Art. XX.—On the Authorities for the History of the Dominion of the Arabs in Spain

Abstract

None of the Spanish historians who lived before the present century possessed even the slightest knowledge of the Arabic language, and even they stumbled at every step when they had to treat of the Muhammadan dynasties, and their hostile or friendly relations with the Christians. Casiri alone, in his catalogue of the MSS. in the library of the Escurial, edited and translated some extracts from Arab authors; and this was all that had been done down to 1820, when the first volume of Conde's History appeared, and the world imagined that the light of this newly-risen sun was at length, in a great measure, to dissipate the darkness that had for ages enveloped the doings of the Arab and the Berber on the soil of Spain.