Here's what you may have missed from me in 2020

 This year has changed all of our routines and for me, that meant missing out on some opportunities to connect with writers and readers in person. Thank goodness for Zoom and Google Meet, where I was able to make those connections online.

Here are two events in which I participated. If you didn't get the opportunity to attend, this is what you missed:

December 9, 2 pm: Zoom Presentation with al-Andalus Authors John D. Cressler, Joan Cook, David Penny.

October 6, 12 - 2 pm: Zoom Presentation with authors of We All Fall Down anthology through Historical Novel Society, NYC Chapter. 

I suspect covid-19 will be with us far longer than anyone anticipates, but at least, we can still be connected online.

The Heretical Doctor, Ibn al-Khatib (Part 3)

Ibn al-Khatib's story did end, unexpectedly and tragically as I mentioned in The Heretic, one of the stories within the anthology We All Fall Down. The cause can be found within that partly fictionalized account of his life during the plague.

In my previous post, I mentioned Ibn Khatima, who had documented the arrival of the Black Death in his home of Almería during the summer of 1438. He also wrote a treatise on the subject. Ibn al-Khatib also did the same, which he concluded in 1362. Within his observations, he indicated, “The existence of contagion is established by experience [and] by trustworthy reports on transmission by garments, vessels, ear-rings; by the spread of it by persons from one house, by infection of a healthy sea-port by an arrival from an infected land [and] by the immunity of isolated individuals.” This was the basis for his theory of contagion; the idea that persons could spread the disease to each other by their actions.

But the following line may have led to his brutal demise many years later, because he also wrote contradicting Muslim traditions as passed down by Prophet Muhammad regarding plague. “…A proof taken from the traditions has to undergo modification when in manifest contradiction with the evidence of the perception of the senses.” This line alone would have damned him in the view of the Islamic clerics and jurists who deemed the words of the Prophet as irrefutable.

Would Ibn al-Khatib have dared question any precept of his religion if he had not thought himself untouchable? He certainly had reason to believe no one could rival him.

Ibn al-Khatib ascends to the pinnacle of power, but the Black Death intrudes

After the death of his mentor, foster father and former tutor Ibn al-Jayyab, Ibn al-Khatib attained all the honors that man had held. Within Islamic Spain, the viziers who served the monarchs possessed power superseded only by the sovereigns. Ibn al-Khatib became the vizier or chief minister of the Nasrid Dynasty’s Sultan Yusuf I in January 1349 and would hold the position into the reign of Yusuf’s eldest son and successor, Muhammad V.

Among his responsibilities, Ibn al-Khatib oversaw the completion of the new religious school at the capital of Granada in April 1439. Some weeks earlier, he had received the great honor of composing an elegy to the family matriarch, Yusuf’s grandmother Fatima when she died in her nineties. During the autumn of the same year, the plague ravaged Morocco and claimed Ibn al-Khatib’s mother at Taza. However he might have felt about the loss, his responsibilities remained. He kept up correspondence with foreign potentates and dignitaries, writing to the Sultan of Morocco Abu Inan, requesting military assistance against the Nasrids foes in Castile on March 13, 1350. Fifteen months later he served as an ambassador to the Moroccan court, departing and returning in July 1351.

The assassination of Yusuf I occurred on October 19, 1354, cutting short the life of the ruler whom Ibn al-Khatib had served for 21 years. The enthronement of Yusuf’s firstborn as Muhammad V at the age of 16 allowed Ibn al-Khatib to exercise influence over the youngster’s policies and understanding of government. Alongside his fellow ministers, the courtiers, and nobles, Ibn al-Khatib publicly swore his oath of allegiance to his new master on November 9 and also secured the appointment of the Moroccan garrison commander. A month later, he visited Sultan Abu Inan at Fez, arriving to great pomp and an audience on December 14.

There he had an opportunity to meet with a man of similar age who would become a good companion and later, a rival. Ibn Khaldun’s family hailed from Yemen and like Ibn al-Khatib, he held a prestigious position among the Moroccan ministers, serving as Abu Inan’s private secretary. Ibn al-Khatib and Ibn Khaldun established and maintained a friendship after the former returned to Granada on January 30, 1355.

Ibn al-Khatib dabbles in Sufi mysticism and life becomes precarious

According to his enemies, Ibn al-Khatib made another misstep that put him on the path to charges of heresy. On May 1, 1356, he and his three sons arrived at a Sufi lodge outside Granada. Sufism is defined as Islamic mysticism, characterized in Ibn al-Khatib’s time by asceticism and rejection of the worldliness of Muslim regions. The orthodox, Maliki school of Sharia law held sway over Islamic Spain and saw Sufism as a direct threat. For his adherence to Sufi doctrine, the majority of Ibn al-Khatib’s writings went up in flames just before his death.

The monarchs of Granada’s Nasrid dynasty had known for several generations since the time of Muhammad V’s great-great-grandfather Muhammad II that at any moment, their fortunes could change. Ibn al-Khatib’s young master soon learned this lesson. During the month of holy fasting on August 21, 1359, over 100 conspirators scaled the walls. At night, they drove Muhammad V from Alhambra Palace, alongside his mother and toddler son, before installing Muhammad’s younger brother Ismail as the new sovereign.

