formed the majority of the royal army, inaugurated a period of barbarism, plundering and burning palaces and libraries. Wealthy families migrated to the provinces; students and professors fled the capital. Then they formed teaching centres and their enthusiasm for books spread among those populations, who afterwards formed the kingdoms of the Taifas (provincial dynasties)."
Side by side with science and literature the Fine Arts flourished. As we have already seen, Cordova had become the leading city in Spain; the splendour of her buildings and palaces vied even with the court of Bagdad. The architectural methods adopted by the Arabs differed greatly from those of the Romanised Spaniards. The beginnings of Arabic architecture are to be found even before Islām under the Sassanids. From this source the Arabs probably derived not only the gypsum arch embellished with honeycomb cells and pyramids suspended like stalactites, but also the stuccoed walls with their reliefs and decorations which adorn so effectively the interior of Muslim houses. Byzantine influences reinforced those from the Muslim East and affected both the architecture and the scheme of ornamentation, all of which the Spanish Arabs took over bodily, just as they gave Visigothic and classical influences free play in their artistic modelling, the horse-shoe arch, later on so typically Muslim, being of Visigothic origin.
The first period in the development of Hispano-Arabic architecture covers the era of the Caliphate from the eighth to the tenth century, and of it the mosque of Cordova is the most important monument. It was begun in the reign of 'Abd-ar-Raḥmān I and the process of building went on from the eighth to the tenth century. The ground plan of a mosque is rectangular and comprises: a courtyard surrounded by a portico and as a rule planted with trees, with a fountain for the ceremonial ablutions of the faithful; one or more lofty towers of graceful proportions, called sauma'a (but in Spanish known as alminares, minarets) which were used by the mu'adhdhin to give the call to prayer; and a covered part (cubierta) completely surrounding the court-yard and extending much farther in the direction of the miḥrāb or niche which faces toward Mecca, while somewhat to the right of this stands the pulpit or mimbar from which the imām offers prayer. The architectural features of the building are the arches, mainly of the horse-shoe form, though other forms such as the pointed and the lobe-shaped arch were also used, and the cupola resting on its square base; while the columns employed on the early Roman and Visigothic buildings imitated the Corinthian or composite capital, which was afterwards superseded by the Cordovese capital, that flourished until the Nasarite or Grenadine style in the last period of Hispano-Muslim architecture. The walls were ornamented with bas-relief plaques in stone or gypsum, the scheme of decoration being sometimes floral and sometimes geometrical on a background usually red or blue. The decoration shewed traces of classical, Visigothic, Syro-Byzantine and Mesopotamian influences.
