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Abén Humeya
Abén Humeya | |
|---|---|
| Muhammad ibn Umayya | |
 Supposed portrait of Fernando de Válor, Abén Humeya, from an engraving in the novel Los Monfíes de las Alpujarras (1859) by Manuel Fernández y González | |
| Born | Hernando or Fernando de Válor y Córdoba 1520 |
| Died | 1569 (aged 48–49) |
Cause of death | Murdered by the rebels themselves |
| Other name | Ibn Umayya |
| Occupations | Nobleman, military leader |
| Years active | 1568–1569 |
| Known for | Leader of the Rebellion of the Alpujarras |
| Notable work | Leadership of the Rebellion of the Alpujarras |
Abén Humeya (Válor, Granada, 1520 – Laujar de Andarax, Almería, 1569) is the name by which Spanish historiography knows a Morisco nobleman whose Christian name was Hernando or Fernando de Válor y Córdoba and whose Muslim name was Muhammad ibn Umayya. The name Abén Humeya is the Hispanized version of the Arabic name Ibn Umayya, which means "Son of Umayya", alluding to an ancestor of the Umayyads.
Abén Humeya was the leader of the Rebellion of the Alpujarras of 1568–1570, although he was murdered by the rebels themselves a few months after it began.
Biography
He was a member of a Muslim family of Granada that claimed descent from the Umayyads of Córdoba, and that had negotiated its conversion during the conquest of Granada. In exchange for their conversion and collaboration, the Catholic Monarchs granted the lordship of Válor to Abén Humeya's grandfather, who had adopted the name Hernando de Córdoba, along with the right to be a member of the Cabildo of Granada. The family settled in Válor el Alto and added the name Válor to their surname, becoming Córdoba y Válor, and acquiring the nickname Los Valoríes.
Fernando de Córdoba y Válor, born a Christian in Granada, became a caballero veinticuatro of the City of Granada, that is, a member of the municipal Cabildo. He was engaged to Ana Carleval, famous throughout Granada for her extraordinary beauty, and daughter of Licentiate Carleval, administrator of the fourth Count of Cabra, Luis Fernández de Córdoba. However, Ana preferred the favors of the recently manumitted Juan Latino, whom she would eventually marry in 1548.
After the Pragmatic Sanction of 1567 of Philip II, the insurrection of the Moriscos broke out in the Alpujarras, and Fernando joined the uprising, abjuring his Christian beliefs and taking the name Muhammad ibn Umayya (which has passed into Castilian as Abén Humeya).
Thanks to the influence of his uncle, Hernando el Zaguer, Alguacil of Cádiar, he became the principal leader of the insurrection and was proclaimed King of the Moriscos in Béznar and crowned, according to legend, beneath the "Olivo del moro" (Moor's Olive Tree), located between Narila and Cádiar.[1]
Initially the rebels numbered 4,000, but they ended up fighting with a force of 25,000 men against the royal troops commanded successively by the Marquis of Mondéjar, the Marquis of los Vélez and Don John of Austria, at the head of 20,000 soldiers. Although the military initiative originally lay with the Moriscos, they failed to take Berja, and dissensions soon arose among the Moriscos themselves. According to historians, the arbitrariness and tyranny shown by Abén Humeya, together with his despotic and suspicious character, caused him to lose the support of the rebels, and he was murdered in his palace at Laujar de Andarax on the night of October 20, 1569, by Diego Alguacil, Abén Humeya's brother-in-law, and Diego de Rojas, whose wife Abén Humeya had dishonored; his cousin Abén Aboo would succeed him as «king of the Andalusis».[2] The revolt would be definitively suppressed in 1571.
Abén Humeya and the Morisco Games
One of the most interesting episodes involving Abén Humeya was that of the Morisco Games which, according to the chronicler Ginés Pérez de Hita, he convened in Purchena (Almería) in September 1569, shortly before he was murdered. Pérez de Hita relates in the 2ª Parte de las Guerras Civiles de Granada that, after the failed siege of the City of Vera, Abén Humeya withdrew to Purchena, where he convened these Morisco Games, which included sporting events, some of them of Olympic ancestry, such as wrestling, stone lifting, brick holding, sling throwing, sprint and half-league races, dance and song contests, and others. With all this he sought to keep the troops trained and to recover their traditions, dress, names, ...
This original and unique historical-sporting event has been commemorated annually since 1993 in the Municipality of Purchena on the first weekend of each August. Of this event, of clear Olympic ancestry, Juan Antonio Samaranch, President of the International Olympic Committee until 2001, said: "The Morisco Games of Abén Humeya mean re-forging the missing link in the chain between Antiquity and the modern world."[3]
References
- ↑ Diario Ideal, Monday, January 9, 2012.
- ↑ La sombra de Abén Humeya, Leonardo Villena, pp. 190–191.
- ↑ "Juegos Moriscos de Abén Humeya" (in español). Ayuntamiento de Purchena. Retrieved October 19, 2025.
Bibliography
- Acosta Montoro, José (1998): Abén Humeya. Rey de los moriscos. Instituto de Estudios Almerienses and Ayuntamiento de Purchena, Almería. ISBN 84-8108-161-2
- Calderón de la Barca, Pedro (1659). Amar después de la muerte, o El tuzaní de la Alpujarra, Cátedra, 2008. ISBN 9788437624655
- Mármol y Carvajal, Luis del, Historia del rebelión y castigo de los moriscos del reyno de Granada, Madrid, Imprenta de Sancha, 1797
- Villena Villena, Leonardo, La sombra de Abén Humeya, printed by Legraf, S.L. of Lecrín (Granada), Editorial Dulcinea de Granada. ISBN 84-931530-6-0
