The Nasrid Dynastic Civil Wars
The Nasrid emirate of Granada spent the fifteenth century in dynastic civil war, and it is the reason it fell. Granada was the last Muslim state in Iberia, reduced to a mountainous strip of the south since the thirteenth century, and it had survived by paying tribute to Castile, exploiting Castilian civil wars, and calling in help from Morocco. Its constitution had no rule of succession. The throne passed to whoever could hold it among the sons and brothers of the previous emir, backed by the great families — the Abencerrajes and the Zegríes above all — and by the frontier commanders. From 1408 the deposals became continuous. Yusuf III's death that year opened a period in which emirs were made and unmade repeatedly, several ruling more than once and none ruling securely, with Castile intervening on behalf of whichever claimant was cheapest. The final round destroyed it. Abu al-Hasan Ali repudiated the tribute in 1478 and took Zahara in 1481, which gave Ferdinand and Isabella their pretext. His son Boabdil rebelled against him, was captured by the Castilians at Lucena in 1483, and was released on terms that made him their client against his own father and uncle. Granada therefore fought the last war of the Reconquista with two or three emirs at once, each holding part of the territory. Ferdinand took the towns one at a time over ten years. Boabdil surrendered the city in January 1492 and left, and his mother is said to have told him to weep like a woman for what he had not defended like a man.
- Year: 1408 CE
- Category: Political
