In 1854, Eliot reviewed in The Leader the Rev. N. Davis' Evenings in My Tent and revealed, in the introduction, the mental image of Arabic that she had constructed from her childhood readings. over the years, and which was particularly exciting and “magical”:Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essayHow little we still know about Africa. In our childhood, his name exercised a mysterious power over our imagination, going back to that of the terrible "African magician" from the Arabian Nights... In later years, poetry and romance populated this great stage with suitable actors, - of the noble and generous Arab, remaining like a patriarch of yesteryear, in his goatskin tent; roaming the sands on his matchless horse, yielding only to numbers, incapable of deception or betrayal. We must admit that either the spell of the African magician still blinds our eyes a little, or these simple and noble sons of the Desert have strangely degenerated. Modern travelers, she tells us, paint a completely different picture of the Arab than that of her childhood and her "more mature years": "singularly cunning, rapacious and cowardly, apparently incapable of truth and immersed in superstition abject; in fact, as exhibiting all the vices of an oppressed race.” Although Eliot did not clearly decide whether the image of the high, generous, noble Arab of his "mature years" should be updated in the light of new information provided by modern travelers, she nevertheless admitted that his vices were those of an oppressed race. However, she chooses to say nothing about the real identity of the oppressor. Ten years later, after this assessment, Eliot would find these two opposing portraits of the same Arab when she began to write her poem The Spanish Gypsy in 1864. However, at a given moment, the double mental image that she had constructed of him materialized in one way or another in the real and real historical figures of two Moorish Muslim emirs, Boabdil and El Zagal, the first being the nephew of the second and declared enemy who usurped the throne of his uncle and caused a civil war. bloody civil war in the final years before the fall of Granada in 1492. To describe these two royal figures, Eliot relied on a reliable historical source: Al-Makkari's History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain. El Zagal's nephew, Mohammed XII (commonly known to Europeans as Boabdil), was the twentieth emir of the Beni Nasr dynasty of Granada and last emir of the same city whose fall marked the end of the Spanish Reconquista . Boabdil rose up against his father and was first proclaimed in Granada in 1482. In 1483 he was taken prisoner by the Spanish and replaced by his uncle el Zagal, but he was soon restored to his freedom and his throne in 1487 after a rage. civil war against his uncle and decisive help from the Spanish. Five years later, he was finally forced — by these same Spanish allies — to surrender and leave Granada in 1492 for the city of Fez, Morocco, where he settled until his death in 1536. In The Gypsy Eliot's Spanish, Boabdil embodies the "cowardly Arab", capable of "deception" and "betrayal", and "apparently incapable of the truth" as described in his review of the Reverend Davis' book: "Not Boabdil the hesitant, who usurps / A throne in which he complacently trembles and licks. / The feet of the conquerors” (The Spanish Gypsy 4). He apparently fits the image of the “noble son of the desert” who has “strangely degenerated.” It is true that Boabdil's reckless management of the political situation which led tothe expulsion of Muslims from al-Andalus2 at the time earned him bitter reproaches from most Muslim chroniclers, but Eliot's criticism of this historical figure seems much harsher and transforms, in her own words, to the point of total humiliation when she literally makes him "lick" the feet of the Christian "conquerors" - an expression that serious historians know for their objectivity, like al-Makkari , was never used in their historical accounts. Eliot's flagrant and uncompromising condemnation of the last Emir of Granada directly implicates him, as a writer, in the expression of his personal opinions on characters who are in no way fictional, but all the more real and historical. Thus engaging in conveying non-factual information, through prejudiced language, leads Eliot to prejudice the reader against one of the major Muslim political figures in the history of al-Andalus. Throughout the eight centuries of Moorish Spanish history, and particularly during the last when the pressure of the Spanish Reconquista intensified, many Muslim emirs made agreements and even entered into alliances with kings Christians against each other, but this was obviously part of the history of Moorish Spain. political game. This is also true of el Zagal, Eliot's favorite Muslim royal character in the poem, who surrendered to King Ferdinand and made a political agreement with him. El Zagal, Boabdil's uncle and political rival for the throne of Granada, is officially known as Mohammed. XIII, twenty-first emir of the Beni Nasr dynasty of Granada. He first revolted against his brother, and was proclaimed in Granada in 1483 to be dethroned four years later, in 1487, by his nephew Boabdil. El Zagal retired to Guadix until 1489, when he surrendered to King Ferdinand who "gave him the investiture" of all his former domains "on condition that he paid him homage for this." El Zagal then goes to war against Boabdil who is assisted by Christian troops. Seeing that the situation was becoming desperate, El Zagal decided, shortly after 1490, to move to North Africa. In fact, Eliot followed el Zagal's itinerary of exile given by al-Makkari to the letter: the emir first sailed to Oran, then from there headed to Telemsan (both in the 'present-day Algeria), "where he settled and where his descendants reside". this day; being well known as (the sons of the Sultan of Andalusia)” (Al-Makkari 386). In The Spanish Gypsy, el Zagal's men are accompanied by Fedalma's band of gypsies to whom the emir had promised "a grant of land / In the Berber kingdom" (201) for their military assistance against the Spaniards. El Zagal is portrayed by Eliot in completely opposite terms to those of his nephew. Unlike the "trembling", "vaccillating" and "flattering" Boabdil, el Zagal is metaphorically represented as a "fierce lion": ...but this fierce lion Grisly El Zagal, who made his den in the fort of Guadix, and rushes there with force, Half his own ferocity, half the intact heart Of the mountain bands fighting for the holidays, Up to this point in The Spanish Gypsy, Eliot clearly shows his preference for the "brave" uncle (180). In doing so, she is faithful to her childhood mental image of the "noble and generous Arab... roaming the sand on his matchless horse, yielding only to numbers, incapable of deception or betrayal" that she had portrayed ten years earlier. El Zagal also kept his word, promising his allies safe exile in North Africa. He honored his written commitment to the Gypsy leader Zarca and his community, and never deceived them. Yet these very distinctive qualities are also,.