Battle of Granada

The Battle of Granada was a siege of the city of Granada fought over a period of months leading up to its surrender on January 2, 1492. The city was captured by the combined forces of Aragon and Castile from the armies of the Muslim Emirate of Granada. Granada's Moorish forces were led by Emir Muhammad XII of Granada (King Boabdil).

Since the spring of 1491, Granada had been all that was left of the former Moorish Kingdom of Al-Andalus when the Spanish forces of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile laid siege to the walled city. After several attempts to disperse the besiegers had been defeated, Boabdil attempted to raise support from the Islamic Marinid state in Morocco. He negotiated a four month truce with the Spanish whereby he would surrender if no help was received by the expiry of the truce. Following the development of Nasrid-Ottoman relations, only limited help came from the Ottomans, who dispatched admiral Kemal Reis to raid the Spanish coast.^[1]

Significant support failed to materialise and, on the agreed date the city capitulated. The Ottoman fleet was used to rescue refugees and ferry them to the coast of North Africa.^[1]

This relatively small campaign was of momentous consequences as Granada was the last outpost of Al-Andalus in Spain and its fall brought to an end 780 years of Muslim control in the Iberian peninsula. It also marked the final act in the Reconquista, the campaign by the medieval Christian states of Spain to drive out the Moorish invaders.

Granada still celebrates the 2nd of January. The Fall of Granada would soon be followed by a wave of Spanish expansion into Northern Africa, starting with the Conquest of Melilla on the coast of Morocco in 1497.

See also

Granada War

References

Bibliography

• Mind Alive Encyclopedia of World History, Marshall Cavendish, (London, 1974)