Posted on 07/24/2007 9:39:22 PM PDT by B-Chan
...Less than seventy years after the death of Mohammed in 632, his followers had already conquered most of the Middle East and North Africa. In the beginning of the eighth century, the leaders of the new religion turned their eyes to Christian Europe, dreaming of new Moorish conquests.
On the other side of the Strait of Gibraltar, Visigoth Catholic Spain was in a state of decadence, undermined by the Arian heresy, steeped in vice, its army and people lax, and its leaders divided.
In 711, because of internal divisions, traitors informed the Muslims about the weak points along the Spanish southern coast. Not waiting for a second invitation, the Islamic army landed. The poison of treachery added to the ruthlessness of the scimitar conquered all of Spain in a few years.
But the Lord of Hosts had long prepared the Spanish David who would face the new Islamic Goliath.
***
A Warrior, a Cave and a Queen
The Cantabrian Range in northern Spain forms a natural fortress of lofty peaks, deep gorges, narrow valleys, steep cliffs and evergreen forests. This region numbers among the “Peaks of Europe” and was once the paradise of hermits, and the home of bears, mountain goats and soaring eagles. It is also known as the cradle of Catholic Spain, and it is the starting point of our marvelous saga.
One day, around the year 718, a troublemaker clambered desperately up rocks and boulders fleeing from a young warrior intent on his capture. Suddenly, the pursued man dashed into a large cave and disappeared into its dark depth. Chasing after him, the warrior found the troublemaker clinging desperately to a venerable hermit. Beside the old man stood a small image of Mary Most Holy with the Infant in her arms. At the hermit’s request, the warrior granted the troublemaker sanctuary and gave up the chase. “God will bless you for this, my friend,” spoke the hermit.
The troublemaker’s and the hermit’s names perished with history, but the young warrior’s name was Pelayo, a nobleman of royal lineage and fearless disposition. The cave is known to this day as Covadonga, and the diminutive image of Mary venerated there as Our Lady of Covadonga, Deliverer and Queen of Spain.
***
Early Spain
In the beginning of the eighth century, Spain was ruled by the Visigoth King Vitiza, a man as insolent as he was corrupt. While still a prince, Vitiza murdered the Duke of Fáfila and exiled his son Pelayo.
After Vitiza died, his sons were unable to secure the throne because of their cruel father’s unpopularity. Taking advantage of the chaos, the worthy Rodrigo, Duke of Bética, seized power and proclaimed himself king. At this, the supporters of Vitiza and his sons swore revenge. They sent messengers to Mohammed’s followers across the Strait of Gibraltar in North Africa and revealed to them all the weak points along the Spanish southern coast.
Tariff bem Ziyad was the one chosen for the task by the shrewd Musa bem Nusayr, governor of Muslim Africa. Aided by yet another traitor, the Count of Olian, Lord of Gibraltar, then at odds with King Rodrigo, Ziyad won many successive battles in 711.
What began as a simple incursion became a full-blown war of conquest as many enemies of the Visigoth regime joined forces with Ziyad.
***
The Fateful Battle of Guadalete
Finally, King Rodrigo was able to gather an army of 100,000 ill-trained men and met the Muslims in Guadalete. In the heat of the battle, the supporters of Vitiza and his sons joined the invading Moors, and attacking from behind decided the day for Ziyad. King Rodrigo was killed and his body vanished. Centuries later his tomb was discovered in Portugal.
***
Pelayo Emerges
In that battle, Pelayo, whose father the Duke of Fáfila had been killed by Vitiza, also fought. After the defeat of Guadalete, Pelayo fled with family members to Asturias in northern Spain.
Meanwhile Nusayr grew jealous of Ziyad and decided to share in the glory and the spoils of conquering Spain. He crossed the Strait of Gibraltar with a powerful army and, with it, conquered Granada, Malaga, Merida, Seville and Zaragoza.
Continuing to join infamy to treachery, Vitiza’s followers surrendered town after town to the invader. Like dominoes, region after region fell, leaving only a few towns free from Muslim domination in the Cantabrian region near the Pyrenees.
The Muslim Munuza was appointed governor of Gijón in this region and was to cross paths with Pelayo by falling in love with the Spaniard’s sister. Pelayo opposed the match and was sent prisoner to the south of Spain. Evading his captors, he returned to his family to find Munuza planning a wedding. His opposition enraged the governor, who ordered his imprisonment.
