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416 Sultana Ṭarūb, bound to one much like herself, the cruel and treacherous eunuch Naṣr. The son of a Spaniard, Naṣr could speak no Arabic and hated the Christians with the rancour of an apostate. While they governed, the monarch devoted himself to beautifying his capital, which from his time becomes a centre of art and of science for Western Europe.

The country was disturbed: there was the seven years' war between the Ma'addites and Yemenites in Murcia; there were constant risings of Christians in Mérida; a rebellion, with all the characteristics of a real germanía (the later Hermandad, brotherhood), broke out in Toledo, lasting until the city was taken by storm in 837. Then came a new danger: in 84 the Northmen, who were called the Majūs by the Arabs, appeared off the coast of Spain. They made a descent on the coast of Galicia and, being repulsed, moved on to Lisbon, Cadiz and up to Seville, but the Emir's troops defeated them and drove them back across the Guadalquivir. In 858 or 859 they returned and sacked Algeciras, carrying their raids along the east coast as far as the Rhone. But they left the coast of Spain as soon as the Muslims began building vessels of the same type as theirs.

But the most formidable difficulty of all came from the Christians: the life of bandits or guerrilla warriors was now impossible for them, and in the cities the path of martyrdom lay plain before them. They were headed by Eulogio and Alvaro. Eulogio belonged to a Cordovan family who detested the Muslims, and was educated at the school of Abbot Spera-in-Deo, where he formed a friendship with Alvaro, a rich young noble of Cordova. As priest at St Zoilo his virtues made him everywhere beloved. He fell under the influence of Flora, the daughter of a Christian mother and so a Christian from birth. Flora was a bold and active champion of militant Christianity; Eulogio made her aequaintance when she escaped from prison and took refuge in the house of a Christian, after she had been accused by her brother and condemned, by the cadi (ḳāḍī) to the punishment of scourging; her personality along with her adventures greatly affected the young priest.

The fanatical hatred of the Muslims was strengthened by the punishment of the priest Perfecto, who was condemned for blasphemy and, owing to the treachery of Naṣr, executed on the feast after Ramaḍān (18 April 850). He prophesied that Naṣr would die within a year, and so it came to pass. For Ṭarūb, who was eager to claim the succession for her son 'Abdallāh to the exclusion of her step-son Mahomet, compromised Naṣr in a plot to poison the Emir. To this end Naṣr had the poison prepared by the famous doctor Ḥarrānī; but the latter told a woman of the harem, who warned 'Abd-ar-Raḥmān. Thereupon Naṣr was ordered to drink the poison himself, and the mere fact of his death sufficed to canonise Perfecto. One Isaac, a monk of Tabanos, appeared before the cadi and blasphemed the Prophet, which led naturally to his martyrdom on 3 June 851; he was followed by eleven martyrs in less than