Other editions of book The Moors in Spain: New Print With ilustration

The Alhambra in Granada, the Mosque in Cordova - these are some of the magnificent physical remnants of Moorish rule in Spain. Their influence on culture, engineering, and civilization has also remained in ways often unacknowledged. Lane-Poole was the first to publish a scholarly history in English about a non-Christian civilization, making this a ground-breaking work. Written with extensive knowledge, wit, and admiration, Lane-Poole’s The Moors in Spain is not to be missed.

This carefully crafted ebook is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents.In 711 the Islamic Moors of Arab and Berber descent in North Africa crossed the Strait of Gibraltar onto the Iberian Peninsula, and in a series of raids they conquered Visigothic Christian Hispania and founded the first Muslim countries in Europe. Contents: The Last of the GothsThe Wave of ConquestThe People of AndalusiaA Young PretenderThe Christian MartyrsThe Great KhalifThe Holy WarThe City of the KhalifThe Prime MinisterThe Berbers in PowerMy Cid the ChallengerThe Kingdom of GranadaThe Fall of GranadaBearing the Cross

THE history of Spain offers us a melancholy contrast. Twelve hundred years ago, Tarik the Moor added the land of the Visigoths to the long catalogue of kingdoms subdued by the Moslems. For nearly eight centuries, under her Mohammedan rulers, Spain set to all Europe a shining example of a civilized and enlightened State. Her fertile provinces, rendered doubly prolific by the industry and engineering skill of her conquerors, bore fruit an hundredfold. Cities innumerable sprang up in the rich valleys of the Guadalquivir and the Guadiana, whose names, and names only, still commemorate the vanished glories of their past. Art, literature, and science prospered, as they then prospered nowhere else in Europe. Students flocked from France and Germany and England to drink from the fountain of learning which flowed only in the cities of the Moors. The surgeons and doctors of Andalusia were in the van of science: women were encouraged to devote themselves to serious study, and the lady doctor was not unknown among the people of Cordova. Mathematics, astronomy and botany, history, philosophy and jurisprudence were to be mastered in Spain, and Spain alone. The practical work of the field, the scientific methods of irrigation, the arts of fortification and shipbuilding, the highest and most elaborate products of the loom, the graver and the hammer, the potter's wheel and the mason's trowel, were brought to perfection by the Spanish Moors. In the practice of war no less than in the arts of peace they long stood supreme. Their fleets disputed the command of the Mediterranean with the Fatimites, while their armies carried fire and sword through the Christian marches. The Cid himself, the national hero, long fought on the Moorish side, and in all save education was more than half a Moor. Whatsoever makes a kingdom great and prosperous, whatsoever tends to refinement and civilization, was found in Moslem Spain.In 1492 the last bulwark of the Moors gave way before the crusade of Ferdinand and Isabella, and with Granada fell all Spain's greatness. For a brief while, indeed, the reflection of the Moorish splendour cast a borrowed light upon the history of the land which it had once warmed with its sunny radiance. The great epoch of Isabella, Charles V., and Philip II., of Columbus, Cortes, and Pizarro, shed a last halo about the dying moments of a mighty State. Then followed the abomination of desolation, the rule of the Inquisition, and the blackness of darkness in which Spain has been plunged ever since. In the land where science was once supreme, the Spanish doctors became noted for nothing but their ignorance and incapacity, and the discoveries of Newton and Harvey were condemned as pernicious to the faith. Where once seventy public libraries had fed the minds of scholars, and half a million books had been gathered together at Cordova for the benefit of the world, such indifference to learning afterwards prevailed, that the new capital, Madrid, possessed no public library in the eighteenth century, and even the manuscripts of the Escurial were denied in our own days to the first scholarly historian of the Moors, though himself a Spaniard. The sixteen thousand looms of Seville soon dwindled to a fifth of their ancient number; the arts and industries of Toledo and Almeria faded into insignificance; the very baths—public buildings of equal ornament and use—were destroyed because cleanliness savoured too strongly of rank infidelity. The land, deprived of the skilful irrigation of the Moors, grew impoverished and neglected; the richest and most fertile valleys languished and were deserted; most of the populous cities which had filled every district of Andalusia fell into ruinous decay; and beggars, friars, and bandits took the place of scholars, merchants, and knights. So low fell Spain when she had driven away the Moors. Such is the melancholy contrast offered by her history.Stanley Poole.

