Boabdil

Muhammad XII of Granada
Sultan of Granada
Sultan of Granada
Reign	1482–1483 (1 year)
Predecessor	Muley Hacén
Successor	El Zagal
Sultan of Granada
Reign	1487–1492 (5 years)
Predecessor	El Zagal
Successor	Title extinct
Born	1459 (1459) Granada (Nasrid Kingdom)
Died	1533 (aged 73–74) Fez (Morocco)
Spouse	Maryam bint Ibrahim al-atar
Issue	Áhmed Sister Isabel of Granada Yúsef
House	Nasrid
Father	Muley Hacén
Mother	Aixa

Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muhammad ibn Abī il-Hasan ‘Alī, nicknamed "al-Zugābī" (Arabic: أبو عبد الله محمد ابن علي; Granada, 1459–Fez, 1533), was the last sultan of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada. Known as Muhammad XII, a member of the Nasrid dynasty, he was called Boabdil or Boabdil el Chico by the Christians. He took the throne from his father, Muley Hacén, and for a time disputed it both with him and with his uncle, El Zagal.

Biography

Born in the Alhambra, he was the son of Muley Hacén and the Sultana Aixa. The first record of his life is a notarial deed in which his father sold the Nublo estate to him and his brother on March 13, 1465. His father's preference for the muladí Zorayda, whom he married and with whom he had two children, led Boabdil to side with his mother Aixa, and a rivalry between father and son began.

The Castle of Cabra, where Boabdil was held prisoner after the Battle of Lucena and the victory of the Count of Cabra.

First reign

These events and the loss of Alhama de Granada to the Christians led Boabdil to rise up against his father in mid-June 1482 in Guadix, where he had fled, and to accede to the Nasrid throne thanks to the support of the Abencerrajes and of his own mother, at the same time as his brother seized Almería. His father and his uncle El Zagal, who remained loyal to the emir, withdrew to Málaga after failing to recover the Alhambra, but their victories against the Christians were numerous, so he decided to confront him at Almuñécar,

Battle of Lucena

Boabdil needed a triumph so that his followers would keep him in power, so on April 20, 1483 he marched on the Castilian town of Lucena, where the Battle of Martín González took place. His troops were defeated despite their greater numbers, his father-in-law Aliatar was killed, and he himself was captured by the Count of Cabra and imprisoned in the Castle of Lucena and in that of Cabra and was later handed over to the Catholic Monarchs at Porcuna, where he was again confined in the tower of the castle, known today as the Tower of Boabdil. His mother Aixa sent a delegation to Córdoba, where King Ferdinand the Catholic was staying, asking him to free her son in exchange for the Nasrid territory controlled by El Zagal. Ferdinand agreed and, on July 5, 1483, even urged the citizens and officials of the emirate to recognize Boabdil as Monarch in order to remain safe. In addition, in return for his release, Boabdil was to support Ferdinand in his struggle against his father, submit to vassalage, and hand over hostages, among them his own son Áhmed, as well as twelve thousand gold doblas.

Nasrid civil war

Once free, Boabdil went to Guadix, although the situation grew complicated and he had to move on to Almería, where he joined his brother Yusuf. His father's forces were approaching and he had to go himself to ask King Ferdinand for help; Almería then fell and his brother Yusuf was executed by his own father. Muley Hacén died in 1485 and was succeeded by El Zagal, who was proclaimed emir of Granada. Boabdil managed to return to the eastern part of the emirate and was recognized by the Vélez and Huéscar at the end of 1485. However, the civil war dragged on and the alfaquis pressed for the fighting to stop, since the kingdom was being ruined. An agreement was reached by which Boabdil renounced the crown in favor of his uncle and went to Loja, which remained in his hands.

Despite the peace treaty with the Catholic Monarchs, the Castilians conquered Loja on May 30, 1486. Boabdil was captured for the second time and was released in order to keep the Nasrid civil war alive, since he would be granted Guadix, Baza, Vera, the Vélez and Mojácar if he managed to conquer them within eight months. While the Castilians pressed on with their conquests, Boabdil settled in the Vélez, and on October 15, 1486 he secretly entered the Granada quarter of the Albaicín, where most of the people supported him; a Castilian incursion even defended him from his enemies, and so he began to win over supporters such as Málaga.

Second reign

Boabdil hands over the keys of Granada to the Catholic Monarchs. The Surrender of Granada by Francisco Pradilla (1882).

Ferdinand the Catholic grew impatient and decided to attack Vélez-Málaga, capturing it, so El Zagal rushed there, a moment Boabdil took advantage of to win over the whole of Granada and proclaim himself emir for the second time on April 29, 1487, informing Isabella the Catholic herself that same day. In early May of that year, he signed the third and final agreement with the Catholic Monarchs, by which he renounced the city of Granada in exchange for a principality in the eastern part of the emirate once the Castilians held the rest of the emirate. This is why, during the Capture of Málaga, Boabdil advised the Muslim citizens to surrender and routed a relief force sent by his uncle from Guadix.

Finally, on December 4, 1489, Baza fell after a five-month siege, and El Zagal surrendered and handed over his remaining domains a few days later. Although Boabdil enjoyed two more years of truce, the Catholic Monarchs broke the pact to hand over the promised eastern territories to him and set out to conquer Granada. Boabdil defended himself and even achieved some victories, but on November 25, 1491 he had to sign the Capitulation of Granada, which granted the Andalusis the right to remain in Granada with their possessions, religion and culture, and gave Boabdil some lands in the Alpujarra.

