Elizabeth Drayson: The Last Muslim Sultan of Granada (1492)

Travels Through Time

This week we head to Granada in southern Spain to witness one of the most important years in the history of not only Europe, but the whole world.

In 711 a band of Berber tribesmen made the short voyage from North Africa to Southern Spain, landing near Gibraltar. The land they found mesmerised them with its beauty and natural abundance, they settled down, built cities and were joined by Arabs from across the vast Muslim Empire who made al-Andalus their home.

Towards the end of the eleventh century, Christian Europeans began the long process of Reconquista, reclaiming the lands they saw as being rightfully theirs. By the late fifteenth century, only Granada remained in Arab hands and in 1492, Boabdil, the last Sultan of Granada, handed over the keys of the city to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella – the joint Catholic rulers of Spain.

We are visiting this watershed moment in the company of Professor Elizabeth Drayson, Emeritus Fellow in Spanish at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge. Her new book, Lost Paradise, The Story of Granada, she reveals the full wonder of this city’s history, highlighting the experiences of some of its minority populations including Jews, Gypsies, women.

As ever, much, much more about this episode is to be found at our website tttpodcast.com.

Click here to order Elizabeth Drayson's book from John Sandoe’s who, we are delighted to say, are supplying books for the podcast.

Show Notes

Scene One: 2 January 1492, in Granada. Christian and Muslim royalty have assembled for the official surrender of the city to the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile.

Scene Two: Mid-July, 1492, on the road to Cádiz, the route to one of Spain’s biggest seaports, as Jewish families prepare to sail into permanent exile from their
homeland.

Scene Three: September 1492, in the old wood-panelled library of the University of Salamanca. Queen Isabella I of Castile meets Spain’s most renowned Humanist, Antonio de Nebrija, to accept his newly published grammar of the Spanish language.

Memento: the gold ring set with a turquoise owned by the last Muslim sultan of Granada.

People/Social

Presenter: Violet Moller

Guest: Elizabeth Drayson

Production: Maria Nolan

Podcast partner: Unseen Histories

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