Emirate of Granada

The last Muslim state in western Europe, which survived two and a half centuries by paying for it. Granada was founded in 1238 by Muhammad I of the Nasrid dynasty as the Christian kingdoms took the rest of al-Andalus, and it lasted by becoming a tributary of Castile - paying substantial annual sums, supplying troops when required, and playing Castilian factions and North African dynasties against each other. The territory was small, mountainous and unusually densely populated, fed by irrigation systems and a silk industry that traded through Genoese merchants. The Alhambra, built and extended through the fourteenth century, is the most complete surviving palace complex of the Islamic west, with the Court of the Lions and inscriptions repeating that there is no victor but God. The emirate absorbed refugees from every Christian advance, which made it both culturally rich and politically brittle. A dynastic civil war in the 1480s gave Ferdinand and Isabella their opening, and the city surrendered in January 1492 under terms guaranteeing religious freedom that were revoked within a decade. Expulsion of the Moriscos followed in 1609. The Alhambra is a World Heritage site. The emirate covered roughly the modern provinces of Granada, Malaga and Almeria. It lasted from 1238 to 1492, the longest-surviving Muslim polity in Iberia. Its population may have reached half a million, unusually dense for the period. Granada's silk was traded across the Mediterranean. The surrender terms are known as the Capitulations of Granada. Boabdil, the last emir, left for North Africa and died there.

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