Boabdil
Boabdil (a corruption of the name
Abu Abdullah, or, in full,
Abu 'abd Allah Muhammad XII, )(
1460?–
1527) was the last
Moorish king of
Granada (of the
Nasrid dynasty). He was also called
el chico, the little, and also
el zogoybi, the unfortunate. A son of
Muley Abul Hassan, king of the
taifa of Granada, he was proclaimed king in
1482 in place of his father, who was driven from the land.
Boabdil 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
Abdullah ez Zagal.
In
1489 Boabdil 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
Leon only six days after the event preserves 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. Whome 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 himself 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...
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. Boabdil 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 Boabdil looked for the last time on Granada is still shown, and is known as "the last sigh of the Moor" (
el último suspiro del Moro).
The vanquished
Nasrid was given an estate in
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.
*
Treaty of Granada*
Reconquista*
Alhambra Decree*
Leila or, the Siege of Granada, Complete by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton*
