People think of 1492 as the year of fall of Granada. That was, after all, the year that the last sultan of that kingdom, the ill-fated Boabdil, surrendered the keys of city to the conquering Christians before riding into exile, thus bringing to an end seven centuries of Muslim rule in Spain.
But by this time the kingdom of the Granada had already been largely whittled away; in the preceding decade, it had gone from being a territory embracing Malaga in the West and Almería in the East to practically just the city itself and the nearby Alpujarra.
And during this period, in 1487, the kingdom suffered a particularly debilitating blow: the lost of the port city of Malaga.
The Birth of Granada
The kingdom of came into existence during the 13th Century when the North African Almohad empire, into which the remaining part of Muslim Spain had been incorporated, went into decline and its frontiers receded back across the Straits of Gibraltar. Filling the vacuum a warlord known as Al-Ahmar rose to prominence and established a power base around the City of Granada.
In the years prior to this the recovery of territory for Christendom had been proceeding apace, with the Christian kingdoms of Portugal, Castile and Aragon making vast territorial gains.
But the domain which Al-Ahmar had forged was blessed with mountainous terrain, and with many fortified towns and castles. And this combination of natural and man-made defences would help put a brake on the process of Christian reconquest – and this brake would hold for about two and half centuries.
Fernando and Isabel
But in the 1480s Granada faced two determined Monarchs: Isabel, queen of Castile and her husband Fernando, king of Aragon. And they were united, not only in marriage, but in their determination to conquer the last part of Moorish Spain for Christendom.
Moreover, Fernando had a weapon had his disposal which had not been available to his predecessors – one of which he would famously make ample use.
Nearly thirty years earlier, Christendom had been rocked by fall of Constantinople. This was in no small part due to the use of cannons against the city walls. Now this weapon, which had proved so decisive when used by the Turks against the remnants of the Byzantine empire, was going to be used by Christians against the Muslims.
The Campaign around Malaga
In 1484, Fernando started picking off the towns to the west of Malaga. First, he took Álora, battering down the walls with cannon-fire.
Next he besieged Setenil. Initially the occupants were confident the town walls would, as Shakespeare’s MacBeth said of his own fortifications, “laugh a siege to scorn”. Fernando’s fusillades disabused them of this idea and the city was taken.
In 1485 he would take Coín, Cártema and then Ronda which had been considered impregnable. Unsurprisingly when Fernando and his army approached Marbella the townsmen sent a delegation to meet them to negotiate surrender.
Later Fernando was called away on other business but resumed his campaign around Malaga in 1487, turning his attention to Velez-Malaga to the East. In response to this, the King of Granada, a great warrior called Al-Zagal, “the valiant one”, rode to the town’s aid. On arrival he planned to knock out Fernando’s guns before they could be properly deployed.
But there was a problem. At the time the kingdom was divided between Al-Zagal and his nephew Boabdil, the Moor who would later oversee the final surrender of the kingdom, and the two were locked in a bitter struggle. In Al-Zagal’s absence, Boabdil achieved a triumph in Granada, it was presumable news of this success, that caused al-Zagal, after a brief “half-engagement”, to vanish.
After that Vélez-Málaga quickly surrendered; the next prize to take would be Malaga itself.
The siege begins
Just north of the port of Malaga is a hill with two castles: the Alcazaba at the base, and the Gibralfaro at the summit, and a wall running up the ridge of the hill joining the two. Seaward side of the hill provides an extensive view of the Mediterranean, and the east and west of the city.
The landward side forms a quiet, wooded park. Walk along a meandering road through it closed to unauthorized traffic, and you have the sense of being in the countryside, while only being a short walk away from the city centre. Through breaks in the trees, you have impressive views of the city and the hills beyond. Occasionally you may see a red squirrel. Their fur is not the light-coloured red of those of the British Isles, (which due to their sparse population there, may only be familiar to a Britisher through, say, the illustrations of Beatrix Potter’s “Squirrel Nutkin”) but the dark mahogany red characteristic of those in Spain. In all, a walk there can be profoundly peaceful.
Yet in 1487 this hillside was anything but.
On arriving in Malaga, the Castilians attempted to negotiate the surrender of the city. But the commander of Malaga – one Hamete Zeli – contemptuously rejected their offer. There would be no rapid surrender as there had been a Marbella and Vélez-Málaga. The Moors here would fight with a fierce resolution.
A day was spent by the Castilians taking the hill, the Moors fighting, according to a Christian chronicle, with a greater desire to kill Christians than preserve their own lives.
Eventually the hillside was won and with prodigious speed the Castilians erected a fortress of timber and earthworks to face the Moorish one of stone. This was joined by other temporary structures ringing in the city.
There followed a continuous exchange of cannon shot between the two opponents. The moors occasionally aimed specifically at the king’s tent, forcing the Castilians to move it to a safe position behind a hill.
Things were far from well for the Christians. In some places nearby there was plague and the Castilians were afraid it would reach the camp. Occasionally food shortages arose. Some men defected to the Moors and became informants. With moral at such a low point Fernando asked his wife to join him to raise the spirits of his army.
In contrast moral seemed to be high with the Moors. Despite their isolation, they fought hard, were obedient to their commanders and repaired the walls as quickly as they were damaged.
Moreover, when Al-Zagal heard of the siege he sent a relief column to help.
Betrayal
However, this relief would never arrive. According to Christian sources – though not Muslim ones – it was intercepted and defeated by troops sent by none other than his nephew Boabdil himself.
