Emirate of Granada

The Emirate of Granada, the Nasrid kingdom, was the last Muslim state of Western Europe, holding the south of Iberia from 1238 to 1492. When Almohad power crumbled, Muhammad ibn al-Ahmar seized Granada, Málaga and Almería and bought survival the clever way: homage to Castile, tribute in gold, and soldiers lent for Christian wars, while behind the vassal's mask he built a cultured mountain kingdom. For two and a half centuries Granada endured siege, civil war and plague, and prospered between them: silk and sugar, Genoese merchants, and the Alhambra, the red fortress-palace whose courts and fountains remain the summit of Islamic art in Europe. The Catholic Monarchs ended the game. After ten years of grinding frontier war, Granada, starved and divided, surrendered on 2 January 1492; Boabdil, the last king, rode out weeping, to his mother's famous rebuke. Muslims were promised tolerance and given expulsion instead, and the call to prayer fell silent over Andalusia.