the most determined assaults upon his doomed kingdom. In his reign took
place the celebrated siege of Antequera by the Castilians, the survivors
of which founded the suburb of Antequeruela adjacent to Granada. Yusuf
ultimately found peace and a valuable ally as the outcome of a strange
story of fraternal animosity. The people of Gibraltar revolted against
Granada and proclaimed themselves the subjects of Fez. The Sultan of
that realm sent his hated brother, Abu Saïd, to take possession of the
town, and treating him as David did Uriah, left him at the mercy of the
enemy. Yusuf, however, treated the captured prince with generosity, and
showed him a letter which he shortly after received from the Sultan of
Fez, requesting that he might be poisoned. Thirsting for vengeance, Abu
Saïd procured arms and soldiers at Granada, and, invading Morocco, drove
his perfidious brother from the throne. Thereafter he was the sworn ally
of the Sultan of Granada, whom Castile and Aragon no longer ventured to
trouble. Yusuf III. passed away in 1417.
The history of Granada is henceforward one of almost continuous
revolution and tumult. Mohammed VIII. was driven into exile by a
namesake reckoned as the ninth of his name, and then restored by a
counter-revolution. A Castilian army ravaged the Vega up to the walls of
the capital. Granada itself would have fallen, had not Juan II. and the
great Constable, Alvaro de Luna, been recalled to Castile by the
disorders which resulted in the latter’s overthrow. An earthquake
desolated the distracted kingdom; and we may suppose that Mohammed VIII.
was not altogether sorry when he abandoned his throne to a pretender and
fled to Malaga.
The new sultan, Yusuf IV., held his throne as a fief of Castile, the
support of which he had to purchase with humiliating concessions. He
anticipated inevitable assassination by dying after sixteen months of
authority; and for the third time, Mohammed VIII. was proclaimed at
Granada (1432). Hostilities with Castile were at once renewed. This time
the fortune of war was with the Moors, who routed their opponents at
Illora, Archidona, and Castril. But Mohammed VIII.’s star was never long
in the ascendant. He quarrelled with the powerful family of the
Abencerrages; and, deprived of their support, was finally expelled from
his kingdom, by his kinsman, Aben Osmin.[B] The usurper was victorious
over the Christians and took several strongholds, but his army suffered
at last a bloody defeat at Alporchones. This reverse seems to have
maddened Osmin, who henceforward conducted himself as a tyrant of the
old Roman type. Revolutions had now become as frequent in Granada as in
some South American states. The usurper ran his brief career, and was
then forced to make room for Mohammed VIII.’s cousin Saïd. Granada was
all for peace. Tribute was paid to Enrique IV. of Castile, Christian
captives released--all in vain. The intermittent warfare went on as
before. Jaen, Archidona, Gibraltar, were lost, despite the desperate
valour of the Prince, Muley Hassan, and of the Chieftain, Ibrahim, who,
on being vanquished, plunged on horseback into the depths of a ravine.
At last, however, the distracted Ibn Ismail obtained peace for his
wretched country by a personal interview with Enrique, outside the walls
of Granada. He devoted the remainder of his reign to the encouragement
of commerce, industry, and agriculture in his dominions--labour that did
not benefit even those who were to succeed him; and died at Almeria in
the year 1465. The knell of the Moorish Empire in Europe was sounded
over his bier.
The reigns of Ali Abu-l-Hassan, Mohammed XI. (Boabdil), and Mohammed
XII. (Az-Zaghal) covered the years 1465-1492, during which the downfall
and extinction of the kingdom were accomplished. The history of these
events has already filled many bulky tomes, and has been made familiar
to English readers by the works of Prescott. Even our brief survey,
however, cannot be concluded without a summary of the last chapter of
the story of Granada.