The conspiracy between Muhammad's stepmother and his cousin / brother-in-law jeopardized Ibn al-Khatib, too. Dragged from his house, he endured his first bout of torture and imprisonment. A sister of his in their birthplace of Loja offered to pay a hefty ransom. But without the intercession of Moroccan Sultan Abu Inan’s son, Abu Salim, Ibn al-Khatib might have remained locked away forever. He rejoined his young master at Guadix and together with their families, they departed for Morocco. The exiles arrived at Fez on November 28.

Ibn al-Khatib travels preceded the return of the Black Death

Two and a half years followed, during which Ibn al-Khatib saw much of his new host country. While he served Sultan Muhammad diligently, writing letters on his behalf to the king of Castile who favored the legitimate ruler, Ibn al-Khatib earned a living at the behest of the Moroccan ruler. On March 11, 1360, he gave permission for the Nasrid minister to tour the kingdom. Ibn al-Khatib visited the Atlas Mountains that month and then went on to Marrakesh. The port of Salé seems to have suited him well, for he settled there in May and wrote a history of the Nasrid dynasty, poetry, and his plague treatise.

The Black Death returned later that year and might have cast its long shadow again. In The Heretic, I’ve speculated about the next victim it claimed, one whom Ibn al-Khatib held dear. His wife Iqbal died suddenly on September 7, 1361. I’ve found no indication of the cause for her demise, but given the prevalence of the disease from 1360 to 1364 in the region, plague seemed a possibility to me.

Although widowed with three sons, Ibn al-Khatib would have had little time for grief. Muhammad V gave him direct charge of his household, the mother, wife, and children he had left behind before returning to Spain in the quest for the throne. Ibn al-Khatib would have secured the Nasrid royal family from upheaval, as their Moroccan hosts fell at the command of a local minister, who placed three rulers upon the throne at Fez during the Nasrid exile.

Ibn al-Khatib’s return to Spain

On April 20, 1362, Muhammad wrote to Ibn al-Khatib with instructions to bring the royal family home to Granada. They departed on May 18 and arrived at Alhambra Palace on June 15. Ten days later, Ibn al-Khatib again ascended to the highest office in the land. With the power of his pen, he saw to the appointments of two men, Al-Bunnahi as the chief judge of Granada and Ibn al-Khatib’s young apprentice within the council of ministers, Ibn Zamrak, both in October 1362. Ibn al-Khatib would soon come to regret those choices.

Jubilant, he completed his treatise on the Black Death before celebrating the arrival of his friend from Morocco, Ibn Khaldun, along with the observation of the Prophet’s birthday at a great feast. But he also engaged in intrigue, seeing to the removal of the Moroccan garrison commander whom he had appointed in November 1354 from Almuñécar and the exile of the man and his entire family back to North Africa. The reason for a rivalry between the two men is unclear. Even Ibn Khaldun seemed a threat to Ibn al-Khatib and at his suggestion, Muhammad V sent Ibn Khaldun on a diplomatic mission to the kingdom of Castile, in February 1365.

The next four years indicated that Ibn al-Khatib spent much time devoted to his duties, but somehow, he had run afoul of the chief judge Al-Bunnahi and even Muhammad V. Was it because of the plague treatise, or the indulgence in Sufism, or something else history has not recorded? Regardless of the reasons, Ibn al-Khatib may not have had much time to reflect on them. Muhammad V had enjoyed friendly relations with King Pedro of Castile, but that all changed when the king’s bastard brother, the count of Trastamara called Enrique, murdered Pedro and took the crown. His line would eventually sire the first Queen Isabella of Spain. The Nasrid dynasty went to war with Castile once more, but soon, Ibn al-Khatib found himself embroiled in conflict with his master Muhammad.

Outskirts of Bab al-Mahruq cemetery, Fez, Morocco

Ibn al-Khatib’s story comes to a tragic end

Aggrieved by growing accusations of heresy and malfeasance against him, Ibn al-Khatib then lived in fear of his life. On December 10, 1370, with his youngest son Ali, he fled the kingdom of Granada forever. He sailed for the court of yet another Moroccan ruler, but not before writing Muhammad V a terse letter in which he laid bare all of his grievances against those whom he saw as conspirators against him. Had his former master threatened his life, too?

Ibn al-Khatib still had friends. The Moroccan sovereign welcomed him to court in February 1371 and even Ibn Khaldun forgave his old friend’s jealousy and pleaded with Muhammad V to send Ibn al-Khatib’s movable property and family across the sea, in a letter dated April 18, 1371. The rest of the family did arrive on the North African shore eight months later. But for Ibn al-Khatib, the worse remained.

In November 1371, the chief judge of Granada Al-Bunnahi condemned Ibn al-Khatib as a Sufi heretic and disbeliever. The judgment could not have come without the assent of Muhammad V. That month, Ibn al-Khatib’s manuscripts written on philosophy and Sufi mysticism became ashes among the pyres of Granada's central square. By the following summer, Muhammad V demanded his extradition from Morocco and received its ruler’s refusal, but at the start of fall that year, that same sovereign died. In November 1372, Ibn Khaldun spent some time with his beleaguered companion. Perhaps the last occasion in which the old friends would see each other alive.

