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 population which had lived under the Umayyads and the Murabits. But Spain's last experience of the Muslims was of the fierce, bigoted, and persecuting Muwahhids, whose tone was very different. Strangely, however, it was under these intolerant rulers that Spanish Islam passed through its golden age of philosophical speculation, and not only so, but the philosophers were protected and favoured by the Muwahhid court. Quite early in this period the position seems to have been tacitly arranged that the philosophers were absolutely free in their work and teaching, provided that teaching was not spread abroad amongst the populace: it was to be regarded as a species of esoteric truth reserved for the enlightened. It seems almost certain that this attitude was deliberately arranged by the philosophers themselves; it had already been sketched out by some of the Asiatic writers, and definitely laid down by al-Ash'ari and al-Ghazali, and the Muwahhids, it must be remembered, professed to be Ghazalians. But whilst the philosophers enjoyed this exceptional freedom of speculation, so different from the repressive orthodoxy of the Turkish dynasties in Asia, and defended the system in their writings, the rulers officially were enforcing amongst the multitude of their subjects the severest orthodoxy and the most reactionary system of jurisprudence, so reactionary that it was never admitted by the Asiatic sultans.

The first great leader of philosophical thought in Muwahhid Spain was Ibn Tufayl (d. 581 = 1185),