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the Moors in Spain “reads like a dream.” Under their rule, thrift and prosperity prevailed throughout the country. “Palatial cities rose under their hand. Aqueducts, rivaling those of the Roman Campagna, brought the streams from the mountains to city and field. Great districts, naturally sunburnt and barren, were made by skilful irrigation to blossom into wonderful fertility. Under their rule Spain was a rich, a prosperous, and, to a great degree, a happy land. Ample revenue of their monarchs enabled them to undertake and complete works of regal splendor, of which the admired Alhambra and the Mosque—now the Cathedral—of Cordova, with its thousand pillars of variegated marble, yet remaining after the desolations of centuries, are striking examples. . . . Their universities were of such celebrity that students from all Christian lands eagerly repaired to them. . . . In poetry and elegant literature, they attained no inconsiderable success.” This book is very skilful and interesting presentation of that brilliant and adventurous tale. The reader will especially value the numerous excellent illustrations and the ample citation of the story of the Cid. The writer's sympathies are wholly, and perhaps deservedly, with the Moors against the Christians, little or no notice being taken of the vices of slavery and of the harem inseparable from Moslem civilization. "The true memorial of the Moors is seen," he says, " in desolate tracts of utter barrenness, where once the Moslem grew luxuriant vines and olives and yellow ears of corn; in a stupid, ignorant population, where once wit and learning nourished; in the general stagnation and degradation of a people which has hopelessly fallen in the scale of nations, and has deserved its humiliation." So, too, the critic may add, has fallen the once brilliant civilization of Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis. The book furnishes a fine combination of solid knowledge and literary grace. Lane-Poole writes: "THE history of Spain offers us a melancholy contrast. Twelve hundred years ago, Tarik the Moor added the land of the Visigoths to the long catalogue of kingdoms subdued by the Moslems. For nearly eight centuries, under her Mohammedan rulers, Spain set to all Europe a shining example of a civilized and enlightened State. Her fertile provinces, rendered doubly prolific by the industry and engineering skill of her conquerors, bore fruit an hundredfold. Cities innumerable sprang up in the rich valleys of the Guadelquivir and the Guadiana, whose names, and names only, still commemorate the vanished glories of their past. Art, literature, and science prospered, as they then prospered nowhere else in Europe. Students flocked from France and Germany and England to drink from the fountain of learning which flowed only in the cities of the Moors. The surgeons and doctors of Andalusia were in the van of science: women were encouraged to devote themselves to serious study, and the lady doctor was not unknown among the people of Cordova. Mathematics, astronomy and botany, history, philosophy and jurisprudence were to be mastered in Spain, and Spain alone. The practical work of the field, the scientific methods of irrigation, the arts of fortification and shipbuilding, the highest and most elaborate products of the loom, the graver and the hammer, the potter's wheel and the mason's trowel, were brought to perfection by the Spanish Moors." CONTENTS: I. THE LAST OF THE GOTHS II. THE WAVE OF CONQUEST III. THE PEOPLE OF ANDALUSIA IV. A YOUNG PRETENDER V. THE CHRISTIAN MARTYRS VI. THE GREAT KHALIF VII. THE HOLY WAR VIII. THE CITY OF THE KHALIF IX. THE PRIME MINISTER X. THE BERBERS IN POWER XI. MY CID THE CHALLENGER XII. THE KINGDOM OF GRANADA XIII. THE FALL OF GRANADA XIV. BEARING THE CROSS

