Читать книгу The Alhambra. The Arabian conquest of the Peninsula with a particular account of the Mohammedan architecture and decoration онлайн

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Spanish historians have always manifested contempt for the writings of the Arabs. Rejecting the means afforded them by abundant Moorish records, they have compiled their histories from one-sided national authorities, disdaining to cast a glance on writings of the enemies of their country and religion. The effects of such illiberality need scarcely be pointed out. The history of Spain, during the Middle Ages, has been, and still is, notwithstanding the labours of modern critics, a tissue of fable and contradiction.

Nevertheless, it was reserved for a Spaniard—Don Pascual de Gayángos—to give to the world the true history of the Mohammedans in Spain. He fixed upon the manuscript account of Ahmed Ibn Mohammed Al-makkarí, which gives an uninterrupted narrative of the conquests, wars, and settlements of the Spanish Moslems from their first invasion of the Peninsula to their final expulsion; and Don Pascual so enriches his author’s text with a mass of notes and illustrations that the work forms, if not the only, certainly the most valuable history of the Arabs in Spain—even the recondite production of the German savant, the late Dr. R. Dozy, of Leyden, Histoire des Musulmans d’Espagne, yields on the score of usefulness.