Many doors lead into the heart of the Alhambra, court of the lions. And these doors are delicate works of art made of precious wood and stone. © Tim Langlotz for MERIAN contents page 1 — A sigh for the Alhambra page 2 — brothers of the faith, Yes. Brothers-in-arms? No page 3 — Al-Andalus is not On a page
read apples, The Alhambra is the sound of water, scent of flowers and the taste of pomegranate. You is gardens a work of art with fountains and Paradise, as it promises in the Qur’an in the Hereafter. It is a fortress, reinforced with battlements and towers on a hill above the roofs of Granada. Reddish your walls, especially in the evening sun; “in the Red” means your Name. It is a city that can feed itself, with mosques and bathhouses, a school for Islamic studies, workshops, stables, a tannery.
Here Boabdil comes to 1459, the son of the Emir of Granada, to the world, actually he is called Abu Abdallah. Here he grows up and rises to a ruler by yourself. And here he is gearing up to the 21st century. April 1483, for the war against the Christians, as a defender of the last Muslim Kingdom in Western Europe.
Boabdil will be born almost 750 years have passed since the armed power of Allah from North Africa to the Iberian Peninsula translated. Arabs and Berbers had conquered from 711 within a short time nearly the whole of the Peninsula, and here your own Empire founded, which they called al-Andalus.
still in 8. Century began the Christian nobility of the Reconquista, the reconquest, and al-Andalus shrank until after about 500 years, only a small territory in the extreme South remained: the Emirate of Granada. There Boabdils predecessor, built from 1238 to the red castle.
1482, the Christian rulers to start a campaign, the Reconquista and the Emirate. This strip of Land that runs 300 km along the Mediterranean, at the narrowest point scarcely more than 20 kilometers wide, about as large as Brandenburg. In the same year, Boabdil in Granada pushing yourself to Power, to overthrow his father. While the just war, does Boabdil without a struggle, the control of the Alhambra. The mother has put him up to it. The father, a hitzköpfiger, cruel man who loves the fight, still retains the Power in the Western part. Just now, where the Moors, the Muslims on the Iberian Peninsula, to stand together against the Christians, who have more soldiers and better weapons, splits, Boabdil would have to the Kingdom.
This article comes from MERIAN Heft Nr. 10/2018 © MERIAN
Maybe Boabdil wants to prove that he is like his father, a brave fighter, as he that 21. April 1483 sword and armor create. In a noble mould he rides at the head of his force of 1,500 cavalry and 7,000 foot soldiers. He is ready for his first major battle, a counter-attack on the Christians.
However, Boabdil’s not cut out for great warriors. As he rides through the city gate of Granada, slams it with his lance against the arch so that the tip breaks. The next day, he had to cross just wants to with his army to a river, to attack the Christians suddenly from behind. Panic breaks out, and his soldiers flee. Boabdil: His horse is stuck in the mud. His sword is no longer used, the opponent to grab the Emir, put him on a mule and bring him as a prisoner in the city of Córdoba to Ferdinand and Isabella.
The two are the Power Couple of the Catholicism. You are Queen of Castile, he was king of Aragón: the couple command, the most important Christian kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula and established as a de facto Spain. “A single will, in two bodies,” the place of monarchs, writes a chronicler. And this will is the last Bastion of the Muslims in subjection. “The Catholic kings” are called the two rulers because of their religious Zeal.