The new Moroccan Sultan Abu al-Abbas Ahmad came to the throne in September 1373. He established good relations with Muhammad V of Granada and depended on him militarily. Their alliance sealed Ibn al-Khatib’s fate. In June 1374, he suffered arrest and imprisonment again. He sought help from other North African rulers, but to no avail. Two months later, men working on behalf of his enemies, Al-Bunnahi and Ibn Zamrak, whose career he had nurtured, entered Ibn al-Khatib’s cell where he awaited trial. They strangled him at the age of nearly 61. Dumped into an unmarked grave at first, his remains became disinterred and burnt to ashes, like so many of his manuscripts. Sometime afterward the ashes went into a grave at the Bab al-Mahruq cemetery in Fez.

So ended the life and story of Ibn al-Khatib, who once rose to the heights of power, only to have charges of heresy bring about his demise.

Ibn al-Khatib's monument at Loja

Read a fictionalized account of his years during the Black Death in We All Fall Down, available now.

The Heretical Doctor, Ibn al-Khatib (Part 2)

We All Fall Down, my latest release, features the central character Ibn al-Khatib in The Heretic. As revealed in my previous post, he suffered a great tragedy just when his star seemed poised to rise. But luckily for him, Ibn al-Khatib had a mentor on whom he could rely.

Ibn al-Khatib overcomes his first great adversity

Were it not for the aid of his former teacher Ibn al-Jayyab, a young Ibn al-Khatib might not have achieved his goals. Born approximately in November 1274, Ibn al-Jayyab came from a prominent family of Granada, the capital of the Nasrid Dynasty. He served among the ministerial body which advised the sultans through the reigns of Muhammad II, his sons Muhammad III and Abu'l-Juyush Nasr, their maternal nephew Ismail I and his sons Muhammad IV and Yusuf IV.

The Nasrid council chamber

Having been one of Ibn al-Khatib's tutors, Ibn al-Jayyab then became a comfort to his disciple. Ibn al-Jayyab had also endured his own terrible loss at some indeterminate time; the death of his son Abu'-l-Qasim. The pair bereft of beloved family members relied upon each other, the mutual, spiritual adoption of a foster father and son. With the aid of Ibn al-Jayyab, Ibn al-Khatib ascended to his first important role. He became the personal secretary of Sultan Yusuf I, responsible for the monarch's correspondence. Alongside his duties, Ibn al-Khatib wrote about the origins of the royal family based at Granada's Alhambra Palace; he completed the work around August 1341. He also continued recitations of poetry in honor of Yusuf on special occasions.

Ibn al-Khatib's family

While the life of a courtier and ministerial responsibilities must have kept him busy, Ibn al-Khatib had another personal important role; ensuring the continuation of his family line. With the loss of his elder brother in battle, he needed a wife. Unfortunately, he could not rely on the proposed match between his foster father and that man's daughter. Instead, Ibn al-Khatib married a woman named Iqbal.

Little is known of her except the sons she provided her husband and her likely date of death. Since his contrivance to marry into the families of Granada's ruling elite had failed, we can assume Iqbal did not number among their ranks. The union must have occurred at least by the autumn of 1342, because on July 22 of the following year, Iqbal gave birth to Ibn al-Khatib's first son, Abd Allah. Two other boys followed, Muhammad and Ali. Records of their names survive because of their circumcisions, an important ritual for medieval Muslim boys, which took place on November 8, 1348. No doubt, Ibn al-Khatib would have made certain each of his sons pursued the same scholarly path he had taken.

Ibn al-Khatib's evolving role at court

While in service to the sultan, Ibn al-Khatib became closer to Yusuf I. At his side for two major Nasrid military campaigns against Christians forces southeast of Sevilla, Ibn al-Khatib celebrated the ruler's victory during April 1343. In the spring of 1347, from April 29 until May 20, he accompanied the monarch on a tour of the eastern portion of the Nasrid kingdom and wrote of their travels. He gave vivid descriptions of the Moors in his land.

Alhambra Palace's southern gate

Ibn al-Khatib and his fellow council members would have ensured the planning for Alhambra Palace's great southernmost gate, known erroneously now as the Gate of Justice, which later opened in June 1348. The ministers also knew of construction of the sultan's new religious school, which would end April 1349. The relic still stands near the entrance of what was once Muslim Granada's silk marketplace, Alcaiceria.

The arrival of the Black Death

Something happened that likely interfered with the plans of Yusuf I. Whether or not the Moors anticipated, an invasion of their land would soon begin, which would terrify them and their Christian adversaries. Off Spain's southeastern coast in December 1347, the Balearic island of Mallorca witnessed the first ravages of a new virulent plague that had spread eastward. By May 1348, Barcelona and Tarragona became affected, before the disease entered Valencia. Nobles, clergy, and ordinary citizens died.

