Miguel’s Weblog

The crushing defeat of Muslim forces at Tours in 732 was one of the first of a whole string of disasters for the followers of Mohammed. Chinese-led Uighur Turks had defeated the Arabs in 730 at Samarkand and again in 736 at Kashgar. At the same time (731-732), Khazar Turks invaded Arab lands through the Caucasus and got as far as Mesopotamia before being pushed back. And in spite of years of trying, the Muslim Arabs could make no more headway against the Eastern Roman Empire.

In a century, the Arabs had conquered the largest empire the world had ever seen. Now, internal stresses as well as external enemies had stopped the empire’s explosive growth.

In spite of what they professed—the brotherhood of all believers—the empire was an Arab, not a Muslim, empire. Arabs held the highest positions in both civil and military affairs. In the middle of the eighth century, descendants of Mohammed’s uncle, Abbas, led a revolt in Central Asia. Mainly ethnic Persians, the rebels overthrew the Omayyad Caliph, who claimed descent from Mohammed’s son-in-law, Omar. They founded a new, Abbasid, Caliphate.

In Spain and North Africa (west of Egypt), in the area known as el Maghrib (the West) the natives were also restless. The Libyan Desert separated el Maghrib from the rest of Dares Islam. The Muslims in el Maghrib, mostly African Berbers, had no more use for the Persians than they had for the Arabs. They didn’t recognize the Abbasid Caliph. Instead, various Berber chieftains ruled small sections of the countryside independently, while Arab leaders, who had settled in the cities, ruled city-states. Eventually the Berbers found another descendant of Omar and proclaimed a new Omayyad Caliphate. The Omayyads adopted the Spanish city of Cordoba as their capital.

The new Caliphs at first attempted to revive the holy war against the Christians in northern Spain, but soon found other things to interest them. Spain, long ruled by the Romans, was a more urban—and urbane—place than Africa. The Arabs had brought their own poetry to the country, along with the art and architecture they had picked up from the Persians, and the science and mathematics they learned from the Greeks, the Mesopotamians, and the Indians. The Visigoths had a literature of their own and had adopted the old culture of Rome. Under the Muslims, Christians and Jews had freedom to practice their religions and were able to engage in the learned professions. Many Jews came to Spain from less tolerant countries in northern Europe. Before long, Muslim Spain was a center of civilization, not only in Europe but in the whole Muslim world as well. Writing, painting, architecture, science, and philosophy flourished in Omayyad Spain.

In the other Spain, the tiny principalities of the North, there was less civilization and a good deal less religious tolerance, especially for Muslims who had stolen Christian land.

The other Spain

The Muslims had never conquered all of Spain. The northwest corner, Galicia, was inhabited by dour Celts (called Gallegos by the Spanish), who enjoyed dour Celtic weather. The climate in foggy, rainy Galicia, on the shore of the Bay of Biscay, would have seemed perfectly normal to any Irishman or Scotsman, but it was not inviting to the sun-baked sons of the desert. Just east of the dour Gallegos were the dourer Basques. The Basques spoke the same language their ancestors spoke in the Stone Age. They had defied any attempts to assimilate them by Gauls, Romans, Visigoths, and Franks. They were not going to let the Arabs and Berbers be the first to conquer them.

There has long been a notion in the non-Spanish world that Christians from France gradually pushed the Muslims back. The notion was probably started and spread by the Franks. Any reader of Cervantes’s masterpiece, Don Quixote, knows that Charlemagne and his Franks were never pure heroes to Spanish Christians. The Basques proved it by ambushing and wiping out the rear guard of Charlemagne’s army as it retreated through the pass at Roncevalles. East of the Basques were the incipient kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. And everywhere in that Christian fringe were dukes, counts, and other warlords in more castles than you can count.

For a long time, there was no organized reconquista. There was no organized anything in Christian Spain. The Spanish lords were not only jealous of each other, but they contributed to the fragmentation of Christian Spain by dividing their kingdoms up among their sons.

That situation might have resulted in further Muslim conquests if the Omyyad Caliphate itself had not quickly fragmented into Taifas, independent Berber tribal states. In 1031, a council of Taifa kings formally abolished the caliphate. There was a lot of raiding back and forth. Stealing from someone of the other religion was not considered a sin by either the Christians or the Muslims.

All warfare in Spain, however, was not Christians versus Muslims. Berber chiefs attacked by other Berber chiefs enlisted Christians to help them. Christian lords, in turn, had no qualms about seeking help from Muslims when facing Christian enemies. The great Spanish hero of this age was Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, known as el Cid Campeador. His title is instructive. “Cid” is a corruption of the Arabic “sidi,” meaning lord. “Campeador,” is champion, a tide Christians gave their heroes. A jealous Castilian king had exiled the Cid, so he offered his sword to the Muslims. He deserved his fame as a fighting man, triumphing on field after field. But nevertheless, the Christians were gradually pushing back the increasingly fragmented Muslims. In 1085, the Castilians took Toledo, the old Visigoth capital, now a major Taifa capital.

