a large, perhaps the
largest, part of Omar's army was Christian. Another indication of this
is found in a poem of Tarikh ibn Habib,[5] where, speaking of the coming
destruction of Cordova, he says: "The safest place will then be the hill
of Abu Abdu, where once stood a church," meaning that Omar's Christian
soldiers would respect that sanctuary, and no other. Indeed, it is
certain that Omar himself became a Christian some time before this
battle,[6] as his father had done before him. He took the name of
Samuel, and his daughter Argentea, as we have seen, suffered martyrdom.
This change of creed on Omar's part changed the character of the war,
and gave it more of a religious,[7] and perhaps less of a national,
character, for the Spanish Moslems fell off from him, when he became
Christian and built churches.

[1] Servandus. Al Makkari, ii. 456. De Gayangos' note.

[2] Where Islam was almost extinct. Dozy, ii. 335.

[3] Al Makkari, ii. p. 456. De Gayangos' note.

[4] Ibn Hayyan, apud Al Makk., ii. p. 452. This seems to be the
same victory as that which Dozy (ii. 284) calls Polei or
Aguilar.

[5] See Dozy, ii. p. 275.

[6] Ibn Hayyan, apud Dozy, ii. p. 326.

[7] In 896, on the capture of Cazlona by a renegade named Ibn
as Khalia, all the Christians were massacred.--Dozy, ii. p.
327.

Towards the close of his reign Abdallah was able to assert his
supremacy, though Omar and his followers still held out. Omar himself
did not die till 917, some years after Abdallah's death. The king's
successor, Abdurrahman III., was a different stamp of man from Abdallah,
and the reduction of Omar became only a question of time, though, in
fact, the apostasy of Omar from Islam had made the ultimate success of
the national party very doubtful, if not impossible. After Omar's death,
his son, Djaffar, thought to recover the support of the Spanish Moslems
by embracing Islam; but he thereby lost the confidence of the
Christians, by whom he was murdered. In 928 his brother Hafs
surrendered, with Bobastro, to the Sultan, and the great rebellion was
finally extinguished.

So ended the grand struggle of the national party, first under
the-direction of the Muwallads, and then of the Christians, to shake off
the Arab and Berber yoke. During the remainder of the tenth century the
strong administration of Abdurrahman III., Hakem II., and the great
Almanzor, gave the Christians no chance of raising th