The Muslims of Granada must have heard of these incidents of the Black Death, but what did they think of them? They were familiar with earlier instances of plague. By March and April, there were also deaths in places where seaborne trade occurred with Morocco. It seemed the Moorish people would be resigned to their fates if the Black Death encroached on them because of their religious beliefs, which included the following about plague, "It is a punishment that Allah sends upon whoever he wills, but Allah has made it a mercy for the believers. Any servant who resides in a land afflicted by plague, remaining patient and hoping for reward from Allah, knowing that nothing will befall him but what Allah has decreed, he will be given the reward of a martyr.”

The summer of 1348 showed the Muslims of Spain were as unprepared as anyone else for the horrific toll the epidemic took. The Black Death arrived on the eastern coast of the Iberian peninsula at the town of Almería. There, a native of the town and another disciple of Ibn al-Jayyab, called Ibn Khatima, observed the first deaths and wrote about the occurrence in a treatise, which also survives in Spain's Escorial library. Ten years younger than Ibn al-Khatib, Ibn Khatima had been born in 1324 at Almería, where he practiced as a medical doctor. He indicated that on May 30, 1348, the Black Death claimed victims in a poor section of his birthplace. Eventually in his city alone, at least 70 persons died daily. At the time, the kingdom of Granada's inhabitants numbered 1.5 million.

In his subsequent treatise, Ibn Khatima wrote about the causes and symptoms of the plague. He also proposed some methods of treatment. Like many of their medieval counterparts, Islamic doctors believed in the theory of humors that could alter a person's physical condition. Ibn Khatima described the Black Death origins as "a consequence of a corruption of the humor or cardiac temperament, caused by the air alteration from its natural and innate state to heat and humidity...."

Ibn al-Khatib suffers a second personal loss

Whatever the source of the plague, its consequences would soon devastate Ibn Khatima and Ibn al-Khatib. From Almería, the Black Death cut across the peninsula, striking at Málaga in full through April to July 1439 and later Algeciras. Before the disease spread to those places, it may have claimed a victim in Granada, Ibn al-Khatib's beloved foster father and mentor, Ibn al-Jayyab. He died around January 15, 1349, in his 70's. Historians remain divided on whether he passed away because of the Black Death or during the time in which it befell the population of Spain.

The demise of the man who had nurtured his intellect, brought him into prominence at the side of Sultan Yusuf I, and treated him like a son must have burdened Ibn al-Khatib. In his grief, he composed an elegy for the master to whom he had devoted years of his life, which he recited at the grave side.

Yet, this incident would also not mean the end of Ibn al-Khatib's story.

The Heretical Doctor, Ibn al-Khatib

Readers of my Moorish Spain series may recall the secondary character, Ibn al-Khatib. In my most recent publication, the anthology We All Fall Down, he plays a prominent role in The Heretic. Ibn al-Khatib was a natural choice as the central figure in a tale about 14th century medieval Spain's struggle with the Black Death. 

In the novels Sultana: The Bride Price and Sultana: The Pomegranate Tree, Ibn al-Khatib served as a court minister and close confidante of the father and son duo, the Nasrid Dynasty's most celebrated Sultans Yusuf I and Muhammad V of Granada. But with the series focused on machinations within the royal family, I never had the opportunity to explore one important aspect of Ibn al-Khatib's life: his treatise on the Black Death. 

That his work has survived for almost 700 years and may be found in Spain's Biblioteca del Real Monasterio de El Escorial is a miracle. For when he began the treatise, he also promulgated what was then thought to be a radical, even dangerous idea, in the Islamic world: the transmission of disease through contagion. This occurred five centuries before Louis Pasteur's experiments in which he proved that a cell's environment could increase the likelihood of contagion, leading to the creation of sterilization methods in hospitals. 

Ibn al-Khatib was not the first Muslim doctor to propose the theory of contagion. In 1025, the Persian physician Ibn Sina, known in the west as Avicenna, had suggested that people could transmit diseases to each other through the air. But unlike him, Ibn al-Khatib's thoughts would ultimately cause his downfall. 

The origins of Ibn al-Khatib's family

When little Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Abd Allah ibn Said al-Salamani, the man we know as Ibn al-Khatib, entered the world on the night of November 14 /15 in 1313, his family might not have imagined his spectacular rise to prominence or the tragic fall that would ensue. But they may have had reason to expect greatness from him. 

Like many Islamic families across the Iberian Peninsula, they traced their roots back to the conquest of then Visigothic Spain. Ibn al-Khatib's ancestors settled in Cordoba until the 9th century when they moved to Toledo. In 1085 when King Alfonso VI of Castile captured the region, the family's land passed into the hands of Christians. Thereafter, they moved to Loja. 

The Islamic citadel at Loja

Ibn al-Khatib's great-great-grandfather served as an Islamic preacher there; hence the name Ibn al-Khatib, which meant son or descendant of the preacher in Arabic. His grandfather Said married the daughter of a Muslim governor and moved to the Nasrid capital of Granada, where he became one of the tutors of Sultan Muhammad II's children until the summer of 1284, dying of heatstroke.

While I've found nothing but a brief mention of Ibn al-Khatib's mother at the occurrence of her death, incidentally because of plague, his 30-year old father Abd Allah ibn Said al-Salamani already enjoyed a good living that boded well for his new son. The family still lived in Loja when in 1314 the new Sultan Ismail I, the son of Muhammad II's notable daughter Fatima, invited Ibn al-Khatib's father to take a post among the ministerial body that advised Granada's monarchs. 