Exile

At dawn on January 2, 1492, in the Throne Hall (Tower of Comares), Boabdil handed over the keys of the Alhambra to a trusted man of Isabella (Gutierre de Cárdenas). At three in the afternoon he went out to the gates of Granada to pay homage to the Catholic Monarchs, who returned his son Áhmed to him. They surrendered their weapons and he set off with his family toward his new lands in the Alpujarra, since the Catholic Monarchs had allowed him to keep the Lordship of the Alpujarras, specifically in Codba, present-day Fuente Victoria, according to the letters of the royal secretary Hernando de Zafra, the chronicle of Luis del Mármol and the description of the Kingdom of Granada by Henríquez de Jorquera. In August 1493 his wife Morayma died in Andarax, and he buried her in Mondújar, where he had already moved the remains of the other emirs of Granada. He sold his properties in the Alpujarras to the Christian monarchs (which included, besides Andarax, Berja, Dalías and Purchena) and, after requesting asylum from the Kingdom of Fez, embarked with his mother and his family at Adra in October of that year, landing at Cazaza and settling in Fez. There he built several palaces in the Andalusi style, and he died in 1533–34, being buried in an oratory facing the Gate of the Threshold.

The Moor's Sigh

The legend of the Moor's sigh, a work by Francisco Pradilla.

According to a widespread Spanish legend, whose truthfulness is not attested by any documentation, as he left Granada on his way into exile in the Alpujarras, on reaching the top of a pass he turned his head to see his city for the last time and wept, hearing from his mother, the Sultana Aixa:

Weep like a woman for what you could not defend as a man.

— Sultana Aixa, mother of Boabdil.

Because of this, that mountain is called the Suspiro del Moro (Moor's Sigh), which today is crossed by the roads running from Granada to the coast (A-44 and N-323). This legend springs from the imagination of Father Echevarría, who in the 18th century published the book Paseos por Granada (Walks through Granada), in which he sought to denigrate the figure of Boabdil.

Portrait

Statue of Boabdil in the San Sebastián Historic Park in Navalcarnero

Julio Quesada-Cañaveral, in his 1925 work Boabdil (reseña para el turista): Granada y la Alhambra hasta el siglo XVI, imagined him thus:

Boabdil was fair-haired, of medium height, rather tall and slender, with light-colored eyes, pale complexion and a calm countenance. His bearing was majestic, and in the most difficult moments he always showed his valiant heart and the pride of his race. He was brave in battle, and even with his body wounded, as in the battle of Loja, he always preserved his dignity as a king, his dignity of race and his dignity as a man of heart, despite the many, many sorrows that his spirit and his will constantly had to endure.

Tradition, by contrast, has given him dark skin and hair, both in painting and in film, as in the work The Surrender of Granada by Francisco Pradilla. The most striking and absurd case, however, occurs in the television series Réquiem por Granada, in which a child Boabdil tells his grandfather his impression of Isabella the Catholic: "too white, and those eyes so blue, and the yellow hair... here she would look strange, there she looks fine."

Boabdil in culture

Sword of Boabdil (Army Museum in Toledo)

• He is the character of the opera Boabdil, der letzte Maurenkönig, Op. 49, written by the composer Moritz Moszkowski in 1892.
• The Spanish composer Gaspar Cassadó wrote the Lamento de Boabdil for cello and piano.
• The Spanish composer Antón García Abril wrote the Elegía a la pérdida de la Alhambra.
• The Spanish group Los Puntos dedicated the song Llorando por Granada to Boabdil.
• The Spanish group Dark Moor dedicated the song El último rey from their album Ars Musica to Boabdil.
• The Spanish poet and singer Carlos Cano dedicated the song Caída del Rey Chico to Boabdil on his album Crónicas Granadinas.
• The Belgian singer Mousta Largo dedicated the song Les larmes de Boabdil to him on his album Mektoub.
• Salman Rushdie's book The Moor's Last Sigh also recalls Boabdil.
• Louis Aragon's book Le Fou d'Elsa offers a poetic vision of the story of the capture of Granada.
• Pakistani television produced the drama in 1981 based on the novel Shaheen by Nasim Hijazi.
• Antonio Gala won the Premio Planeta in 1990 with his novel El manuscrito carmesí, a fictional autobiography of Boabdil based on the discovery of a supposed manuscript written by Boabdil himself.
• Boabdil appeared as the protagonist of the 1991 Spanish television series Requiem por Granada, played by Manuel Bandera.
• Antonio Soler published in 2012 the novel Boabdil. Un hombre contra el destino, in which he explores the little-known friendship between Boabdil and Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba and tries to break with the clichés of the frail and cowardly king with which the character has been portrayed by Christian historians.
• In the second season of the series Isabel, broadcast in 2013 by TVE, Boabdil is played by Álex Martínez. This fiction shows Boabdil as a poet king and a man of letters who advocates dialogue over war and who surrenders Granada to save his family and prevent the destruction of the Alhambra.
• In the 2016 film Assassin's Creed, King Muhammad XII of Granada is played by the Scottish actor of Egyptian origin Khalid Abdalla.
• The Portuguese poet Florbela Espanca recalls Boabdil in her poem Meu Mal (My Ill): Ah! de Boabdil fui lágrima na Espanha! (Ah! I have been Boabdil's tear in Spain!).

Filmography

• 2013: Isabel, played by Álex Martínez (actor)
• 1991: Requiem por Granada, played by Manuel Bandera

See also

• Capitulation of Granada
• Sword of Boabdil
• Granada War

External links

• Reyes y Reinos Genealogías, Granada
• Marlota, zapatos y espada jineta. Museo del Ejército
• ¿Quién fue Boabdil?
• Boabdil y Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba
• ¿Qué Boabdil, el llorón o el sensato?