The character of Muley Ali Abu-l-Hassan was the reverse of his
predecessor’s. He was arrogant, impetuous, and warlike, a fanatical
hater of the Christians, and a zealous Muslim. In the first years of his
reign he gained some successes over the feeble Enrique IV., and proved
himself strong enough to quell a revolt at Malaga. But he let slip the
opportunity of attacking the new sovereigns of Spain, Ferdinand and
Isabel, when they were engaged in war with the partisans of “La
Beltraneja,” nor did he make any attempt to effect an alliance with
their numerous enemies. State-craft does not appear to have been
possessed to any great extent by the descendants of Al Ahmar. In 1476,
Abu-l-Hassan condescended to sue for a renewal of the alliance with the
Queen of Castile; but when Ferdinand of Aragon made the payment of the
tribute stipulated by Ibn Ismail a condition of the treaty, the Moor’s
proud nature revolted. “Return to your sovereigns,” he said to the
Spanish ambassadors, “and tell them that the sultans who paid tribute to
the Christians are dead; that here we manufacture only iron spear-heads
for our enemies.” These words sealed the fate of the Moors in Spain,
though the ruler who uttered them probably thought them merely the
prelude to just such a frontier war as had raged intermittently for so
many years.
The first act in the long-drawn-out drama was the capture of Zahara by
the troops of Granada, in 1481--provoked by the predatory incursions of
the Marquis of Cadiz. The Christian garrison was surprised during a
furious tempest, and put to the sword. The rest of the inhabitants were
carried off in captivity to Granada. Abu-l-Hassan, inflated with pride,
returned to his capital. There were popular rejoicings, but the wiser
Moors shook their heads and predicted that the ruins of Zahara would
fall upon their own city.
The fiery chivalry of Andalusia were not slow to retaliate. Two months
after the capture of Zahara, the more important Grenadine stronghold of
Alhama was taken by storm by the forces of the Marquis of Cadiz. The
news produced the utmost consternation in Granada. Abu-l-Hassan at once
set out with 53,000 men, and invested the place. Ferdinand the Catholic,
who had now conceived the idea of reducing the whole kingdom of Granada,
hurried to its relief; but he had only reached Lucena when tidings
arrived of the raising of the siege by the Marquis’s hereditary foe, the
Duke of Medina Sidonia. Abu-l-Hassan returned to the attack a few weeks
later, and Ferdinand resumed his advance, before which the Moors
retired. The Catholic sovereigns made their triumphal entry into Alhama
on May 14, 1482.
Great preparations were made throughout Castile and Aragon for the
prosecution of the war, but the army actually assembled before Loja on
July 1--16,000 men--fell far short of Ferdinand’s requirements and
expectations. The town was ably defended by one of the bravest Moorish
chieftains, Ali Atar, who repulsed the Christians with severe loss. The
King of Aragon narrowly escaped with his life, and was compelled to beat
a retreat. Abu-l-Hassan swept the country as far as the Rio Frio.
Such a success, if it had been followed up, might have turned the scale
in favour of the Moors. But at Granada, treason always followed closely
on the heels of victory. Years before, a beautiful Christian captive,
Doña Isabel de Solis, daughter of the Governor of Martos, had been added
to the Sultan’s harem. Under the name of Zoraya, in the course of time,
she bore him a son, Abu Abdullah, and rose to the rank of favourite
Sultana.[C] Now, jealous, it is said, of a Greek slave, or perhaps
antagonised by the first Sultana, Ayesha, she fomented a conspiracy
against her aged lord, and was imprisoned with her son in the Alhambra.
Thence they contrived to escape, and, exciting the populace in their
favour, obliged Abu-l-Hassan to seek refuge at Malaga. Abu Abdullah,
better known as Boabdil, or el Chico (the little), reigned in his stead,
but Baza, Guadix, and other eastern towns remained faithful to their old
allegiance.
These dissensions among the Moors, though ultimately benefiting the
Spaniards, contributed indirectly to one of the most serious disasters
that befell the latter during the campaign. For an expedition against
Malaga, headed by the Marquis of Cadiz and the Grandmaster of Santiago,
while threading its way through the passes of the Ajarquia, was attacked
by the lieutenants of the old lion, Abu-l-Hassan, and cut to pieces.
Eight hundred Spaniards were left dead on the field. Boabdil, emulous of
the glory his father had acquired, marched out of Granada with 9700 men,
and gave battle to the enemy under the Count of Cabra, near Lucena. The
Moors were totally defeated, their bravest general, Ali Atar, was slain,
and Boabdil himself captured by a private soldier, named Martin Hurtado.
