Abulaz did.  He, making you pay unjust taxes, which you were not bound to pay, turned you from friends into enemies, and from obedient to disobedient vassels, inasmuch as he infringed your liberties.  But you, like brave men, we hear, are resisting the tyrant, and we write now to condole with you, and to exhort you to continue your resistance, and since your king is our enemy as well as yours, let us join in opposing him.

“We purpose to send an army to the frontier next summer to wait there till you give us the signal for action.  Know then that, if you will desert him and join us, your ancient liberties shall be secured to you, and you shall be free of all taxes and tributes, and shall live under your own laws."[1]

The army promised was sent under the king’s son, but seems to have effected nothing.

During the period of religious disturbance at Cordova, when the voluntary martyrdoms became so frequent, and just at the time of Mohammed’s accession, the Christians of Toledo, encouraged, we may suppose, by their proximity to the free Christians, revolted in favour of their coreligionists at Cordova.  No wonder then that Mohammed imagined that the outbreak of fanaticism in Cordova was but the signal for a general mutiny of his Christian subjects.  As we have already seen, the king set out with an army against the Toledans, who appealed to Ordono I. of Leon for help.  Glad enough to get such an opportunity for weakening the Arab government, Ordono sent a large auxiliary force, but the Toledans and Leonnese were defeated with great slaughter by the Sultan’s troops.[2] Within twenty years, however, Toledo became practically independent, except for the payment of tribute.[3]

    [1] Apud Florez, “Espano Sagrada.”

    [2] Dozy, ii. 162.

    [3] Ibid, p. 182.

From all this it will be clear that the Spanish part of the population, whether Moslem or Christian, was opposed to the exclusiveness of the old Arabs, and ready to make common cause against them.  The unity of race prevailed over the difference of creed, as it did in the case of the English Roman Catholics in the war with Spain, and as it usually will under such circumstances.  The national party were fortunate enough to find an able leader in the person of the celebrated rebel, Omar ibn Hafsun, who came near to wresting the sovereignty of Spain from the hands of the Umeyyades.  Omar was descended from a Count Alfonso,[1] and his family had been Christians till the apostasy of his grandfather Djaffar.  Omar, being a wild unmanageable youth, took up the lucrative and honourable profession of bandit, his headquarters being at Bobastro or Bishter, a stronghold somewhere between Archidona and Ronda, in the sierra stretching from Granada to Gibraltar.[2] After a brief sojourn in Africa, where his ambition was inflamed by a prophecy announcing a great future, he returned to Spain, and at once began business again as brigand at Bobastro