The opening of Preface
This work has engaged the attention of the author for more than twenty years. Its object is an attempt to depict the civilization of that great race whose achievements in science, literature, and the arts have been the inspiration of the marvellous progress of the present age. The review of this wide-spread influence, whose ramifications extend to the limits of both Europe and America, has required the introduction of some matter apparently extraneous, but which, when considered in its general relations to the subject, will be found to be not foreign to the purpose of these volumes.
The list of authorities cited does not, by any means, include all that have been examined. Many, from which comparatively few facts have been gleaned, have been omitted. Among the works that have been made the subject of careful research, and have yielded most valuable information--in addition to the Arabic and Spanish chronicles--are those of Al-Makkari, Romey, Rosseuw St. Hilaire, Le Bon, Sédillot, and Casiri. The utter unreliability of Conde, who compiled the only detailed history of the Moors of Spain, is well known, and his statements have not been adopted except when amply verified. The histories of the late R.