Ibn al-Khatib's entry into Granada's high society

The toddler accompanied his father to the capital and grew up with access to the finest education. Ibn al-Khatib's earliest studies would have included his native Arabic and the Islamic religion, then broadened to knowledge of history, poetry, Sharia law, and medicine. His most prominent teacher became Ibn al-Jayyab, Sultan Ismail's personal secretary.

Granada's Alhambra Palace

At the age of 18, Ibn al-Khatib officially gained notice within court circles when he recited a poem before Sultan Ismail's eldest son and successor Muhammad IV in the city of Málaga. Perhaps Ibn al-Khatib seemed destined even then to take a place among the sovereign's ministers. He certainly enjoyed the continued support of his former tutor Ibn al-Jayyab, who at some indeterminate time also offered his own daughter in marriage to Ibn al-Khatib. For some unknown reason, Ibn al-Jayyab's father objected and the union between the disciple and his mentor's daughter never occurred. 

This unfortunate circumstance did not stymie Ibn al-Khatib's hopes to make a good match. Frankly, familial and marital connections were key to advancement among Granada's ruling elite. And what would Ibn al-Khatib have considered the most important factor in his choice of a wife? Her father's status, of course. He needed a bride of noble birth, with a parent who supported the Nasrid Sultans. While monarchs held the highest authority, they depended on the nobles to maintain their seat of power at Granada's Alhambra Palace. Fickle politics and discontented nobles had driven Sultan Abu'l-Juyush Nasr, the maternal uncle of Sultan Ismail I from his throne in 1314. With an awareness of the importance of the ruling elite, Ibn al-Khatib naturally contrived to join them.      

Then tragedy struck. Due to their proximity with Granada's early rulers, Ibn al-Khatib and his family must have understood how sudden calamities could affect their fortunes and futures. His father would have known this when the assassinations of Sultan Ismail happened in 1325 and the murder of his son Sultan Muhammad IV occurred eight years later. 

17th-century depiction of the Battle of Salado

This time, Ibn al-Khatib personally suffered. A month before his twenty-seventh birthday would have taken place, he lost his father and an unnamed elder brother on October 30, 1340. They died in the Battle of Rio Salado near Tarifa. Castile's King Alfonso XI allied with Afonso IV of Portugal fought against Granada's master, Sultan Yusuf I, the second son of Sultan Ismail I and his cohort Abu al-Hasan Ali of Morocco's Marinid Dynasty. We can only guess at how Ibn al-Khatib internalized this great loss based on the funerary elegy he composed for his father, of which only four lines have survived.

But that would not be the end of Ibn al-Khatib's story.

  

Why Moorish Spain Fell

Happy New Year! But back on January 2, 1492, this day would not have been considered a joyous occasion for the Muslim inhabitants of Spain. Their world had ended as more than seven centuries of Moorish rule in what was now a majority Catholic country collapsed. Historians have referred to the event as a dying gasp or whimper as the last Islamic rulers, the Nasrids, handed over the keys to the city of Granada and access to their Alhambra Palace to the Catholic monarchs of a united peninsula. Moorish Spain had long been in decline. Several factors aided that final push over the precipice, much of which I've explored in the six-part Sultana novel series.

"La rendición de Granada" or The Capitulation of Granada by F. Padilla

Five hundred and twenty-seven years later, I'm reflecting on the reasons for the fall of Moorish Spain. Having spent more than twenty years researching the time in which the Iberian Peninsula was once a predominantly Muslim region, the actors who played their roles in the last act of what I consider a great tragedy are as familiar to me as old friends and hated enemies. The Sultans; proud Abu'l-Hasan Ali, his rebellious brother Muhammad al-Zaghal and the luckless Muhammad XI, fated to be the last Muslim monarch to reign over a diminished Granada. Fierce Sultana Aisha and her daughter-in-law, Sultana Moraima, who did not long survive the surrender of the final Islamic kingdom. The rival Isabel de Solis who captured a Sultan's heart but ended her days as a Christian again. Queen Isabella of Castile with her husband King Ferdinand of Aragon accomplished what no other Christian predecessor of hers had done; undeniable submission. While I've painted her as the villain of my novels, I can't deny the transformative effect of her accomplishment. With the fall of Granada, Spain and Portugal stemmed their adversary's access to the gold of Africa and invaded the continent, while also pursuing the exploration of what they would come to call the New World. One of the purported witnesses of the Moors' exodus from the city was the young captain Christopher Columbus.

While Isabella's aims were achieved, it's impossible for me to view them without a cynical view or negate how events within Granada's Alhambra Palace, completely outside of her control or influence, allowed her to obtain victory. She inspired religious zeal by portraying her crusade against the Moors as a holy war, but in the end, her efforts paved a path towards the Inquisition and the deaths of thousands of Jews and Moors, the latter of whom she had promised would not be forced to convert to Christianity. She could not have anticipated how Abu'l-Hasan Ali's clashes with his younger sibling Muhammad al-Zaghal and his son Muhammad XI would have fractured the Nasrid Dynasty. Nor could she have known that the rivalry between supporters of Abu'l-Hasan Ali and his first wife Aisha would have led to the Moors' downfall. Centuries of knowledge were destroyed as Arabic and Jewish texts fed bonfires. Yet, ultimately, Isabella is responsible for maintaining much of Alhambra Palace as it was at the time of her conquest. Beyond her grandson's destruction of the southern portion of the complex, which might have been part of the royal harem, the site largely remains the same. Never seen Alhambra? Now's as good a time as any to go; personally, I prefer winters in Granada than a hellish summer.

