The last Muslim King in Spain
The history, myths and legends surrounding the last Muslim ruler in Spain - whose surrender ended seven centuries of Islam at the heart of Western Europe - is the subject of a new book and Hay Festival appearance by Cambridge academic Elizabeth Drayson. I wanted to show why his life matters - and the meanings it now has at this time of extreme tension between the west and the Islamic states. Elizabeth Drayson Based on original research, and drawing attention to the connections between the medieval Moorish king Boabdil, and current social and political concerns in Europe today, Drayson presents the first full account in any language of the Moorish sultan of Granada, and head of the Nasrid dynasty. The academic's research has also uncovered a potential mystery regarding the final resting place of the last Muslim king in Spain. Long thought to have died in Algeria in 1494, experts are now hoping to exhume and DNA test what they believe to be the remains of the sultan beneath a derelict mausoleum in Fez, Morocco. In the ten years before Boabdil's fall in 1492, his kingdom of Granada was the theatre of one of the most significant wars in European history. The sultan's territory was the last Spanish stronghold of a Muslim empire that had once stretched to the Pyrenees and beyond - including the cities of Barcelona, Pamplona and Cordoba, which had been home to paved roads, street lighting and more than 70 libraries at a time when London and other European cities were backwaters of disease, violence and illiteracy. 'How did Boabdil change the course of Spanish history' Does he now represent what he stood for in the past?
