alus amounted to 5,480,000 gold _din[=a]rs_, collected
from taxes," (it is elsewhere said from the _land_-tax:) besides
765,000 derived from markets--exclusive also of the royal fifth of the
spoil, and the capitation-tax levied on Christians and Jews living in
the Moslem dominions, the amount of which is said to have equaled all
the rest. An annual sum of equal amount, reckoning the _din[=a]r_ at
ten shillings, had never in the history of the world been raised in a
territory of the same extent, and probably equaled the united incomes
of all the Christian princes in Europe--if we except the revenue of
the Greek Emperor, it certainly far exceeded them. "Of this vast
income," Ibn Khallekan continues, "one-third was appropriated to the
payment of the army, another third was deposited in the royal coffers
to cover the expenses of the household, and the remainder was spent
yearly in the construction of Az-zahra and such other buildings as
were erected under his reign." This tripartite allotment of the
revenue is alluded to under several reigns: the expenses of
administration and the salaries of the civil functionaries were
included under the second head; and the third portion was, in ordinary
case, reserved "to repel invasions and meet emergencies."

The prince under whom the vast revenue thus stated is said to have
been collected, ascended the throne on the death of his grandfather
Abdullah, in the 300th year of the Hejra, and the 912th of the
Christian era:--and his reign, of more than fifty lunar years, saw the
power and splendour of the Umeyyan dynasty attain its zenith. For some
years after his accession, he headed his armies in person against the
Christians and the partizans of Ibn Hafssun, who still continued in
arms: but the severe defeat which he received in 939 at Simaneas, near
Zamora, (called by Moslem writers the battle of Al-handik,) from
Ramiro II. of Leon, disgusted him with active warfare; and he deputed
the command of his armies to his generals and the princes of the
blood, who, in annual campaigns, so effectually kept the Christians
within their limits, that little territorial acquisition was made by
them during his reign; while the voluntary adhesion of the Berber
tribes, after the overthrow of the Edrisite dynasty in 941 by the arms
of the Fatimite khalifs, gave him almost unresisted possession of
great part of Fez and Morocco. The defeat of Al-handik, and the
treason and execution in 950, of his elder so