If you walk the corridors of Alhambra Palace today, there's an Arabic inscription that occurs repeatedly throughout the stuccoed walls and tiled rooms. Wa-la ghaliba illa-Llah, which translates as 'there is no conqueror but God.' It had been the motto of the Nasrids for two hundred and sixty years. As a devout Catholic, Isabella believed in the power of God fervently too, that He was on her side. Did the fall of Moorish Spain prove her right?    

Al-Andalus Authors Newsletter Launch: Why Moorish Spain

I'm a part of Al-Andalus Authors, a cooperative formed with David Penny, John D. Cressler and Joan Fallon, who have each written about Moorish Spain's history. Our first newsletter is available NOW! Every month on the 15th day, we'll provide fascinating insights into Moorish Spain, our passion for its history and our books. This month's topic, "Why Moorish Spain." Here's a snippet:

"About Moorish Spain

Why Moorish Spain? For any traveler who has marveled at the beauty of Seville's Giralda or Alcazar, wandered between the columns of La Mezquita in Cordoba or explored Granada's timeless Alhambra, the answer is easy. Moorish Spain captures the imagination. A sentiment shared by John D. Cressler, Joan Fallon, David Penny, and Lisa J. Yarde when they formed Al-Andalus Authors.

Moorish Spain or Al-Andalus in the time of Muslim people who once ruled the land is the predominant setting for many of John, Joan, David and Lisa's novels. Inspiration comes from the richness of the region's history and culture, and the influence the Islamic religion on the architecture, language, and food. Spain is a beautiful country of ice-capped mountains in the north, and sage green grass and red ochre soil in the central tableland. Heat stifles the south in summers. Spaniards inherited a rich legacy from the Celts, Romans and Goths, and Christians, Jews, and Muslims. But it is in the vestiges of Moorish Spain alone that the influence of the latter remains best evident today.

John, Joan, David, and Lisa each have unique and deeply personal reasons for having chosen this place in time as the setting of their most beloved novels. They invite you to share their insights now."

Want more? Then you have to subscribe. Sign up at https://goo.gl/xTwyPK.

Meet the Author: John D. Cressler

With my next MEET THE AUTHOR post, I’m pleased to introduce John D. Cressler, as this week's guest author and share his newest novel. John’s stopping by to share an excerpt of Fortune's Lament, part of his Anthems of al-Andalus series set in Moorish Spain and to offer insight on his writing. Given my own obsession with the place and time he's written about, John's work has been of particular interest to me, so expect to hear more about him on this blog. As a bonus, John has generously offered to give away up to TEN  Kindle versions to those who leave a comment on this post! So, please do comment and INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS in the comment.

Here's an excerpt from the novel:

Interview with John D. Cressler

Welcome John, thanks for being my guest at The Brooklyn Scribbler. Please share some insight on your Anthems of al-Andalus series and the latest installment, Fortune's Lament.

Thanks for inviting me, Lisa! Let me give some background on this amazing period of history, and then zoom-in on each of my three novels in the Anthems of al-Andalus Series.

As you know, much of modern Spain was under Muslim control for nearly 800 years (from 711 to 1492 C.E.). Medieval Islamic Spain was deeply influential in world history, for a multitude of reasons, including the rediscovery, translation, and dissemination of the lost works of medicine, science, and philosophy of the ancient Greeks. The Muslim Umayyads (with roots tracing back to Syria) were lovers of books and learning, and helped launch a cultural revolution in Córdoba, which transformed the western world. An exceptional 200-plus-year period of peaceful coexistence occurred between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam under Muslim Umayyad rule, providing a powerful lesson in the practice of multiculturalism for our twenty-first-century world. This time period was both deeply influential in world history and riveting, and I have fallen in love with all-things-al-Andalus! All three of my novels are love stories interwoven into this rich history. 

Emeralds of the Alhambra, my first release, is a love story set in the resplendent Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain, during the Castilian Civil War (1367-1369 C.E.), a time when Muslims took up their swords to fight alongside Christians. Emeralds tells the story of William Chandon, a Christian knight captured and brought to the Alhambra to be used by the Muslim sultan as a political pawn, and the Sufi Muslim princess Layla, daughter of the sultan’s chief counsellor. As Chandon’s influence at court grows, he becomes trapped between his forbidden love for Layla and his Christian heritage, the demands of chivalry and political expediency. Chandon and Layla must make choices between love and honor, war and peace, life and death, choices which ultimately will seal Granada’s fate as the last surviving stronghold of Islamic Spain. 

