THE ARAB CONQUEST 173While they remained personally in control of their own administra-
tion the Umayyads were the best guarantee of the stability and com-
petence of the government, and the dissolution of their regime
followed within a generation of their loss of personal power, resulting
from the succession of a minor. This was fully appreciated by Ibn
I:Iayyan: 'It is generally known that the strength and solidity of their
empire consisted principally in the policy pursued by these princes,
the magnificence and splendour with which they surrounded their
court, the reverential awe which they inspired in their subjects, the
inexorable rigour with which they chastised every aggression on their
rights, the impartiality of their judgements, their anxious solicitude
in the observance of the civil law, their regard and attention to the
learned, whose opinions they respected and followed, calling them to
their sittings and to their councils, and many other brilliant quali-
ties. ,59 Inevitably in the austere periods of Berber rule that were to
follow in Al-Andalus, it is not surprising that nostalgia for the days of
the Umayyads should develop, but this need not have been based
upon a totally mistaken perception of those monarchs' virtues. Cer-
tainly in practice up to the accession of Hisham II in 976 the achieve-
ments of the Umayyad state were essentially those of its ruling dynasty.
The administration that functioned under the control of the amirs
was centred upon Cordoba. It was divided into departments of fi-
nance, justice, foreign relations and 'the care of the frontiers and the
provision and equipment of the troops stationed upon them.' The
nominal heads of these four bureaux were the viziers, who corpo-
rately formed an advisory council to the ruler. The head of this body
was the IJajib or Chief Vizier, who on occasion was also entrusted with
military commands, when these were not given to members of the
Amir's immediate family.60 Only with the accession of the child caliph
Hisham II did the Vizirate become a route to real power.^61 Other
departments of state were the two secretariates that looked after the
drafting of documents, and the protection of Christians and Jews.
Some of the personnel of the bureaux were drawn from the ranks of
the latter. In general the government was in the hands of what
amounted to a class of professional civil servants subject to the active
control and decision-making of the rulers. Unfortunately it is not
known how large or practically efficient the offices of central govern-
ment were, although if the accounts of the large revenues that some
of the Umayyads collected have any basis in fact they cannot have