Then, the Taifa kings did something dangerous. They sought help from Africa, which lost them the services of the Cid. Even worse from their point of view, they lost their independence and the good life.

The Almoravids

The Maghrib, and a good part of West Africa south of the Sahara, was under the control of the Almoravids. While the Muslim rulers of Spain were sipping wine, watching dancing girls, and discussing philosophy, a Tuareg in the Sahara was getting religion. Tuaregs are Berber nomads, people whose hardscrabble life defies comparison. “Tuareg” is an Arabic name (singular: Targui). It means “the forsaken of God,” as “Berber,” which is Arabic from Greek, means “barbarian.” Tuaregs ran the caravans that crossed the desert. One of them, Yana ibn Omar, saw how different life in the Arab cities was from his own existence, in which a pool of clear water was an almost unimaginable luxury. The Muslims of his time, he concluded, were corrupting Islam. Luxury was turning them from God. To set things right, he led an army of Tuaregs against the west African oases, then against the cities of the north. He then founded a dynasty, called the Almoravids.

The Almoravids quickly conquered all the Maghrib and extended their dominion to the black empires of the Sudan. When the Spanish Muslims called on it, the Almoravid Empire was the most powerful Muslim state in the world.

These African puritans took one look at what life was like in Spain and saw that they had a double task: They must not only drive back the infidels, but they must reform their erring brethren as well. An Almoravid Spain had no attraction for the Cid, who went back to fight for the Christians. With him went thousands of Mozarabs, as Christians in the Muslim area were called, and Jews. Barbarians, like the Tuaregs, and later the Turks, had no idea why the Prophet made exceptions for the “people of the Book.” The Castilian king again exiled the Cid, but this time Rodrigo did not return to the Muslim lands. He raised a private army of both Christians and Muslims and carved out a kingdom for himself. For the rest of his life, he was King of Valencia.

When the Cid died, the Almoravids retook Valencia and quite a bit more. But the warriors from the Sahara quickly succumbed to the fleshpots of Al Andulus, as the Muslims called Spain. Once again the back-and-forth raiding resumed and, thanks to the emigration from Muslim Spain, Christian Spain gained manpower, civilization, and even an approach to unity. Reconquista was now a definite Christian aim.

The Almohades

Once again, a Muslim prophet appeared in the backwoods. This time it was Abu Mohammed ibn Tumari, a lamplighter’s son in the Atlas Mountains. He began preaching against luxury and soon converted a man who had a natural talent for military leadership, Abd el Mumin. Abd el Mumin raised an army and took over leadership of the movement. By 1149, he had made himself Emir of Morocco. He founded a new dynasty, the Almohades, and when he died in 1163, he was emperor of a larger territory than the Almoravids held. Apparently unable to learn from experience, once again, a Taifa king invited the African reformers to come to Spain and save his people. They came; they saw; they conquered. By 1172, they controlled all of Al Andulus, and their first order of business was to wipe out the licentiousness of their co-religionists. The Almohades did not succumb to the fleshpots. They kept their capital in the Atlas Mountains. But by 1195 they were ready to take on the infidels. The Almohades’ Emperor Ya’cub gathered an army of Islamic troops from all over Africa and Spain to march against Castile, the largest and most aggressive of the Christian Spanish states.

Alfonso the Lucky

At the time Castile was ruled by Alfonso VIII, nicknamed the Lucky. After his first meeting with Ya’cub’s army, he was lucky to be alive. The Muslims routed the Christians, and Alfonso made a humiliating peace with Ya’cub. He was lucky to be able to sign a peace treaty. One lucky break was that the old Almohade emperor knew he was dying and wanted to go back to his beloved mountains to die. The other was the result of an earlier stroke of luck, when Alfonso of Castile was able to marry his daughter to Alfonso of Aragon. The King of Aragon died near the time of the battle. His crown went to his son, Pedro II, grandson of Alfonso of Castile. Aragon, on the Mediterranean shore, was a relatively powerful Spanish state, and Pedro was famed as a knight-errant. Continuing the campaign against both Castile and Aragon would take more energy that old Ya’cub wanted to expend.

About this time, an idea originating in the Holy Land came to Spain. The military monks founded in Outremer, the Knights of St. John and the Knights Templars, inspired three orders of Spanish monks: the Knights of Calatrava, the Knights of Alcantara, and the Knights of St. James. Like their crusader counterparts, the Spanish orders were brave, disciplined, and very professional soldiers. Spain had not seen a disciplined military force since the Corps of Slaves, mameluks maintained by the Caliphs, had been disbanded.

Ya’cub finally died in 1199. His son, Mohammed al Nazir, never liked the peace with the Christians and he saw with apprehension that Castile was growing stronger. Alfonso, on his part, felt ready to challenge the Muslims again. He denounced the treaty, and Mohammed al Nazir declared a holy war. The Spanish Christians countered with a holy war of their own. The Archbishop of Toledo persuaded the Pope to declare a crusade against the Muslims in Spain. Both sides began recruiting wildly.

