Sword of Muhammad XII

Muhammad XII soon after sought to gain prestige by invading Castile. He was taken prisoner at Lucena in 1483, and only obtained his freedom by consenting to hold Granada as a tributary kingdom under Ferdinand and Isabella, king and queen of Castile and Aragon. The next few years were consumed in struggles with his father and his uncle Muhammed XIII, also known as Abdullah ez Zagal.

Surrender of Granada

The Capitulation of Granada by F. Padilla: Muhammad XII confronts Ferdinand and Isabella

In 1489, Muhammad XII was summoned by Ferdinand and Isabella to surrender the city of Granada, and on his refusal it was besieged by the Castilians. Eventually, on 2 January, 1492, Granada was surrendered. In most sumptuous attire the royal procession moved from Santa Fe to a place a little more than a mile from Granada, where Ferdinand took up his position by the banks of the Genil. A private letter written by an eyewitness to the bishop of León only six days after the event recorded the scene.

With the royal banners and the cross of Christ plainly visible on the red walls of the Alhambra: ?the Moorish king with about eighty or a hundred on horseback very well dressed went forth to kiss the hand of their Highnesses. Whom they received with much love and courtesy and there they handed over to him his son, who had been a hostage from the time of his capture, and as they stood there, there came about four hundred captives, of this who were in the enclosure, with the cross and a solemn procession singing the Te Deum Laudamus, and their highnesses dismounted to adore the Cross to the accompaniment of the tears and reverential devotion of the crowd, not least of the Cardinal and Master of Santiago and the Duke of Cadiz and all the other grandees and gentlemen and people who stood there, and there was no one who did not weep abundantly with pleasure giving thanks to Our Lord for what they saw, for they could not keep back the tears; and the Moorish King and the Moors who were with him for their part could not disguise the sadness and pain they felt for the joy of the Christians, and certainly with much reason on account of their loss, for Granada is the most distinguished and chief thing in the world?

Christopher Columbus seems to have been present; he refers to the surrender on the first page of his Diario de las Derrotas y Caminos:

After your Highnesses ended the war of the Moors who reigned in Europe, and finished the war of the great city of Granada, where this present year [1492] on the 2nd January I saw the royal banners of Your Highnesses planted by force of arms on the towers of the Alhambra, which is the fortress of the said city, I saw the Moorish king issue from the gates of the said city, and kiss the royal hands of Your Highnesses?

Exile

The Helmet of Muhammad XII:

Legend has it that as the royal party moved south toward exile, they reached a rocky eminence which gave a last view of the delectable city. Muhammad XII reined in his horse and surveying for the last time the Alhambra and the green valley that spread below he burst into tears. "You do well", said his unsympathetic mother, "to weep like a woman for what you could not defend like a man". The spot from which Muhammad XII looked for the last time on Granada is still shown, and is known as "the Moor's last sigh" (el último suspiro del Moro).

The vanquished Nasrid was given an estate in Láujar de Andarax, Las Alpujarras, a mountainous area between the Sierra Nevada and the Mediterranean Sea, but he soon crossed the Strait of Gibraltar to Fez, where he died in 1533. Blas Infante, the father of modern-day Andalusian regionalism, visited Boabdil's old house in that town in 1924 as a sign of respect.

His daughter Aixa was taken by the Spanish and baptised Isabel. King Ferdinand celebrated the conquest of Granada by taking her as one of his mistresses and she was the mother of one of his illegitimate sons, Miguel Fernández, the Knight of Granada (1495-1575). When, in her turn, cast aside by the King she became a nun as Sister Isabel of Granada.

Muhammad XII in popular culture

• He was the subject of the three-act opera "Boabdil, der letzte Maurenkönig", Op. 49, written in 1892 by the German composer Moritz Moszkowski.
• Spanish composer Gaspar Cassadó wrote the Lamento de Boabdil for cello and piano, in memory of the moor.
• Andalusian singer-songwriter and poet Carlos Cano dedicated a song to Boabdil in his album Crónicas Granadinas, titled Caída del Rey Chico.
• Salman Rushdie's book, The Moor's Last Sigh, also features consistent references to Muhammad XII.
• Louis Aragon's book Le Fou d'Elsa renders a dramatized and poetic version of the story of Granada's capture, which includes Muhammad XII as one of the two main characters present in the novel (Majnun being the other. Elsa, whom it could be argued is the second major character, is absent from the book.)

See also

• Al Andalus
• Treaty of Granada
• Reconquista
• Alhambra Decree

References

External links

• Leila or, the Siege of Granada, Complete by Lord Lytton

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