Identifier: historyofallnati09wrig (find matches)
Title: A history of all nations from the earliest times; being a universal historical library
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors: Wright, John Henry, 1852-1908
Subjects: World history
Publisher: (Philadelphia, New York : Lea Brothers & company
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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Arabs, and by their barbaritytowards the 2:)ilgrims at Jerusalem occasioned the First Crusade. Through the battle of Jerez de la Frontera, in 711, the greaterpart of Spain fell into the hands of the jVrabs, and recei\ed inAbd-er-Iiahmun, the only Omayyad who escaped the murderoushands of Abul Abbas, a common ruler, and, in the magnificentCordova, a political and intellectual centre. Arabic culture blos-somed forth gloriously in Sjjain in the domain of economic life,and no less in that of intellectual activity in every dejtartment.To this day, everywhere over Spain, we come upon traces of theunwearied pains with wliieh the Arabs, through artificial devices,sought to endow the naturally poor soil with all the conditionsessential to fertility. To this day, too, matchless architecturaltrophies, in which originality in design vies with perfection inexecution and Iich inventiveness of fancy in ornamentation, testifynot only to the genius for art, but to the material wealth of the :o2 <;J
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•0 O 0 a> 0 0) •«■ — < 0 =s THE AH ABS IN SFAIX. 103 race who held command here. The great mosque of the Omay-yads in Cordova (Plate II.), with its pillar-masses suggestive ofa palm-grove; the royal residences with their dream-like magnifi-cence,— the Alcazar of Seville, the Azzahra of Cordova, and theAlhambra of Granada, — even in their ruins impress us with avivid conception of the national pride, the creative art-sense, andthe genial pleasure in life that filled the hearts of their creatorsand indwellers. At a time when in Christendom the Romanizedworld saw its ancient high civilization vanish amid devastatinginternecine struggles, and when Germany had scarce begun toaddress its unschooled strength to higher objects, in the califateof Cordova every form of intellectual energy was in full develop-ment, and yielding fruitage in departments scarcely recognized inthe domain of Christian knowledge. Possessed of a rich nationalliterature, the iVrabs of Spain were the t

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