the Moors in Spain “reads like a dream.” Under their rule, thrift and prosperity prevailed throughout the country. “Palatial cities rose under their hand. Aqueducts, rivaling those of the Roman Campagna, brought the streams from the mountains to city and field. Great districts, naturally sunburnt and barren, were made by skilful irrigation to blossom into wonderful fertility. Under their rule Spain was a rich, a prosperous, and, to a great degree, a happy land. Ample revenue of their monarchs enabled them to undertake and complete works of regal splendor, of which the admired Alhambra and the Mosque—now the Cathedral—of Cordova, with its thousand pillars of variegated marble, yet remaining after the desolations of centuries, are striking examples. . . . Their universities were of such celebrity that students from all Christian lands eagerly repaired to them. . . . In poetry and elegant literature, they attained no inconsiderable success.” This book is very skilful and interesting presentation of that brilliant and adventurous tale. The reader will especially value the numerous excellent illustrations and the ample citation of the story of the Cid. The writer's sympathies are wholly, and perhaps deservedly, with the Moors against the Christians, little or no notice being taken of the vices of slavery and of the harem inseparable from Moslem civilization. "The true memorial of the Moors is seen," he says, " in desolate tracts of utter barrenness, where once the Moslem grew luxuriant vines and olives and yellow ears of corn; in a stupid, ignorant population, where once wit and learning nourished; in the general stagnation and degradation of a people which has hopelessly fallen in the scale of nations, and has deserved its humiliation." So, too, the critic may add, has fallen the once brilliant civilization of Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis. The book furnishes a fine combination of solid knowledge and literary grace. Lane-Poole writes: "THE history of Spain offers us a melancholy contrast. Twelve hundred years ago, Tarik the Moor added the land of the Visigoths to the long catalogue of kingdoms subdued by the Moslems. For nearly eight centuries, under her Mohammedan rulers, Spain set to all Europe a shining example of a civilized and enlightened State. Her fertile provinces, rendered doubly prolific by the industry and engineering skill of her conquerors, bore fruit an hundredfold. Cities innumerable sprang up in the rich valleys of the Guadelquivir and the Guadiana, whose names, and names only, still commemorate the vanished glories of their past. Art, literature, and science prospered, as they then prospered nowhere else in Europe. Students flocked from France and Germany and England to drink from the fountain of learning which flowed only in the cities of the Moors. The surgeons and doctors of Andalusia were in the van of science: women were encouraged to devote themselves to serious study, and the lady doctor was not unknown among the people of Cordova. Mathematics, astronomy and botany, history, philosophy and jurisprudence were to be mastered in Spain, and Spain alone. The practical work of the field, the scientific methods of irrigation, the arts of fortification and shipbuilding, the highest and most elaborate products of the loom, the graver and the hammer, the potter's wheel and the mason's trowel, were brought to perfection by the Spanish Moors." CONTENTS: I. THE LAST OF THE GOTHS II. THE WAVE OF CONQUEST III. THE PEOPLE OF ANDALUSIA IV. A YOUNG PRETENDER V. THE CHRISTIAN MARTYRS VI. THE GREAT KHALIF VII. THE HOLY WAR VIII. THE CITY OF THE KHALIF IX. THE PRIME MINISTER X. THE BERBERS IN POWER XI. MY CID THE CHALLENGER XII. THE KINGDOM OF GRANADA XIII. THE FALL OF GRANADA XIV. BEARING THE CROSS

The Moors in Spain gives an account of the nearly eight centuries during which 'Spain set to all Europe a shining example of a civilized and enlightened State… Art, literature, and science prospered, as they then prospered nowhere else in Europe… Whatsoever makes an kingdom great and prosperous, whatsoever tends to refinement and civilisation, was found in Moslem Spain.'

THE history of Spain offers us a melancholy contrast. Twelve hundred years ago, Tarik the Moor added the land of the Visigoths to the long catalogue of kingdoms subdued by the Moslems. For nearly eight centuries, under her Mohammedan rulers, Spain set to all Europe a shining example of a civilized and enlightened State. Her fertile provinces, rendered doubly prolific by the industry and engineering skill of her conquerors, bore fruit an hundredfold. Cities innumerable sprang up in the rich valleys of the Guadalquivir and the Guadiana, whose names, and names only, still commemorate the vanished glories of their past. Art, literature, and science prospered, as they then prospered nowhere else in Europe. Students flocked from France and Germany and England to drink from the fountain of learning which flowed only in the cities of the Moors. The surgeons and doctors of Andalusia were in the van of science: women were encouraged to devote themselves to serious study, and the lady doctor was not unknown among the people of Cordova. Mathematics, astronomy and botany, history, philosophy and jurisprudence were to be mastered in Spain, and Spain alone. The practical work of the field, the scientific methods of irrigation, the arts of fortification and shipbuilding, the highest and most elaborate products of the loom, the graver and the hammer, the potter's wheel and the mason's trowel, were brought to perfection by the Spanish Moors. In the practice of war no less than in the arts of peace they long stood supreme. Their fleets disputed the command of the Mediterranean with the Fatimites, while their armies carried fire and sword through the Christian marches. The Cid himself, the national hero, long fought on the Moorish side, and in all save education was more than half a Moor. Whatsoever makes a kingdom great and prosperous, whatsoever tends to refinement and civilization, was found in Moslem Spain.

THE history of Spain offers us a melancholy contrast. Twelve hundred years ago, Tarik the Moor added the land of the Visigoths to the long catalogue of kingdoms subdued by the Moslems. For nearly eight centuries, under her Mohammedan rulers, Spain set to all Europe a shining example of a civilized and enlightened State. Her fertile provinces, rendered doubly prolific by the industry and engineering skill of her conquerors, bore fruit an hundredfold. Cities innumerable sprang up in the rich valleys of the Guadalquivir and the Guadiana, whose names, and names only, still commemorate the vanished glories of their past. Art, literature, and science prospered, as they then prospered nowhere else in Europe. Students flocked from France and Germany and England to drink from the fountain of learning which flowed only in the cities of the Moors. The surgeons and doctors of Andalusia were in the van of science…