***
The Resistance Begins
Warned by friends, Pelayo sought refuge in the mountains of the Cantabrian region and swore to resist the new regime. His natural leadership, his fame as a fearless warrior and his rank as a prince of royal lineage attracted many Catholics who wished to combat the invader. Around him gathered a force of about a thousand strong. Unanimously, they proclaimed Pelayo king in 716 or 718.
Tradition says that since the crimson flag of the Goths had disappeared in the fateful battle of Guadalete, the hermit who inhabited the cave of Covadonga placed in Pelayo’s hand a wooden cross saying, “Behold the sign of victory.” Pelayo positioned this cross at the top of his standard to be carried in battle.
Noticing that Islamic attention was now focused on trying to conquer France, Pelayo launched forays against Muslim strongholds obtaining successive victories.
Hearing of the insurrection, Munuza sent word to Alahor, the Emir of Córdoba, who in turn sent his lieutenant Alkama with a large force to crush the rebels. With him, Alkama brought Don Opas, the bishop of Seville, a relative of Pelayo and a Muslim collaborator, hoping that he might convince Pelayo to give up the impossible task. Meanwhile, Pelayo had distributed his small force throughout strategic positions of the Cantabrian Range while he with a few men took their positions inside the cave of Covadonga where the image of Mary Most Holy was venerated.
***
Interview with Don Opas
Before the battle, Alkama sent Don Opas to try to persuade Pelayo to put down his sword by promising pardon and many benefits. Don Opas is quoted as saying, “Brother, I am sure that you work in vain. What possible resistance can you put up when all of Spain and its armies could not resist the Ismaelites? Listen to me. Settle down, and enjoy your many possessions in peace with the Arabs like everyone else is doing.”
To this, Pelayo answered
I want no friendship with the Islamites and will not be subject to their empire. Don’t you know that the Church of God is like the moon that once eclipsed returns to her fullness? We trust in God’s mercy and know that from this mountain will emerge the health of Spain. You with your brothers as well as Olian, minister of Satan, decided to give to these people the kingdom of the Goths. But we, having Our Lord Jesus Christ as our advocate before God the Father, despise this multitude of pagans in whose name you come. And by the intercession of the Mother of God, who is Mother of mercy, we believe that this small army of 105 Goths will multiply like seeds from a tiny grain of mustard.Realizing there was no compromise in Pelayo, Don Opas returned to the Muslim army and said, “Go on to the cave and fight because only the sword will obtain anything from him.”
***
The Battle (718–722)
On that day, two different civilizations and religions faced each other. Islam, which had triumphed over the Middle East and North Africa, was now poised to crush the last stronghold of a ruined country, a destroyed civilization, an enslaved people and a profaned religion. There, at Covadonga, was to be decided whether Spain would be an extension of Islam or the spearhead of Christian Civilization.
As Pelayo and his men looked down from the cave of Covadonga they saw a massive Muslim horde. Alkama and his men jeered, sure of an easy victory. A chill of fear compounded the chill of the cave but the indomitable leader, pointing to the small image of Our Lady of Covadonga, reminded his brave men to place all their confidence in her protection. This little Lady “beautiful as the moon, brilliant as the sun, terrible as an army in battle array,” could not disappoint their trust. Thus began that terrible, unequal fight. At a signal from Alkama, a multitude of stones and arrows were hurled against the men in the cave.
It was then that a wonderful thing happened...
Thanks for posting this!
Hopefully, someone will read it to the surrender monkeys in congress!
Probably more accurate to say that violent Visigothic persecution of Arians (and Jews) was a major cause, some have thought the major cause, of the easy Muslim conquest. As it was in Syria, Egypt and North Africa.
Muslim rulers, at least initially, generally imposed lower total taxes and always gave what was by comparison total religious freedom to the persecuted Jews, Arians, Nestorians, Donatists and other heterodox Christians of these areas. In some cases those who were being persecuted welcomed or even fought on the side of the invading Muslims. In other cases they just didn't fight very hard for their Orthodox or Catholic (a distinction without a great deal of difference at the time) rulers.
There's a good chance some of these Christians, or their descendants, regretted this, but by that time the Muslims were firmly seated in the saddle.
Er, the Visigoths were Arians. Until the conversion of Recaredo, which unified Roman Spain and Visigothic Spain, the Visigoths were Arians and furthermore had very restrictive laws on the Jews, who prior to that had been living without any problem in Roman Spain. They had, in fact, a very harsh legal code in general, which they had brought with them from their Germanic homeland. There is no doubt that they were terrible rulers, but their conversion to Orthodox Catholicism was not the reason for it.
