A Few Hours in Gibraltar

A Few Hours in Gibraltar

Among the memorials of the past glory of the Muslims, and the precious relics of the best of ages, is this place, which still stands guard today at the gate of the Mediterranean. And since its name, Gibraltar, is a corruption of the Arabic words *Jabal al-Tariq* (the Mountain of Tariq), it is impossible for those words to reach a Muslim's ears without his thoughts setting off on a tour of another world and a bygone age.

So when, on my way back from England, it occurred to me that our ship would stop at Gibraltar for a few hours, my eagerness turned into a restless waiting. The waves of the Bay of Biscay were tossing the ship up and down; our steamer, like a sick man in the extremity of pain, kept turning from side to side, and most of my companions, indeed nearly all my fellow passengers, lay in their cabins, prostrate with seasickness and retching.

But such was the press of my longing that I felt no discomfort at all. Again and again I got up and went on deck and, putting the telescope to my eye, gazed eastward in the hope that somewhere the coasts of the Spanish peninsula might come into view, so that I could fix my thoughts on that point and in my heart make a tour of the land which for hundreds of years had belonged to the Muslims and the Arabs. At last, after several days of waiting, the turmoil of the Bay of Biscay ceased on the one hand, and the Atlantic Ocean (the great western sea) took us into its calm embrace; and on the other, the coasts of Andalusia lay before our eyes. The birds of Spain hurried out to welcome us and circled about the ship, and the mountains there raised their heads and began to exchange glances with us, just as the verse says:

When the promised meeting draws near,
the fire of longing burns all the fiercer. [TN: Persian.]

At that moment, in my impatience and restlessness, I was still more agitated: "Alas, we are so near and cannot go!" Although all this part that lay before my eyes had once belonged to the kingdom of Spain, by today's division of the map it is not Spain but Portugal, the country of the Portuguese. Although nothing could be seen but a dim outline and hills lifting their heads out of the gloom, I traced everything with the help of my memory and went on seeing it all with the eyes of imagination. These were the words that came to my lips in that state of absorption: "Now we are opposite Alcobaça," and "Now we are passing Cape Roca," and "Look, there in front the river Tagus is falling into the sea." No sooner had I remembered the Tagus than I took a trip up that river in the boat of my fancy and toured Toledo and many famous cities of Spain. I had hardly woken from this spiritual ascent when I learned that we were level with the province of the Spanish peninsula called Algarve, which at present belongs to Portugal. I was just saying to myself, "Now Portugal is about to end and we are about to enter Andalusia proper," when suddenly the land came very near, and a point of land came so close that it was as though the Spanish peninsula had put out its hand to shake ours. On this corner of the land an old building could be seen. The captain came over and told us that this was an ancient convent (a cloister of nuns) known by the name of St Vincent, and that for this reason this corner of land is called Cape St Vincent. At present the cloister lies deserted, but at one time it was thought a most holy place. As soon as we heard this, we all raised our telescopes and began to study the arches, the walls and doors, I should say every single brick, of this building. At present the cloister is used as a lighthouse. The arches and upper windows are wholly in the Gothic style; but its desolation, and its lying forlorn and neglected, reminded me that the same sad silence must have fallen on the ancient buildings of the Muslims here.

As long as my sight served, I kept looking at this building, until evening came and the darkness of the night parted us from it, as someone might part two people who had met after long separation. Yet my longing to see these coasts, far from being quenched, grew hour by hour. Several times in the night I came out of my cabin, when the sea had laid all my fellow travellers in the cradles of their berths and rocked them to sleep with soft, pleasant motions, and went on deck to gaze at the coasts of Spain with longing eyes. The moonlight was as clear as we had pined to see for more than a year in England. The restless waves of the sea would not let the reflection of the moon rest for a single moment in one place on the mirror of the water, and it seemed as if the sky were sprinkling spangles of light over the water on every side. At the edge of this enchanting scene the faint coasts of Spain could be seen too, but the darkness of night would not let the fire of my longing die. In the small hours we passed the mouth of the Guadalquivir and went by near the city of Cadiz, and towards morning we saw that the coasts of Africa and Europe, to right and left, were drawing nearer to us every hour. Africa was on our right hand and Europe on our left, and it seemed as though the hills on both sides were advancing to embrace each other. First of all, to the south, we stared hard at the summit of the mountain below which lies the town of Tangier, the Tanja of earlier days. Strain my eyes as I might, nothing of the town could be seen; but history told me that it was at this very place that our ancient, brave missionary and famous general Uqba ibn Nafi rode his horse into the sea, looked up to heaven and said, "O Lord! If this sea did not bar my way, I would go on like this, facing west, as far as there was land, proclaiming Your holy name and Your oneness." And then I remembered that the famous traveller of the eighth century of the Hijra, Ibn Battuta, set out from these very hills and travelled over the whole world; and his travel book is, in the hands of the inquirers of our day, a bright lamp that shows the state of that age.