At that moment the Muslim world was relatively peaceful. Mohammed al Nazir was able to recruit unemployed soldiers from as far east as Persia and Turkestan and as far south as Nubia, on the upper Nile. Alfonso’s agents toured the courts of Europe and picked up a horde of knights and men at arms. Most of both armies were cavalry. The Christian strength, as always, was heavy cavalry—mailed horsemen expert with the lance and sword. Muslim strength was in light cavalry—horse archers and javelin men wearing less armor than their enemies but more mobile.

Sancho cuts the chain

Al Nazir’s plan was to draw his enemies away from their bases and confront them with a strong position they couldn’t break through. Soon, their supplies would run out. Logistics were not well developed in the Middle Ages. They’d have to retreat, which would mean they’d scatter, making them an easy prey for his agile horsemen. He fortified the passes of the Sierra Morena Mountains, a little north of the Guadalquivir River and Cordova, and waited. When Alfonso’s allies, his grandson, King Pedro of Aragon, and King Sancho the Strong of Navarre, saw the situation, they advised Alfonso to retreat, but Alfonso wanted to go on.

Then a shepherd appeared and showed the Christians an unguarded path around the passes. The knights made their way over the path and suddenly appeared on the heights above the Muslim army. Al Nazir’s main body was located on some small plains in the midst of hills, a geographical feature called “navas” in Spanish.

Mohammed al Nazir’s luring of the Christian army far away from its bases was a smart strategy, as was confronting it with the fortified passes, but keeping the bulk of his forces on the navas was not. The small plains didn’t provide enough room for his light horse to operate effectively. But the navas were perfect ground for the bone-crushing charges and hand-to-hand melees that were the Christians’ most effective tactics. Even so, the size of the Muslim army was so great the Christians spent two days in prayer before they even moved.

The Muslim army was a great mass. In the center was Mohammed al Nazir. The Emperor stood under a large parasol that served as a standard and behind a stockade of logs bound together with a chain. He held a sword in one hand and a Koran in the other. Around him on all sides was a bodyguard of picked troops. El Nazir was no Alexander the Great, riding at the head of his cavalry striking force. On the other hand, he was in the line of battle—a position no modern head of state or even commanding general would ever find himself in.

The Christian army was divided into the customary three “battles.” Alfonso commanded the center; Pedro of Aragon commanded the left; Sancho the Strong commanded the right. The Christians charged. It was their kind of battle: a wild, hand-to-hand brawl. But there were so many Muslims. It was the largest Muslim army ever seen in Europe, the largest Muslim army that would ever be seen in Europe for centuries hence. The wings commanded by Pedro and Sancho slowly pushed the Muslims into the rocky, wooded hills behind them, where they would lose all their mobility. But in the center, the Muslims, fighting under the eye of the Emperor, drove back the Christians. The Knights of Calatrava were almost wiped out.

“Archbishop, it is here that we ought to die!” Alfonso yelled to the Archbishop of Toledo as he rushed forward.

“No, sire, it is here that we should live and conquer,” the churchman replied. He pointed out that the Muslim horsemen had been stopped by Alfonso’s infantry spearmen, and the Knights of St. James were slashing into their flank.

Alfonso’s standard, following the King, pressed forward. The Muslims slowly fell back. But it was Sancho the Strong, not Alfonso, who reached the stockade first. Sancho demonstrated why he had his nickname. He chopped through the chain stockade and burst into Al Nazir’s bodyguard. The royal parasol, sheltering the Emperor from the sun, went down.

“Shah mat,” Persian chess players used to say, the origin of our “checkmate.” “The king is dead,” meaning the game is over. At the Navas of Tolosa, the game was over. The Muslim army panicked and tried to flee. Most of them didn’t get far. The slaughter was terrific. It almost wiped out the warrior aristocracy not only of Muslim Spain but also of North Africa. The losses hurt Egypt and Arabia and were felt as far as Central Asia.

On to America

The aftermath of such a horrendous battle seemed incongruous. The Christian army took a few towns and castles and went home. Pedro of Aragon was killed in battle the next year, Alfonso of Castile died a year later, and Christian Spain went back to its intra-communal feuding.

The Muslim threat was over. The Almohade Empire in both Spain and Africa began to fall apart immediately. It was extinct 50 years after the battle. The Muslim Taifa states paid tribute to the Christian kings. Most importantly, the Christians held the central plateau of Spain, containing the headwaters of all the Spanish rivers and the intersections of all the roads. Geography had always been a strong force against centralization in Spain. That obstacle was now removed.

The Muslim states slowly were wiped out until only Grenada, in the far south, remained. Less than three centuries after the fight on the Navas of Tolosa, Isabella of Castile married Ferdinand of Aragon, and Spanish unity was almost achieved. Ferdinand and Isabella then invaded Grenada and drove the last Muslim ruler out of Spain. That was in 1492. The Spanish then looked for new worlds to conquer. They found them across the Atlantic.

Source: War & Games