aliph, the civil and the sacerdotal
authority in his own person, he regulated the religious ceremonies on
such occasions, and caused them to be celebrated with all the pomp and
magnificence displayed under similar circumstances by the sovereigns of
Damascus.

Though the caliph of Cordova was the enemy {57} of the Christians, and
numbered many of them among his subjects, he refrained from persecuting
them, but deprived the bishoprics of their religious heads and the
churches of their priests, and encouraged marriages between the Moors and
Spaniards. By these means the sagacious Moslem inflicted more injury
upon the true religion than could have been effected by the most rigorous
severity.

Under the reign of Abderamus, the successors of Pelagius, still retaining
possession of Asturia, though weakened by the internal dissensions that
already began to prevail among them, were forced to submit to the payment
of the humiliating tribute of a hundred young females, Abderamus refusing
to grant them peace except at this price.

Master of entire Spain, from Catalonia to the two seas, the first caliph
died A.D. 788, Heg. 172, after a glorious reign of thirty years, leaving
the crown to his son Hacchem, the third of his eleven sons.

After the death of Abderamus the empire was disturbed by revolts, and by
wars between the new caliph and his brothers, his uncles, or other
princes of the royal blood. These civil wars {58} were inevitable under
a despotic government, where not even the order of succession to the
throne was regulated by law. To be an aspirant to the supreme authority
of the state, it was sufficient to belong to the royal race; and as each
of the caliphs, almost without exception, left numerous sons, all these
princes became the head of a faction, every one of them established
himself in some city, and, declaring himself its sovereign, took up arms
in opposition to the authority of the caliph. From this arose the
innumerable petty states that were created, annihilated, and raised again
with each change of sovereigns. Thus also originated the many instances
of conquered, deposed, or murdered kings, that make the history of the
Moors of Spain so difficult of methodical arrangement and so monotonous
in the perusal.

Hacchem, and, after him, his son Abdelazis-el-Hacchem retained possession
of the caliphate notwithstanding these unceasing dissensions. The former
finished the beautiful mosque commenced by his fathe