We went on. When the hills of Tangier had vanished from our sight, we saw on our left, on the European shore, the white buildings of the town of Tarifa. I cannot say what state my heart was in at the sight of this little coastal town. The thoughts that might pass through a man's heart on seeing his old home in the possession of strangers, or the grave of some famous and renowned kinsman or elder, those were the thoughts that passed through my heart on seeing this town of Tarifa. This is the very place where, first of all, a brave man of Arab descent named Tarif landed with only two hundred brave men, intending to conquer the whole country of Spain; and since this town was founded in his memory, it was named Tarifa, and is known by that name to this day. Exactly opposite the town of Tarifa, on the African coast, lie the ruins of an ancient Islamic town, al-Qasr, to which a small cape called "Ras al-Qasr" points, stepping a little forward.

Now we were in the Straits of Gibraltar, and in my heart I was gazing on this sea with reverence and with a sense of its lessons. My heart bore witness that our ship must surely be cutting across the very lines along which there once passed those bands of the holy warriors of the first centuries, among whom there must surely have been one or two Companions of the Prophet and men who remembered his court. Going on, our steamer reached a place where on the European side the sea runs two or three miles into the land, and this part is called the Bay of Gibraltar. On the eastern corner of this bay lies the town of Gibraltar, and on the western corner the hills of Cabrita. At the mouth of the Bay of Gibraltar these two European mountains, Gibraltar and Cabrita, stand with their heads raised on either side; the first, Gibraltar, is held by the English, and the second is under the government of Spain. On the western shores of this bay, a little beyond Mount Cabrita, is the ancient town of Algeciras, which the Muslim historians call al-Jazira al-Khadra (the Green Isle). Under the Umayyad dynasty this town was very flourishing; the nobles of former times praise its pleasantness and verdure very highly, and the nobles of Spain and Morocco used often to gather here. Even today the white, solid buildings of Algeciras can be seen most beautifully scattered and spread over a level, sloping stretch of land between the mountains and the sea. Near them a fort of no great consequence has been built, and the railway passes beneath this fort and goes on to the interior of Spain. A little way north of the fort is the town of al-Muranda, which today lies dull and lifeless as a most insignificant little town, set on high ground somewhat back from the sea. North of al-Muranda the river Guadarranque falls into the sea. On the eastern shores of this bay there is no other settlement; the reason is that on that side a narrow strip of land, bounding the bay, runs a long way out, and at its very tip is the lofty peak on which Tariq landed with his army, and where the town of Gibraltar stands today. At a distance north of Gibraltar, near the hills of the Guadarranque, lies an ancient town as well, Majurqa; but its houses cannot be seen.

Opposite this bay, on the coast of Africa, a piece of land called Ras al-Mana' runs right out into the water, and behind this cape lies the famous town of Ceuta, whose ruler, Julian, enraged by the dishonouring of his daughter, urged the Muslims to the conquest of Spain. (1) The present Ceuta is a new settlement, and the ruins of old Ceuta lie two miles to the west of it. The range of hills which begins at Ceuta and runs along the African coast to the last part of the Straits of Gibraltar, that is, to the western corner, is named to this day after Musa ibn Nusayr and is called Jabal Musa. In short, this is a place where, if you look closely, everything recalls ancient Islamic history and the deeds of the famous men of Islam of the past.

Our steamer drew near Gibraltar and stopped. The town of Gibraltar has two parts, and both lie at the foot of the immense mountain that touches the sky. In one part only the people of the place live, and in the other the English live as well as the local people. Standing on the sea and looking up at the height of the mountain, you see nothing but bare black rocks; but in fact the whole mountain is a mighty English fortress. A little while after the ship stopped I boarded a steam launch and went into the town. As soon as we reached the harbour, we saw with surprise that a little market has been built for the people who live on the shore, and in it Arabs of Morocco, wearing long shirts and the trousers of the pious, with Turkish caps on their heads, were selling their wares. I went up to these people and tried to talk a little in Arabic; but apart from a word or two, they could not understand me nor I them. The reason is that the Arabic of Morocco has drifted so far from the language of Egypt, Syria and Arabia proper that even the people of Syria and Egypt cannot understand it without living in that country for some days; how then could I? But this much I did learn: that while in the other towns of Spain there is not a Muslim even in name, in Gibraltar itself, because of English rule, the merchants of Morocco are free to come and stay for trade, and labourers from Morocco also come and live here; so one may say that after a long exile the Muslims have found a chance to set foot in Gibraltar once again.