Had this unlucky prince been left in the hands of his enemies, the war
might have had a different result, but his mother and followers at once
made proposals for his release. This was finally effected by a most
dishonourable treaty. Boabdil was accorded a two years’ truce, covering
all places that acknowledged his authority, and in return bound himself,
not only to pay a tribute of twelve thousand golden ducats, but to
assist with supplies the Spanish troops passing through his dominions to
attack his own father. Having thus exchanged his honour for his liberty,
the miserable Sultan returned to his capital, to find that the old King
had possessed himself of the Alhambra. A collision between the two
factions deluged the streets of Granada with blood. The alfakis and
ancients at length arranged an armistice, and Boabdil was suffered to
retire to Almeria, which was assigned to him as capital and residence.
For the next four years, the Catholic sovereigns abstained from any
important military demonstration, contenting themselves with ravaging
the wretched country and harrying its frontiers with incessant forays
and marauding expeditions. Meanwhile, a strong man appeared on the scene
in the person of Abu-l-Hassan’s brother, Abdullah Az-Zaghal. Determined
to put an end to the divisions which, more than the prowess of the
Spaniards, were bringing about the ruin of his country, this prince
swept down upon Almeria, slew the governor, took prisoner Zoraya, but
failed, alas! to secure the person of Boabdil, who fled to Cordova and
placed himself under Ferdinand’s protection. Not long after,
Abu-l-Hassan, aged and worn out, abdicated in favour of his warlike
brother, and died at Mondujar. This event strengthened Boabdil’s claims
upon the tottering throne; and he entered into a compact with his uncle,
whereby both were to reign in Granada, the one in the Albaicin, the
other in the Alhambra. Anxious to redeem his reputation, the newly
restored monarch attacked the Christians near Loja with vastly inferior
forces. He was soundly beaten and forced to take refuge in the Alcazar
of Loja, whence he was only allowed to emerge on renewing the
humiliating treaty he had concluded at Cordova. He was not, however,
disposed to yield the crown to his rival, and returning to Granada,
surprised and seized the Alcazaba. One of the most desperate conflicts
recorded in the history of the city then occurred between the partisans
of the rival sultans. Further bloodshed was at last averted by the
intervention of ambassadors sent by Ferdinand. The old dual arrangement
seems to have been temporarily resumed. Meanwhile, Ferdinand and Isabel
once more took the field, and, in 1487, they invested and captured
Velez-Malaga and the important city of Malaga, notwithstanding
Az-Zaghal’s efforts to relieve both places. The brave Sultan now
abandoned the capital to his nephew, and established his headquarters at
Almeria. He succeeded throughout the year 1488, in repelling an invasion
of his province; but in the following year, after the fall of the strong
city of Baza, he bowed, as he himself expressed it, to the will of
Allah, and surrendered all the places in his possession, including
Almeria and Guadix, to the Catholic sovereigns. Mohammed XIII., as he is
styled by Moorish historians, retired to Algeria, where he died, years
afterwards, in indigence and obscurity.
There remained now, of all the Moorish dominions in Europe, but the
single city of Granada, of which Mohammed XII., Boabdil, was at last
undisputed sovereign. He formed the manly resolution to sell his
hard-won crown as dearly as possible. He sallied from Granada, took
Alhendin and Marchena by assault, and laid waste the country in
possession of the Christians. Summoned by Ferdinand and Isabel to
surrender the city in accordance with an alleged treaty, he replied, and
probably with truth, that his proud and exasperated subjects would not
permit him to do so. The population of Granada was swollen by refugees
from all parts of the kingdom to thrice its normal figure. The Spanish
king perceived that the surest method to reduce it was by blockade. With
20,000 men, including some of the first chivalry of all Europe, he
entered the Vega, and built the town of Santa Fé, almost at the gates of
the threatened city. This permanent establishment of the Infidels on
their native soil plunged the Moors into profound gloom. No ray of hope
remained to the unfortunate Boabdil. The city endured the horrors of a
famine. The Spanish fleet precluded all hope of supplies from Africa,
towards which country the wretched people still turned in expectation of
help. The negotiations for the capitulation which the Sultan most
reluctantly entered upon in October 1491, had to be conducted, through
fear of the populace, with profound secrecy. Indeed, at the last moment,
Boabdil, in danger of his life, besought Ferdinand to accelerate his
entrance into the city. On January 2, 1492, accordingly, the Moorish
king, attended by fifty horsemen, surrendered the keys to the Catholic
sovereigns on the banks of the Genil, passing on to the domain allotted
him by the conquerors in the rocky Alpujarras. The story of his stopping
to gaze for the last time on his former kingdom, and of the rebuke
administered to him by his mother, is well known. We are not told
whether his eye caught the gleam of the great silver cross hoisted over
the Alhambra by Cardinal Mendoza by way of signal to the Spanish host
that the occupation of Granada was completed and that the dominion of
Islam in Spain was for ever at an end.
