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?    

Meet the characters - Sultana Moraima

The character of Moraima becomes one of two protagonists in Sultana: The White Mountains. She is the beloved wife of her husband, Sultan Muhammad XI, who's come down through Spanish history with the name Boabdil. Like her spouse and so many of the characters in the series, she is based on a real historical figure who was the daughter of the governor and war hero known as Ali al-Attar. She married when she was fifteen, and had two sons Ahmad and Yusuf and possibly a daughter named Aisha. I've seen one unverified reference to the meaning of her name as "she who is as beautiful as the blueberry tree." In Spanish history, she’s always described as having been beautiful, I suppose a prerequisite for having captured the heart of a prince. She certainly was in season two of the Spanish series, Isabel. 

There is no reference to another wife of Muhammad XI except Moraima. Sometimes, the historical figure strangely gets conflated in the legends about Sultanas purportedly loved by men of the Abencerrage clan, whose chieftains died by the order of Moraima's father-in-law Sultan Abu'l-Hasan Ali at some banquet twenty years before her union with Muhammad XI. By all accounts, theirs was a love match, whereas past Nasrids tended to marry royal cousins. 

Readers of Sultana: The Pomegranate Tree, the preceding novel in which she first appears, will recall Moraima's unhappy state at the start of the marriage when her father-in-law Abu’l-Hasan Ali imprisons and separates her from her husband for a time. On her wedding day, Spanish historians described her as having been so poor, she borrowed simple wedding garments - quite unlikely since her father governed their birthplace of Loja, Spain by such time AND she was about to join the ruling family of a shrinking Moorish Spain. She's come down through history as a long-suffering woman, like the statue of her in Loja. She remains a sympathetic figure, never having been a queen in her own right. That's not quite true; when her husband reigned over Moorish Granada, she would have enjoyed a queenly status, although perhaps overshadowed by her mother-in-law, Sultana Aisha. As I've imagined her life in the new novel, she's no wilting wallflower content to remain in the background. Few women of the Nasrid Dynasty could afford to be. Not when life and death or the survival of the Moors affected their choices.

How does the image of Moraima in the annals compare with my portrayal of her? My readers would know of the Sultanas I depict that each of them is strong in her own way. But this was the first royal woman I've written about as someone who had to dig deep within herself to tap into that wellspring of strength. At first, she's uncomfortable giving orders to servants and sees herself in a lesser role compared to Aisha and Soraya, the wives of Abu'l-Hasan Ali. I imagined the daughter of a provincial governor might have felt somewhat overwhelmed in her new position as the sole companion of a dynasty member. But there isn't much chance for Moraima to allow others influence for long – she’d be a boring protagonist if she did! Historical events in the novel force her into the spotlight and give her many opportunities to impact the future of Moorish Spain. Find out how in Sultana: The White Mountains, available now. 

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

Farewell to the Sultana series

It's been six years of hard work and challenges, but at last, the end of the Sultana series is on the horizon. Sultana: The White Mountains - book #6 is the story of Moraima, the young queen of Granada and her husband, Muhammad XI, also known as Boabdil in the medieval Castilian sources. Here's the blurb:

"In fifteenth-century Moorish Spain, Moraima, wife of the last Sultan of Granada faces an uncertain future.

Her husband’s realm endures terrible odds in battles against dangerous foes. The united Catholic monarchs gain ground steadily, encroaching upon Granada, while rivalries fracture the Moorish kingdom from within. How can Moraima ensure the survival of her family, shattered by warfare and betrayal?"

And the book trailer:

And in celebration of this final novel and the creation of an omnibus edition of the series, all e-book versions of the novels are discounted to $1.99 (a savings of 50% off the regular price of $3.99 at all online retailers). Except for the first book in the series, which is FREE. With every purchase, there's a bonus. Click here for more.