred of the Christian has always
existed among the North African Moslems. The earlier dynasties, and
especially the great Almohad Sultans, were on friendly terms with the
Catholic powers of Europe, and in the thirteenth century a treaty
assured to Christians in Africa full religious liberty, excepting only
the right to preach their doctrine in public places. There was a
Catholic diocese at Fez, and afterward at Marrakech under Gregory IX,
and there is a letter of the Pope thanking the "Miromilan" (the Emir El
Moumenin) for his kindness to the Bishop and the friars living in his
dominions. Another Bishop was recommended by Innocent IV to the Sultan
of Morocco; the Pope even asked that certain strongholds should be
assigned to the Christians in Morocco as places of refuge in times of
disturbance. But the best proof of the friendly relations between
Christians and infidels is the fact that the Christian armies which
helped the Sultans of Morocco to defeat Spain and subjugate Algeria and
Tunisia were not composed of "renegadoes" or captives, as is generally
supposed, but of Christian mercenaries, French and English, led by
knights and nobles, and fighting for the Sultan of Morocco exactly as
they would have fought for the Duke of Burgundy, the Count of Flanders,
or any other Prince who offered high pay and held out the hope of rich
spoils. Any one who has read Villehardouin and Joinville will own that
there is not much to choose between the motives ani