Granada and the Alhambra

Part oneThe last kingdom

In the 1230s and 1240s the Christian kingdoms swept south. Cordoba fell in 1236, Valencia in 1238, and Seville in 1248. Local Muslim lords surrendered one after another. A single state remained, in the mountains of the far south.

It was founded in 1238 by Muhammad ibn Yusuf ibn Nasr, usually called Ibn al-Ahmar, who took the city of Granada and made it his capital. His dynasty is called the Nasrids. His kingdom stretched along the Mediterranean coast from Almeria to Malaga, with the Sierra Nevada behind it. It was small and defensible, and its ports linked it to Italian merchants.

The new capital sat at the edge of a rich plain, the Vega, watered by rivers running down from the Sierra Nevada. Farmers there grew silk and fruit, and weavers and potters made goods that Italian traders carried to the ports of the Mediterranean. Granada's glazed pottery, painted in blue and gold, was prized in Christian courts.

Survival required skill. Ibn al-Ahmar accepted the king of Castile as his overlord and agreed to pay a heavy yearly tribute, and he even sent troops to help Fernando III when Seville was besieged. It was a bitter bargain, but it gave Granada time. Later Nasrid rulers continued the policy. They paid when they had to, fought when they could, and played the Christian kingdoms off against the Marinid rulers of Morocco across the strait. Muhammad II, who came to power in 1273, hired horsemen from Morocco to defend the borders, and they proved worth their high cost. In 1319 the army of Granada won a major victory over Castile on the Vega itself. Refugees from the fallen cities arrived by the thousand, and many settled in the quarter still called the Albaicin.

The kingdom did not enjoy a quiet life. Palace coups were common, and several rulers were deposed or murdered. In 1340 a Moroccan and Granadan army lost the battle of the Rio Salado, and from then on the Christians controlled the strait. Help from Morocco would be hard to send.

Part twoThe Alhambra

Ibn al-Ahmar chose to live on a hill above the city, where an older fortress already stood. Its name comes from al-Qal'a al-Hamra, the Red Fort, for the colour of its walls. In the fourteenth century two kings, Yusuf I and his son Muhammad V, turned it into a palace. Muhammad V, who ruled from 1354 to 1359 and again from 1362 to 1391, is the king most linked with the finest rooms, among them the Court of the Lions. The kings built it in stages, over more than a century, and the result was a complex of courtyards, halls and gardens.

The great state rooms include the Hall of the Ambassadors, in the tower of Comares, where a domed wooden ceiling is inlaid with thousands of pieces to form a field of stars. Beside the palace on the hillside, the Generalife was a summer retreat with orchards and terraced gardens, where the water ran in narrow channels along the paths. Even the plainest rooms are covered with geometry and verse.

Water is the secret of the Alhambra. Channels carried it from the mountains to fill pools and fountains, and the pools reflect the carved ceilings so that the whole building seems to float. In the Court of the Lions, twelve stone lions hold a fountain in the middle of a courtyard of slender columns. Plaster walls are carved in patterns so fine that they look like lace. Poems by court poets, among them Ibn Zamrak, are written into the walls themselves, and one phrase is repeated again and again in the decoration. In transliteration it reads la ghalib illa Allah, which means that there is no victor but God.

Granada was also a place of learning. Yusuf I founded a madrasa in 1349. The statesman and writer Ibn al-Khatib served as vizier. The traveller Ibn Battuta passed through the kingdom around 1350, and the historian Ibn Khaldun spent time at the court in the 1360s.

Muslims who lived under Christian rule in the conquered cities were called Mudejars, and many of them kept their faith and their trades for generations. Granada was different. It was the one place where a Muslim court, a market and a mosque still stood together.

The palaces were built for a kingdom that was always under threat. By the fifteenth century the Nasrid family was divided against itself, and brothers and sons contested the throne. Castile and Aragon, by contrast, were moving toward union.

Part threeThe last century

After Muhammad V died in 1391, the kingdom grew weaker. In 1410 Castile took the frontier town of Antequera, and in 1462 Gibraltar was lost. The Nasrid family split into factions, and rival claimants sometimes asked Castile for help against their own relatives. Rulers called Muhammad appear so often in the record that historians number them. The Alhambra stayed beautiful, but its court was running out of time.

Water is the secret of the Alhambra.

WatchThe lecture for this chapter

Lecture Al MuqaddimahThe Foundation and Struggle of the Nasrid Sultanate (opens on YouTube)

The mapWhere it happened

• Granada
• the Alhambra
• the Generalife
• the Albaicin
• Malaga
• Almeria

This map is a simple sketch to help you picture where events took place. Positions, distances and borders are approximate, so please use it for reference only, not as an accurate map.

SourcesSources for this chapter