Moors fighting Moors, even in the face of Christian threat, was far from unprecedented. About two and a half centuries earlier Ibn Al-Ahmar, the man who founded the kingdom of Granada and the first of the Nasrid dynasty that would rule it, actively helped king Fernando III of Castile capture Seville from Ibn Hud, the emir of Murcia and rival power in what remained of Moorish Spain at the time. Often expediency and personal rivalry took priority over loyalty on grounds of shared religion.
Boabdil had previously been captured in battle by the Christians, and had only been released by Fernando and Isabel, on various conditions including surrendering his son to be kept as hostage and forming a shaky semi-alliance with the Catholic Monarchs.
Moreover, Boabdil had reason for enmity with his uncle. Amongst other grievances Al-Zagal had previously had his other nephew, Boabdil’s brother Yusuf, murdered.
Ibrahim the holy man
There was another attempted relieve the siege.
There was a Tunisian holy man living Guadix called Ibrahim al-Jarbi. He claimed to have a vision revealing how Malaga could be saved from the Christians and managed to rouse about 400 followers to his cause.
Travelling by night, and approaching Malaga from the East, and at dawn they attacked one of the temporary forts by the sea. Many of them were killed, but some two hundred did manage to penetrate Christian lines by swimming around the fort or jumping over the barriers.
When the troops came to clear up, they found one of the raiders alive. Ibrahim was in a gully with his hands raised to heaven in prayer perfectly still. He was taken to Rodrigo Ponce de León.
During his interrogation he let slip that he that he had a revelation. When pressed he said he would only relate it to the king and queen. Rodrigo informed the Fernando and Isabel, who gave orders for the Ibrahim to be brought to them.
Under the gaze of many people, anxious to see this strange holy man, he was led to an ornate tent. On entering he found himself in the presence of a man and woman dressed in fine clothes. He then began to enact the part of the enterprise that he had allocated to himself. Taking a knife that he still had in his belt, he struck a at the head of the man, severely injuring him. He then lunged at the woman, but the blow went wide.
Saved by a siesta?
In fact, he had missed both his targets by a much wider mark. Earlier, when Ibrahim had been brought to meet the monarchs, the king had just had a large meal and had fallen asleep. The queen, anxious not to disturb him, gave orders that Ibrahim should wait another tent – one that was currently occupied by Álvaro of Portugal, the son of the duke of Braganza, and Álvaro’s wife Felipa. Ibrahim, who spoke little if any Castilian, took them to be the King and Queen.
After the near-deadly attack, a treasury official rushed in and grappled bodily with Ibrahim. People crowded in and in a few minutes the would-be assassin was cut down.
Shortly afterwards, addition to cannon-fire, the Moors would be the recipients of softer, more gruesome ordnance: pieces of Ibrahim shot over the wall with a siege catapult.
The Moors retaliated by killing one of the Christian prisoners, placing him on a donkey and setting the beast loose, directing him to the Christian camp.
As for Ibrahim’s body parts, pious Muslims gathered them up, sewed them back together with silk thread, anointed the reassembled body with perfume and gave it a respectful burial.
The end of the siege
Soon the famine became desperate within the town. When stocks ran out, they were reduced to eating horses, asses, donkeys, dogs, skins and even the leaves from trees. Before long people were dying from hunger.
A party of dignitaries crossed the line and sued for peace, asking them to be allowed to continue as subjects of the Christians as terms of their surrender.
At the start of the siege, the Moors’ determined resistance had earned the Christians’ respect. However, that respect did not lead to magnanimity when negotiating surrender terms. The Catholic Monarchs insisted that the people of Malaga could expect only captivity or death.
The moors threatened to hang all the Christian prisoners from the battlements. Fernando and Isabel responded by saying that if a single prisoner were harmed all the Malagans without exception would be put to the sword.
Eventually the Catholic Monarchs softened their stance and granted safe conduct to some. The Christians entered the city, the Monarchs delaying their entry on account of the overpowering stench of death.
The recipients of Fernando and Isabel’s mercy had been the town dignitaries who had advocated peace. The general population wasn’t so lucky. The Muslim townsfolk were placed in enclosures until they were shared out. The division of the human spoils included the following allocations:
- some were set aside for prisoner exchanges in North Africa,
- one third were given as slaves to those who had fought in the siege,
- one third went to defray all crown expenses,
- one hundred North African warriors were sent as a present to the Pope,
- fifty maidens were gifted to the queen of Naples,
- thirty maidens were gifted to the queen of Portugal,
- and various other gifts.
But apart from this humanitarian disaster, the kingdom of Granada was fatally crippled by the loss of a vital seaport.
When the city of the Granada finally surrendered in 1492, the terms were more lenient. The conquered Granadans were allowed to come and go freely and retain their own religion. Admittedly promises were later reneged on, but the at least the populace was spared the devasting fate of the Malagans.
According to legend, after that surrender, when Boabdil went into exile, he looked back on the fair city of Granada and wept – an incident known as the Moors Last Sigh. His mother – again according to dubious legend – is said to have uttered her cutting rebuke: “Weep like a woman for what you couldn’t defend like a man!”
Maybe, given how townsfolk of Malaga were rewarded for their determined resistance, those of Granada had reason to be grateful for Boabdil’s less robust defence.
Sources:
Islamic Spain: 1250 to 1500 by L.P. Harvey
The Moor’s Last Stand by Elizabeth Drayson
Leave a Reply