Nasr of Granada

Nasr was the fourth Nasrid ruler of the Emirate of Granada from 14 March 1309 until his abdication on 8 February 1314. He ascended the throne after his brother Muhammad III was dethroned in a palace revolution. At the time of his accession, Granada faced a three-front war against Castile, Aragon and the Marinid Sultanate. He made peace with the Marinids in September 1309, ceding to them the African port of Ceuta, which had already been captured.

About Nasr of Granada in brief

Summary Nasr of GranadaNasr was the fourth Nasrid ruler of the Emirate of Granada from 14 March 1309 until his abdication on 8 February 1314. He ascended the throne after his brother Muhammad III was dethroned in a palace revolution. At the time of his accession, Granada faced a three-front war against Castile, Aragon and the Marinid Sultanate, triggered by his predecessor’s foreign policy. He made peace with the Marinids in September 1309, ceding to them the African port of Ceuta, which had already been captured, as well as Algeciras and Ronda in Europe. Despite achieving peace with relatively minimal losses, Nasr was unpopular at court as he was suspected of being pro-Christian and accused of devoting so much time to astronomy that he neglected his duties as ruler. A rebellion started by his brother-in-law Abu Said Faraj in 1311 was initially repulsed, but a second campaign by Abu Said’s son Ismail ended in the capture of the Alhambra palace. Ismail defeated the Castilian forces in the Battle of the Vega of GranADA, resulting in a truce that ended their support for Nasr. Nasr died without an heir in 1322. He was the son of Muhammad II al-Faqih and Shams al-Duha. His father was Muhammad II, the second Nasrid Sultan of Granadas. His mother was ShamsAlDuha, the second wife of Muhammad, a Christian and a former slave.

Muhammad III became the sultan after the death of their father in 1302. Muhammad was intensively engaged in poetry, while Fatima studied the barnamaj—the biobibliographies of Islamic scholars—and Nasr studied astronomy. His much older brother Muhammad was named heir during their father’s reign. The emirate was on the verge of war against a triple alliance of its larger neighbors, the Christian kingdoms of Castile and Aragon on the Iberian peninsula. The potentially disastrous war, aswell as the extravagance of the vizier Ibn al-Hakim, sparked anger among the people of Granadan nobles including the Vizier’s rival, Atiq ibn al-Mawl. The main instigator of the coup and member of an influential family in Granada was his vizier Ibn al-mawl, who was killed during the turmoil and his corpse was defiled by a mob. In 1314 Nasr became new sultan and appointed Ismail I as the new vizier and appointed him the new king of Guadix, styling himself ‘King of GuAdix’ He was allowed to rule the eastern province of Guadix and attempted to regain the throne with help from Castile. In 1306 Granada conquered the North African coast of the Strait of Gibraltar and was conquered by Granada in 1304 and was given strong control of both sides of Málaga and Almería.