ABBADIDES, a Mahommedan dynasty which arose in Spain on the downfall of the western caliphate. It lasted from about 1023 till 1091, but during the short period of its existence was singularly active and typical of its time. The founder of the house was Abd-ul-Qasim Mahommed, the cadi of Seville in 1023. He was the chief of an Arab family settled in the city from the first days of the conquest. The Beni-abbad were not of ancient descent, though the poets, whom they paid largely, made an illustrious pedigree for them when they had become powerful. They were, however, very rich. Abd-ul-Qasim gained the confidence of the townsmen by organizing a successful resistance to the Berber soldiers of fortune who were grasping at the fragments of the caliphate. At first he professed to rule only with the advice of a council formed of the nobles, but when his power became established he dispensed with this show of republican government, and then gave himself the appearance of a legitimate title by protecting an impostor who professed to be the caliph Hisham II. When Abd-ul-Qasim died in 1042 he had created a state which, though weak in itself, was strong as compared to the little powers about it. He had made his family the recognized leaders of the Mahommedans of Arab and native Spanish descent against the Berber element, whose chief was the king of Granada. Abbad, surnamed El Motaddid, his son and successor, is one of the most remarkable figures in Spanish Mahommedan history. He had a striking resemblance to the Italian princes of the later middle ages and the early renaissance, of the stamp of Fiiipo Maria Visconti. El Motaddid was a poet and a lover of letters, who was also a poisoner, a drinker of wine, a sceptic and treacherous to the utmost degree. Though he waged war all through his reign he very rarely appeared in the field, but directed the generals, whom he never trusted, from his "lair" in the fortified palace, the Alcazar of Seville. He killed with his own hand one of his sons who had rebelled against him. On one occasion he trapped a number of his enemies, the Berber chiefs of the Ronda, into visiting him, and got rid of them by smothering them in the hot room of a bath. It was his taste to preserve the skulls of the enemies he had killed--those of the meaner men to be used as flower-pots, while those of the princes were kept in special chests. His reign until his death on the 28th of February 1069 was mainly spent in extending his power at the expense of his smaller neighbours, and in conflicts with his chief rival the king of Granada. These incessant wars weakened the Mahommedans, to the great advantage of the rising power of the Christian kings of Leon and Castile, but they gave the kingdom of Seville a certain superiority over the other little states. After 1063 he was assailed by Fernando El Magno of Castile and Leon, who marched to the gates of Seville, and forced him to pay tribute. His son, Mahommed Abd-ul-Qasim Abenebet---who reigned by the title of El Motamid--was the third and last of the Abbadides, He was a no less remarkable person than his father and much more amiable. Like him he was a poet, and a favourer of poets. El Motamid went, however, considerably further in patronage of literature than his father, for he chose as his favourite and prime minister the poet Ibn Ammar. In the end the vanity and featherheadedness of Ibn Ammar drove his master to kill him.
Continued on page two.
The above article is from the 1911 edition of an encyclopedia which is out of copyright here in the U.S. The article is in the public domain, and you may copy, download, print and distribute this work as you see fit.
Every effort has been made to present this text accurately and cleanly, but no guarantees are made against errors. Neither Melissa Snell nor About.com may be held liable for any problems you experience with the text version or with any electronic form of this document.
