Granada's People and Legends

Boabdil, born Abu Abdallah Muhammad and later called Muhammad XII, was the 22nd and final Nasrid sultan of Granada. He came to power through a 1482 palace revolt against his own father and surrendered the city to Ferdinand and Isabella on 2 January 1492, ending Muslim rule in Iberia.

In May 1829, the already-famous American author secured rare permission from the Alhambra’s governor to reside inside the half-ruined palace for about three months. The book he wrote from that stay, published in 1832, sparked the European Romantic interest that turned the Alhambra into a major tourist destination.

Samuel HaNagid was a Jewish refugee from Córdoba who rose from a Málaga spice shop to become vizier and military commander of 11th-century Granada, commanding Muslim armies in battle for sixteen of eighteen years while also writing major collections of Hebrew poetry.

Granada’s most famous poet was arrested on 16 August 1936, at the start of the Spanish Civil War, and shot by a Nationalist firing squad near Víznar days later. His body has never been found despite repeated archaeological searches since 2009.

A small number did, though never as sovereigns in their own right. Aisha al-Hurra deposed her own husband in 1482 to enthrone her son Boabdil and later negotiated his release from Castilian captivity, working through faction and family rather than an independent throne.

Muhammad V, sultan for 29 years after returning from exile in 1362, built the Palace of the Lions, including the Court of the Lions with its twelve-lion fountain, and founded Granada’s first hospital, the Maristan, in 1365.