from home. The Sultan Muawiyah warned his son that they altered
for the worse when abroad. See Ockley's "Saracens."

These feuds of Yemenites against Modharites, complicated by the
accession of Berbers now to one side, now to the other, continued
without intermission till the first Khalif of Cordova, Abdurrahman ibn
Muawiyah, established his power all over Spain.

The successor of Balj and Thaleba ibn Salamah did indeed try to break up
the Syrian faction by separating them. He placed those of Damascus in
Elvira; of Emesa in Seville; of Kenesrin in Jaen; of Alurdan[1] in
Malaga and Regio; of Palestine in Sidonia or Xeres; of Egypt in Murcia;
of Wasit in Cabra; and they thus became merged into the body of
Andalusian Arabs.

These Berber wars had an important influence on the future of Spain;
for, since the Berbers had settled on all the Northern and Western
marches, when they were decimated by civil war, and many of the
survivors compelled to return to Africa,[2] owing to the famine which
afflicted the country from 750 to 755, the frontiers of the Arab
dominion were left practically denuded of defenders,[3] and the
Christians at once advanced their boundaries to the Douro, leaving
however a strip of desert land as a barrier between them and the
Moslems. This debateable land they did not occupy till fifty years
later.[4]

[1] _I.e._, Jordan. See Al Makkari, i. 356, De Gayangos' note.

[2] Dozy, iii. 24.

[3] Al Makkari, ii. 69.

[4] When they built a series of fortresses as Zarnora,
Simancas, San Estevan.

CHAPTER III.

THE MARTYRDOMS AT CORDOVA.

Abdurrahman Ibn Muawiyah landed in Spain with 750 Berber horsemen in May
756. The Khalifate of Cordova may be said to begin with this date,
though it was many years before the new sultan had settled his power on
a firm basis, or was recognised as ruler by the whole of Moslem Spain.

During the forty-five years of civil warfare which intervened between
the invasion of Tarik and the landing of Abdurrahman, we have very
little knowledge of what the Christians were doing. The Arab historians
are too busy recounting the feuds of their own tribes to pay any
particular attention to the subject Christians. But we may gather that
the latter were, on the whole, fairly content with their new
servitude.[1] The Moslems were not very anxious to proselytize, as the
conversion of the Spaniards meant a serious diminution of the
tribute.[2] Thos