Fall of Granada

The survival of the Islamic Kingdom of Granada in Andalusia for two centuries was a miracle of Islam.
This Islamic island floating above the turbulent sea of Crusades, brimming with historical hatred and deceit, this island could not have held its famous steadfastness except because the nature of steadfastness lies in the Islamic faith and principles. Without the Islamic faith, this island would not have been able to hold its own in Andalusia after all the Islamic cities and fortresses had fallen two centuries ago.
It was the law of responding to the challenge that kept Granada alive and full of Islamic thought and cultural advancement for these two centuries. The Granadans’ feeling that they were facing an enemy surrounding them from all sides, waiting for the opportunity to devour them, and that they had no hope of importing victory from the Islamic world, and that they must depend on themselves, this feeling was their greatest motivation for constant preparation, raising the banner of jihad and adhering to their Islam.
Thus, Granada succeeded in remaining, until the year 897 AH / 1492 AD, the lady of Islamic Andalusia, the beacon of science, and the flame of the remaining Islamic civilization in Europe.
However, the years surrounding the fall witnessed a development in Andalusian life. On the Christian level, a great union began between the two largest Christian kingdoms hostile to Islam, namely the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile. The two merged in a union that culminated in the marriage of Isabella, Queen of Castile, to Ferdinand, King of Aragon. The dream that haunted the two Catholic royal couple on their wedding night was to enter Granada, spend their honeymoon in the Alhambra, and raise the cross over Granada's watchtower. On the Islamic level, a major dispute had broken out within the Kingdom of Granada, especially between members of the ruling family. The limited Kingdom of Granada was divided into two parts, each threatening the other and standing in its way. One part was in the large capital, Granada, ruled by Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ali Abu al-Hasan al-Nasri (the last king of Granada), and the other part was in the Wadi Ash and its outskirts, ruled by his uncle, Abu Abdullah Muhammad, known as al-Zaghal.
The two Catholic kings began their attack on Wadi Ash in the year 894 AH / 1489 AD, and succeeded in seizing Wadi Ash, Almeria, Basta, and others, such that they were on the outskirts of the city of Granada.
They sent a message to Sultan Abu Abdullah Al-Nasri asking him to surrender the flourishing city of Alhambra, and to remain alive in Granada under its protection. As is the custom with kings who are ridden by history as it goes around, this king was weak and did not take that day into account. He knew that this request meant surrender for the last of the Islamic kingdoms in Andalusia, so he refused the request. The war broke out between the Muslims and the Christians and continued for two years. It was led and ignited the zeal in the souls of the fighters by an Islamic knight from those who appear like the gleam of the sun before sunset: Musa ibn Abi Al-Ghassan.
Thanks to this knight and others like him, Granada stood up to the Catholic kings for two years and endured their siege for seven months. However, there was no doubt about the end of the conflict. Abu Abdullah, whose kingdom was not preserved by men, and the family division and internal strife in the kingdom, in contrast to complete unity in the Christian front, in addition to the harvest of a long history of loss, pre-Islamic nationalism, and conflict far from Islam, which Granada lived and inherited from what it inherited from the fallen Spanish Islamic kingdoms.
All these factors worked to extinguish the last Islamic candle in Andalusia, until the Spanish kings Ferdinand and Isabella were able to seize Granada after its surrender by Sultan Abu Abdullah al-Nasri in 897 AH corresponding to January 2, 1492 AD. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims remained in Andalusia, given that the surrender agreement stipulated civil freedom for Muslims, the retention of their property, and the ability to live as citizens. However, the Spanish soon began to persecute Muslims and force them to convert to Christianity in what is known as the Inquisition. The Muslims revolted and tried to resist the Spanish, but they were finally forced to leave Andalusia. One hundred and twenty years after the fall of Granada, there were no longer any Muslims in Spain and Portugal, after the issuance of a royal decree in Spain in the name of Philip III in 1018 AH / 1609 AD, in which he warned Muslims in Spain to leave the royal lands within 72 hours. This was impossible at that time, and the purpose of the decision was to exterminate the last remaining Muslims.
This bloody tragedy lasted for ten months, during which about 400,000 Muslims were killed. The rest fled to Morocco and Algeria, and some of them converted to Christianity out of fear.
When Abu Abdullah, the last king of Granada, boarded his ship, leaving Islamic Granada, bidding farewell to Andalusia after eight centuries of living under the shadow of Islam, in this violent dramatic situation, Abu Abdullah wept for his lost kingdom, and received from his mother the words that history has preserved: “Weep like women for a kingdom that you did not protect as men do.”
The truth is that with those words of his, his mother was slapping him and slapping many rulers in Islam who wept like women over a king whom they did not protect as men would!

Why We Were Great
The book (Unforgettable Countries) by Tamer Badr