1. To the victor belongs the bride. In the wars which were waged in Spain between Christians and Muslims, the former had often come under the influence of the attractions of Moorish fair ones. Many a Christian knight had celebrated "the nine-days' religious rite" with a Moorish woman. But besides material wealth and sensual enjoyment, the charm of intellectual culture had also its effect upon the conqueror. And Arab Science thus presented the appearance of a lovely bride to the eyes of many men who felt their want of knowledge.
It was the Jews especially who played the part of matchmakers in the transaction. The Jews had participated in all the transformations of Muslim intellectual culture: many of them wrote in Arabic, and others translated Arabic writings into Hebrew; not a few philosophical works by Muslim authors owe their preservation to the latter circumstance.