It had endured seven hundred and eighty-one years--a period only sixty
years short of that which has elapsed since the Norman Conquest of
England. More remarkable still, the Sultanate of Granada had survived
the virtual break-up of the Saracen empire by over two centuries. When
we consider its limited area, its isolated position, the might and the
inveterate hostility of the neighbouring states, and the attacks to
which it was unceasingly subjected, we cannot but feel the liveliest
admiration for the valour and sagacity of its rulers and the
stout-heartedness of its people. Had not the Court been too often the
theatre of contending factions, had not those factions turned their
swords against each other, the Sultanate of Granada might have outworn
Spain’s military and national vigour, and have endured to our own day as
a western Turkey. For the spirit of Tarik, of Abdurrahman, and of
Almansûr was not altogether dead, even in the brave but ill-starred
sovereign to whom alone historians ascribe the downfall of the kingdom,
and whom they, strangely enough, accuse of effeminacy and weakness. The
Moors of Granada knew how to fight a losing fight; in gambler’s
parlance, when they had lost the tricks, they struggled to win the
honours. They proved themselves worthy of their ancestors; and the
finest, as it was also the latest, monument of the Mohammedan dominion
in Spain is Granada the noble and the memorable.
THE ALHAMBRA
The Alhambra, or Red Palace, the Acropolis of Granada, is the finest
secular monument with which the Muslims have endowed Europe. It belongs
to the last period of Spanish-Arabic art, when the seed of Mohammedan
ideas and culture had long since taken deep root in the soil and
produced a style which might more properly be called Andalusian than
Moorish. If the Muslims left a deep impression upon Spanish thought and
art, it must not be supposed that they altogether escaped the influence
of their Christian neighbours. During the last two centuries of their
occupation the rigid puritanism of their creed was greatly relaxed,
especially as regarded art--always the reflection of the customs and
spirit of a people. The wave of the Renaissance did not leave untouched
the shrunken Moorish empire, and if Castilian kings did not hesitate to
employ Muslim artisans in the construction of their cathedrals, the
Sultans of Granada did not disdain the advice of Christian artists in
the embellishment of their palaces. The Alhambra remains a thoroughly
Mohammedan monument, but one which symbolises a phase of Mohammedan
culture and institutions almost peculiar to one country and epoch.
Nowhere else and never since has Islam reached such a pitch of
refinement. The Alhambra stands as the high-water mark of its art and
civilisation.
There will never be produced a new Alhambra, any more than a new
Parthenon or new Pyramids; for these great buildings were the
expressions of ideas and aspirations peculiar to societies which have
long ago perished. Thus, the Red Palace of Granada is not interesting
merely as a Mohammedan edifice left isolated in the far west of Europe,
but as the monument of a people and a civilisation long dead and gone. A
sadness, too, attaches to it, proceeding from the memory of the violent
extinction of that people with a mission unfulfilled--fraught, as it
seems to have been, with so much of light and beauty to the Christian
and the Muslim worlds.
The Sierra Nevada thrusts forward a spur which overlooks Granada on the
south-east, and is divided by two clefts or barrancos into three
eminences. The easternmost of these is crowned by the Generalife, the
westernmost by the ancient fortifications known as the Torres Bermejas
or Vermilion Towers. The hill between the two--in shape aptly compared
by Ford to a grand piano--is that on which the various buildings,
collectively styled the Alhambra, are reared. Here there existed a
settlement in remote Celtiberian days; and the later city of Illiberis
or Elvira stood here, and perhaps extended to the Torres Bermejas. When
the Moors came they erected a fortress--the Alcazaba--on the point of
the Alhambra hill, overlooking the Vermilion Towers. To this they gave
the name of _Alhamra_, “the red,” as Riaño thinks, to distinguish it
from the Alcazaba in the Albaicin quarter, or perhaps from some
confusion of the new building with the old. The builder, according to Al
Khattíb, was one Sawar Alcaysi, who lived in the second half of the
ninth century; though Contreras says it was known as the Tower of Ibn
Jaffir, and Ford names Habus Ibn Makesen as the founder. At all events,
the structure dated from the earliest period of the Arabic domination,
and Al Ahmar found here, on taking possession of Granada, a small town
girdled with walls and defended by a citadel.
