The fall of Granada, the last stronghold of al-Andalus

Abu ʿAbdullah (Boabdil), the last of the Nasrid kings, handed the keys of Granada and the Alhambra to Ferdinand and Isabella, folding the page on eight centuries of Islamic civilization in al-Andalus.

After the fall of Cordoba and Seville, the kingdom of Granada remained for two and a half centuries the last stronghold of Islam in the Iberian Peninsula — until the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon united through the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, and the Nasrids were exhausted by internal strife.

The Spanish besieged Granada for months until hunger gripped it, and Abu ʿAbdullah Muhammad XII (Boabdil) signed the terms of surrender, which guaranteed the Muslims security in their lives, faith and property — pledges soon broken by the Inquisition and forced conversion.

On 2 Rabiʿ al-Awwal 897 AH (2 January 1492) the Catholic monarchs entered the city and the cross was raised over the Alhambra. Boabdil paused on a height overlooking the city, weeping, and his mother ʿAʾisha spoke her famous words: "Weep like a woman for a kingdom you did not defend like a man."