After staying here a little while I went through a gate into the town. It has nothing like the cleanliness of the other cities of Europe, but it is still a very lively town. The buildings rise higher and higher up the foot of the mountain, and because space is short the roads are not as wide as is thought necessary nowadays. The beauty of Spain is famous throughout Europe; and though Gibraltar is a very corrupt sample for testing this, still one can see there a full sample of the general cast of Spanish faces and features. There is no doubt that eyes accustomed to the excessively fair faces of northern Europe will at first see a certain darkness in the faces of Spanish beauties. Their fairness is such as the people of Egypt and Iran, or in India the people of Kashmir and Afghanistan, would call fair; but in English taste this colour is called dark, or swarthy. The faces of Spanish women are generally broad and very beautiful, their eyes dark and their hair black. In short, they have all the qualities for which a man from the Eastern countries would prefer their beauty to the beauty of Europe; but it is a surprising thing that not only we but all the people of Europe as well are admirers of Spanish beauty. In speech, habits and manners, and in dress, in everything, these people appear quite different from the English; and I was astonished to see that Gibraltar's being in Europe has brought its people no benefit worth mentioning; for just such "natives" as we are counted in India, such "natives" are they in Gibraltar.

I hired a carriage, toured the town thoroughly, and set off for the fortress. The fortress here is considered the mightiest and first-class fortress of the British Empire. Except for British subjects, people are forbidden to go inside. At the outer gate I wrote my name in a register and set off inside with two European soldiers. A road has been cut inside the mountain, which climbs up, winding round the mountain like a tunnel. At the mouth of this tunnel there is a great gate, and on it there always hangs a mighty lock. As you climb this artificial road, there are more and more openings, and in them very large guns have been mounted, with many shells kept beside each gun. The openings are shaped from outside so that they look only like mountain caves, and one would never even imagine that there are guns inside. Nor is this the only tunnel; there are many such tunnels, and the fortress is so large that a man could hardly see it in two or four days. Besides, the secret and hidden places that are kept are not shown to anyone at all.

Outside the fortress, in the middle of the mountain, stands an old building built by the Muslims, which is called the Old Moorish Castle (that is, the old castle of the people of Morocco). I looked at this building more attentively than at anything else. Now this building stands with the air of an utterly decayed ruin, a worm-eaten page of Islamic history. The improvements that the Islamic kingdom of Spain made in building, and the kind of beauty it created, cannot be traced in this building; which shows that it was built in the very earliest period of the Islamic kingdom. Thousands of years of rains, lightning, earthquakes and storms, every kind of earthly and heavenly calamity, have beaten upon it, and hundreds of political revolutions have taken place; yet this palace still stands, saying in the language of its state that despite all these calamities it has not betrayed its builders, and to this moment it tells their name to everyone who passes by.

Having seen all these things we came back into the town. The people here have neither the cleanliness of the other cities of Europe nor their wealth. The poor can be seen walking the roads with loads on their backs, in torn, old, dirty clothes. Poor travellers are seen in the harbour carrying on their heads the same kind of dirty, wretched bundles that you see at the stations of India. Some people appear in so bad, so wretched and abject a state that the onlooker feels boundless pity.

Since the people generally hold to the Roman Catholic religion, nuns and monkish priests are powerful; but the nuns here too appear to be in a poor state. They are not as prosperous as the clergy of India, who in the name of religion spend lakhs of rupees in their salaries. My chief concern here was to find out whether among the native people of the place there were any Muslims. In this the coachman helped me, and from what he told me I learned that yes, there are; but alas, do not ask how and in what state they are. The grief I brought back on my heart from there on this particular matter will perhaps never be effaced as long as I live. Those who sweep the roads, the scavengers and others of such low callings, are mostly Muslims. In all the streets and lanes, whoever appears the most abject, know that he is a Muslim; and so abject that passers-by strike them and the drivers of carriages lash at them with their whips, and they only grin and fawn and let it pass. The very driver of the carriage I was riding in struck a Muslim road-sweeper hard with his whip, and in truth the blow fell on me. I said in my heart, "Alas, these are the people who were once the rulers here, and these same people are in this state today." I asked whether these people had any mosque here. I learned that they had not. A mosque indeed! They do not even know how prayer is said or what the principles of Islam are. *Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un!* (Surely we belong to God, and to Him we return.) [TN: Quran 2:156, said on hearing of a death or calamity.] O Muslims! The truth is that the picture of these people shows plainly what comes of clinging to one's national pride and prejudice while subject to another nation. In short, weeping over the state of these people and grieving in my heart, I came back to the ship after six hours. In a little while the ship set sail, and before long, watching the lovely blue water of the Mediterranean, we had left the coasts on both sides behind.

(1) In the days when Musa ibn Nusayr arrived here, in the caliphate of al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik, the town of Ceuta was governed by a man named Julian on behalf of Roderic, the king of Spain. Since it was the custom in those days for nobles and officers often to send their daughters to the king's own household to learn the rules and manners of the court, Julian's daughter too was living in Roderic's own palace in the capital, Toledo. The king ought, according to the accepted rule, to have shown her a father's kindness; instead he dishonoured the girl and violated her by force. After this disgrace the girl fled to her father, and Julian in his fury made common cause with Musa ibn Nusayr, and with the Muslim generals marched against him.