Al Khattíb refers to the Citadel of Granada in these terms: “The
southern part of the city is commanded by the suburb of the Alhambra or
Medina Alhamra, the court of the sultanate, crowning it with its
turrets, its lofty towers, its strong bastions, its magnificent Alcazar,
and other sumptuous edifices, which by their splendour ravish the eye
and the soul. There is, too, such an abundance of waters that,
overflowing in torrents from the tanks and reservoirs, they form on the
declivity streams and cascades, whose sonorous murmurs are heard afar
on. At the foot of the walls are spacious gardens, the domain of the
Sultan, and leafy groves, through the dense greenery of which the white
battlements gleam like stars. There is, in short, around the circuit of
the walls, no spot that is not planted with gardens and orchards.” The
scene has not greatly changed since the Arab wrote. Gurgling brooks
still run down the slopes of the Alhambra Hill, and nightingales sing in
the thick woods of elm.
The Alcazaba, being the oldest part of the palace-fortress, should be
studied first. It is entered by the Torre and Casa de las Armas, through
a horseshoe arch in red brick, with fine azulejos or glazed tiles. To
the left is the Torre de Homenage, with which war and time have not
dealt too gently. It contains, it is interesting to note, a Roman votive
altar, embedded by the Moorish builders in the masonry, and inscribed by
“the grateful Valerius to his most indulgent wife, Cornelia.” At the
opposite extremity of the Alcazaba is the Torre de la Vela, or Watch
Tower. It is in two storeys, communicating by a dark and narrow
staircase, with loopholes in the wall.[D] In this tower is hung a
famous bell, to be heard, it is said, at Loja, thirty miles away. It is
rung on the anniversary of the Conquest of Granada, on which day it is
the custom, according to local superstition, for damsels, desirous of
husbands, to strike it with all their strength. On the summit of this
tower the cross was first planted by _el tercer rey_, Cardinal Mendoza.
The view from the platform, of city and snow-clad Sierra, luxuriant
Vega, and white-walled towns and villages, is as extensive as it is
beautiful. At the foot of the Torre de la Vela extends the place of
arms, defended by two towers, now styled de los Hidalgos and de la
Polvora, and formerly known as the Paniagua and Cristóbal del
Salto--names suggesting legends now forgotten.
An ancient document at Simancas names among the towers connecting the
Alcazaba with the rest of the fortress, the Torre del Adarguero, “the
Tower in which dwelleth the servant of Doctor Ortiz,” the Torre de
Alquiza, the Torre de Hontiveros (now the Torre de las Gallinas), and
the Tower and Room of Machuca. Of these remains exist, but of another
tower, referred to as the Torre de la Tahona, no trace remains.
The Alcazaba, according to the most recent researches, was separated
from the site of the palace by a ravine where, after the Conquest,
cisterns were constructed by order of the Conde de Tendilla and over
which the existing Plaza de los Algibes was formed. These works appear
to have necessitated the demolition of a wall which ran across from the
Torre de las Gallinas on the north to the beautiful Puerta del Vino on
the south. This gateway is now quite isolated from the wall of
circumvallation. Over the horseshoe arch is an inscription in stucco, of
the usual Moorish character, invoking the Divine protection for the
builder, Sultan Mohammed V. It appears to commemorate some striking
victory. Over the arch again is a fine double window or ajimez. On the
keystone is seen the key, so often figuring as a symbol in all parts of
the Alhambra, with a G in Kufic characters--perhaps the initial letter
of the city. The interior façade has a large horseshoe arch and the
twin-windows above. The Puerta del Vino was probably the entrance to the
courts and gardens of the palace.