BTTT
Today is the feast of Santiago Apostol. I hope he is working hard for Spain!
I am in Spain at present to take a class, and all our instructor could talk about yesterday was the glories of Islam. He was completely a-historical and spouted the usual Zapatero left-wing nonsense about how wonderful the Muslims were and how evil the Christians were. I’m afraid Our Lady is going to have her work cut out for her defending Spain this time around. There are Muslims all over the place here, by the way.
To some extent the left has used similar tactics with success to gain political power. Find those who are dissatisfied in society and manipulate them to gain their support. That’s why conservatives can’t afford to lose the ‘PR’ war and cannot afford to cede the mantle of compassion to the left.
That’s true. Another factor is that Islam is a syncretist religion, based on its founder’s visions of things extracted from the three religions of the ME at that time, Judaism, Christianity and paganism.
The problem is that particularly in the Byzantine Empire, heresies were running wild (not only Arianism, but Docetism, Monophysitism, etc.) and these greatly influenced Mohamed’s conception of Jesus and made Islam more palatable to many who already subscribed to an unorthodox Christianity. In addition, the Church (both Byzantine and Roman) was so weakened by these divisions that it could not serve as a unifying force after the collapse of the Roman Empire. So the kingdoms of the ME had lost any sort of unifying bond, and were easy pickings for the aggressive Arabs.
The case of Spain was somewhat different, although it also involved a fragmented territory and leadership. Furthermore, Spain was extremely underpopulated, and the Muslim forces were greatly superior and simply swept away the tiny Spanish settlements.
Probably more accurate to say that violent Visigothic persecution of Arians (and Jews) was a major cause, some have thought the major cause, of the easy Muslim conquest. As it was in Syria, Egypt and North Africa.
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The other problem with this is that the trinitarians didn’t have the upper hand in north africa and the middle east. the problem with the arian apostates then as now is that they are as defenseless as atheists against the predations of the moslems.
It is no coincidence of history that all of arian christendom was conquored by islam. Their view of Jesus is similiar. That’s why when in 19th century arianism was all the talk of the town and the most fashionable writers went off to unitarian churches ...Herman melville began Moby Dick with “Call me Ishmael” and after writing his book—began attending a unitarian church.
Time is evil of course. The unitarians depended on their moral authority not from the bible but parasitically from the society around them. So if the morals of the dominant culture normalized homosexuality—the unitarians normalized it. Now they’re trying to get ahead of the curve by advocating various poly sexual couplings. This is the sort of thing that not even the moslems approve of. But I’m sure that if the moslems ruled the unitarians would change their stripes.
As Hilaire Belloc noted, Islam is merely the most successful heresy in the history of Christianity...
I envy you. I love Spain and hope to return there someday to visit the shrine of Santa Cruz de la Valle.
SANTIAGO MATAMOROS
Treachery by insiders leading to the Muslim conquest of a Christian nation — this also happened to the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. This victory by the Turks entrenched them in Asia Minor and the Byzantines were never the same. (1204 didn’t help either.) It was liberal treachery that led to 9/11. (And those traitors remain unpunished, Miss Gorelick). Hopefully we can learn from the lessons of history and not become a former Christian nation, ruined and enslaved by the Orcs.
Charles Martel had it right ......
I call the Moslems the people of the anti-Christ.
Thanks
Where are you in Texas? .... I'm in The Alamo City
Tarrant County
In many ways, Islam was just an Arab superiority movement. Mohammed was lucky that he came along when he did, because there was a power vacuum in the ME after the fall of the Roman Empire and as a result of the weakening of the connections between the Eastern and Western Church, as well as the weakening of the connection of Middle East churches with either Rome or Constantinople.
The Arabs were not an advanced people and lived by herding and banditry. They took over many more advanced societies (such as Persia and Baghdad) because these societies were very vulnerable.
And Islam has, at its heart, never ceased to be an Arab superiority cult, which is why the Saudis are so enamored of it. Incidentally, the Muslims were driven out of Spain several times - by other Muslims. Because the Persians and others were very advanced prior to Islam and were only recently converted when they arrived in Spain, they were more tolerant and after an initial period of persecution, basically only applied taxes, as the Romans had done, to non-Muslim Spaniards. They also were greatly influenced by their contacts with scholarly Jews and Christians, and became more moderate in their Islam and in fact were somewhat syncretist. But each time a more peaceful culture developed, more orthodox North African (Arab) Muslims would attack and completely change the situation. And of course, the Arabs had the Koran on their side, as Muslim extremists do today.
Things haven’t changed much, methinks.
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