Charles Binns - Landscape Photography, Nature Photography, Travel Photography

Granada

Granada is situated at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of two rivers, Darro and Genil.

The Alhambra, a Moorish citadel and palace, is in Granada. It is one of the most famous items of the Muslim, Jewish, and Christian historical legacy that makes Granada a hot spot among cultural and tourist cities in Spain. The Almohad urbanism with some fine examples of Moorish and Morisco constructions is preserved at the part of the city called the Albaicin. The Alhambra is the subject of a separate gallery which can be accessed by clicking here.

The city has been inhabited from the dawn of history. There was an Ibero-Celtic settlement here, which made contact in turn with Phoenicians, Carthagenians and Greeks. By the 5th century BC, the Greeks had established a colony which they named Elibyrge or Elybirge . Under Roman rule this name had become "Illiberis". As Illiberis, the city minted its own coins. The Visigoths maintained the importance of the city as a centre of both ecclesiastical and civil administration and also established it as a military stronghold.

A Jewish community established itself in what was effectively a suburb of the city, called "Garnata" or "Garnata al-yahud" (Granada of the Jews). It was with the help of this community that Moorish forces under Tariq ibn-Ziyad first took the city in 711, though it was not fully secured until 713. They referred to it under the Iberian name "Ilbira", the remaining Christian community calling this "Elvira", and it became the capital of a province of the Caliphate of Cordoba. Civil conflicts that wracked the Caliphate in the early eleventh century led to the destruction of the city in 1010. In the subsequent reconstruction, the suburb of Gárnata was incorporated in the city, and the modern name in fact derives from this. With the arrival of the Zirid dynasty in 1013, Granada became an independent sultanate. By the end of the eleventh century, the city had spread across the Darro to reach what is now the site of the Alhambra.

In 1228, with the departure of the Almohad prince, Idris, who left Iberia to take the Almohad leadership, the ambitious Ibn al-Ahmar established the longest lasting Muslim dynasty on the Iberian peninsula - the Nasrids. With the Reconquista in full swing after the conquest of Cordoba in 1236, the Nasrids aligned themselves with Ferdinand III of Castile, officially becoming a tributary state in 1238. The state officially becoming the Kingdom of Granada in 1238. The Nasrid sultans and kings were responsible for building most of the palaces in the Alhambra. The taifa became a vassal state of the Christian kingdom of Castile for the next 250 years. The Nasrid sultans and kings paid tribute to the Christian kings and cooperated with them in the battle against rebellious Muslims under Castilian rule.

Initially the kingdom of Granada linked the commercial routes from Europe with those of the Maghreb. The territory constantly shrank, however, and by 1492, Granada controlled only a small territory on the Mediterranean coast. Arabic was the official language, and was the mother tongue of the majority of the population.

Granada was held as a vassal to Castille for many decades, and provided trade links with the muslim world, particularly the gold trade with the sub-saharan areas south of Africa. The Nasrids also provided troops for Castille while the kingdom was also a source of mercenary fighters from North Africa. However, Portugal discovered direct the African trade routes by sailing around the coast of West Africa. Thus Granada became less and less important for Castille and with the unification of Castille and Aragon in 1479, those kingdoms set their sights on conquering Granada and Navarre.

On January 2, 1492, the last Muslim leader, Muhammad XII, known as Boabdil to the Spanish, surrendered complete control of Granada, to Ferdinand and Isabella, Los Reyes Católicos ("The Catholic Monarchs"), after the city was besieged.

The fall of the Moors is one of the more significant events in Granada's history. The Alhambra decree of the Christian Monarchs forced the predominantly Muslim population to convert to Roman Catholicism or face death. Those who managed to survive the inquisition fled to their ancestral lands in North Africa. Arabic lost its place in everyday life and was replaced by Castilian. The mosques, some on sites of former Christian churches, were converted to Christian uses. Part of the predominantly Muslim population was gradually converted to Roman Catholicism and remaining Muslims were eventually expelled to surrounding rural areas, leading to the Revolt of the Alpujarras in 1568. Jews were immediately expelled following the Alhambra decree of 1492.

The fall of Granada holds an important place among the many significant events that mark the latter half of the 15th century. It ended the eight hundred year-long Islamic presence in the Iberian Peninsula. Freed from conflicts with the Muslims, a united Spain advanced to first rank among the nations of Europe, and embarked onto its greatest phase of expansion around the globe leading to the 'discovery' of the Americas by Isabella's prodigy Christopher Columbus and followed by what was to become the Spanish Empire, one of the largest empires of the world for the coming centuries.

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