Shadows in the Shining City, my second release, is a prequel to Emeralds of the Alhambra, and immerses the reader in Islamic Spain’s Golden Age. Shadows tells the story of the forbidden love between Rayhana, a Muslim princess of the royal court, and Zafir, a freed slave. Young love blossoms in 975 C.E. in Madinat al-Zahra, the Shining City, Caliph al-Hakam II’s magnificent royal palace located just outside of Córdoba. Their love story is set against the backdrop of the epic rise to power of Rayhana’s ruthless father, Ibn Abi Amir, a man history will come to both celebrate and revile for the role he plays in the collapse of Islamic Spain.

Fortune’s Lament, my latest, is again set in Granada, 120 years after Emeralds of the Alhambra, and sets the stage for the final collapse of Muslim Spain. It tells the story of Danah, a young Muslim woman who aspires to be the first female physician in the city. Love unexpectedly blossoms between Danah and Yusef, a valiant prince of court from a rival clan, during the bloody final conquest of Granada by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Christian Spain. As the light of Islamic Spain dims, the Inquisition looms large on the horizon, as does the coming voyage of Columbus to discover the Americas.

When you first began writing, did you have a series in mind? If not, what changed your thoughts?

Yes, I intended to write a series from the very beginning. There is just too much fascinating history to be told. I envision the series stretching to at least 4 books, maybe more.

The women of Al-Andalus exhibit surprising behavior in your novels, moving beyond the traditional roles readers may expect of women in the medieval period. Where you surprised by the role of medieval Muslim women as you researched the period?

That is true, yes. I discovered many surprising elements to this history, including the strong role women often played in decisions that influenced pivotal outcomes (by a variety of means; some good, some bad), as well as the unusual social mobility women sometimes enjoyed. I wanted to highlight this nuanced piece of the history. Actually, there are three deeper themes present in all of my novels, themes that greatly interest me: 1) How strong young women cross the artificial boundaries society imposes. 2) The nature of love and its power to transform us. Yes, these are love stories! And 3) The importance of religious tolerance, and the beauty of multiculturalism. All of these themes firmly anchored to a riveting historical context, but are also highly relevant to our modern world.

Do you have favorite characters from each of your novels in the series? If so, tell us why you prefer that character above others.

Well, definitely my young female protagonists! Layla, in Emeralds, Rayhana in Shadows, and Danah in Fortune’s Lament. All are bright, all are strong-willed, all are determined to break out of the traditional roles and expectations assigned to them. AND…..all unexpectedly encounter love along their journeys… which changes everything (as love is wont to do!).

Do you plan to write more novels set in Al-Andalus? If not, where will your writing adventures take you?

Definitely! Novel # 4 in the series has already commenced, and it will be a sequel to Fortune’s Lament, telling the story of the final collapse of Granada in 1492. Beyond that, time will tell―but one thing is certain: there are plenty of stories left in the 800 years of al-Andalus that still beg to be told! Stay tuned.

Thanks again, John!

Learn more about John D. Cressler

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Buy Fortune's Lament, Anthems of al-Andalus series #3

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Meet the characters: Sultan Muhammad al-Zaghal

Muhammad al-Zaghal, whose sobriquet meant 'the brave' or 'the valiant' lived in the shadow of his elder brother, Sultan Abu'l-Hasan Ali for years. Then, palace intrigue and poor circumstances gave access to the power the younger man may have dreamt of all his life. Readers of Sultana: The Pomegranate Tree will discover more about his fate in Sultana: The White Mountains; if you don't want to know before you've read either book, this is your last warning - stop reading now. Spoilers for the last novel in the Sultana series lie ahead. 

Still with me? Prince Muhammad al-Zaghal was the second son of the Nasrid Sultan Abu Nasr Sa'd, who ruled Moorish Granada from summer 1454 to January 1455, then from late summer 1455 to 1464, when Abu'l-Hasan Ali usurped the throne. The prince has been portrayed most recently onscreen in the Spanish TV series, Isabel. It's uncertain where Muhammad al-Zaghal's birth occurred or when but he would have been born between 1437 and 1450, the respective dates at which his elder brother Abu'l-Hasan Ali and their younger sibling Yusuf entered the world. Whether the brothers had the same mother is also unknown, but their paternal heritage is clear. The links from their father and his father Prince Ali, a son of Sultan Abdul Hajjaj Yusuf connected them to Sultan Muhammad V and even beyond to the first Nasrid ruler. While Abu Nasr Sa'd did not have a legitimate claim to the throne, his family had founded a royal dynasty on the idea of usurpation.

From the beginning of their father's reign, there is some evidence of closeness between the two eldest sons. In late summer 1455, both chased the Sultan's rival for the throne into the region of Las Alpujarras, where they captured him along with his betrothed bride and cousin to all of the men, Sultana Aisha, whom Abu'l-Hasan Ali would later marry. As for Muhammad al-Zaghal, he also married a kinswoman whose name has come down through Spanish history transcribed as Esquivilia - certainly a non-Moorish name. Readers of Sultana: The Pomegranate Tree will recall her as Ashiqa, who had her own impressive lineage with links to her husband's clan.

She was the daughter of Abu Salim Ibrahim al-Nayyar, the governor of Almeria and Maryam bint Bannigash, one of the daughters of Granada's famed minister Ridwan ibn Bannigash who was born and ended his life as a Christian named Pedro Venegas. He once served as a slave before he converted to Islam and married the daughter of his former master. Abu Salim Ibrahim al-Nayyar's mother Fatima claimed descent from the murdered Sultan Ismail II, a brother of Muhammad V, and a concubine who might have been called Cirila. Like many things about the Nasrids, the true connection of his mother is uncertain, but Abu Salim Ibrahim al-Nayyar's father was definitely Sultan Yusuf IV, another usurper whose claim to the throne derived from a more precise maternal connection to an unnamed daughter of Sultan Muhammad VI, who seized the throne of his brother-in-law Ismail II in 1361.

  

Muhammad al-Zaghal may have had up to three daughters with his wife, but no sons. He supported his brother Abu'l-Hasan Ali's ouster of their father in 1464 and at some point, became the governor of the all-important coastal bastion at Malaka, seen above. In 1467, their brother Yusuf died of the plague, which some historians have concluded could have been a welcome boon to Abu'l-Hasan Ali. His foes in the clan of Abencerrage, whose chieftains his father had murdered in 1462, might have supported Yusuf as a claimant to rule. Even if they did not, they later approached Muhammad al-Zaghal with the same idea in 1470. He rebelled against his brother for a brief period until Abu'l-Hasan Ali brought him to heel. Thereafter, the brothers remained inseparable. Muhammad al-Zaghal even brought his brother's eventual second wife and beloved companion Sultana Soraya into his life with a raid on her Christian homeland.

It's believed Muhammad al-Zaghal earned his appellation for bravery and valor because of events that took place after summer 1482 when the overthrow of his brother occurred because of a conspiracy between Sultana Aisha and her Abencerrage supporters. But I'll admit some of the actions the prince undertook were infamous and destabilized a fragile territory, which left it vulnerable to invasions by the armies of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. Muhammad al-Zaghal hosted Abu'l-Hasan Ali in his short exile at Malaga and the Sultan's son Muhammad XI claimed the throne, from where the siblings fought off Christian invaders in the Ajarquía region of Malaga, taking thousands of heads as trophies and even more captives. But the pair's marauding ways also undermined the kingdom as they attacked the homes of Moorish people who supported the rebellion in Granada. After his brother reclaimed the throne, Muhammad al-Zaghal went to his wife's birthplace at Almeria and tried to take the city from his younger nephew, Abu'l-Hasan Ali and Aisha's second son, Yusuf.

Readers of Sultana: The White Mountains will know how I portrayed the younger Nasrid siblings Muhammad XI and Yusuf as close relations, which parallels the bond between their father and uncle - the evident proof of loyalty between the elder men inspired me. But when Yusuf died at Almeria, likely murdered, his death possibly occurred at the command of Muhammad al-Zaghal. I've speculated in the novel that this was the first sign that he was not always a faithful adherent to his brother, because of later circumstances. In 1485, Abu'l-Hasan Ali either abdicated or lost power to his younger brother, who became Sultan Muhammad XII in his stead. At the death of his sibling, he expressed the desire to marry his sister-in-law Soraya; presumably, his first wife had not died and nothing in the Maliki interpretation of Sharia law seems to have prohibited the union. Had the new monarch long-coveted more than his brother's throne, but also his wife? More likely, the move would have allowed for greater control of Soraya's sons. But they escaped with their mother into Castile.

As the united Catholic sovereigns forced the surrender of several Moorish cities, uncle and nephew for control of Granada. In spring 1487 when the Christians threatened to take Malaga, the Sultan rallied to its defense, but the area fell after a bitter siege of several months. Muhammad al-Zaghal accepted the loss of Granada, too, and maintained control of key areas at Guadix and Almeria until December of 1489, when his wife's brother Yahya surrendered the city of Baza and took a Christian name, Pedro de Granada. By the following year, Muhammad al-Zaghal departed the Iberian Peninsula for the kingdom of Tlemcen, based at Oran, in modern-day northern Algeria. The record indicates at least one daughter and her husband remained in Spain whereas her father presumably died in Tlemcen around 1494.

Muhammad al-Zaghal is one of my favorite characters in Sultana: The Pomegranate Tree and Sultana: The White Mountains, because of his moral ambiguity. His devotion to family paired with personal ambitions makes him an intriguing figure. In studying him for years so that I could write both novels, I discovered a historical figure who was as strong a defender of Granada as his elder brother, but through his participation in the civil war, helped weaken his beloved Sultanate. I tried to be as true as possible to his history but am still uncertain about a few parts. For instance, was he in Granada as regent early in his brother's reign or did he spend his time predominantly at Malaga? Was the death of his nephew Yusuf planned or an unfortunate happenstance that occurred in Almeria? What explanation, if any, did he provide Abu'l-Hasan Ali for the murder, especially since they had long been so close? What would Muhammad al-Zaghal have done to Soraya's sons if he had married their mother - would he have supported the eventual reign of the eldest in his stead or would the boys have disappeared like the nephews of King Richard III, medieval Britain's princes in the tower? I hope readers will enjoy my portrayal of Muhammad al-Zaghal in both novels, available now.   

If you've missed any of the Meet the characters posts about this novel, find them HERE.