Indian Chief Travel Guides

A Brief History of Granada

Traces of settlements in Granada have been dated to the Neolithic Age. The city itself was most likely founded by the Iberians in the fifth century BC. When the Romans colonized southern Spain they built their own city here and called it Illiberis. The Romans gave way to the Vandals and in 711 AD the Arabs invaded the peninsula.With the help of local Jews they conquered the city and named it Granada.

The Moorish empire soon stretched far into northern Spain. Boosted by its close proximity to the trade ports on the Mediterranean, the city’s silk trade flourished. Increasing Arab persecution of Christians hastened the Reconquest led by the Catholic monarchs. After successive wars with Christian Castile, the Arabs began to seek military aid from Morocco and as a result the city underwent a rapid process of “Arabization.”

After 1340, when the battle of Río Salado left much of the Mediterranean in Christian hands, Granada adopted a policy of isolation, effectively cutting itself off from Castilian influence. It was in this period that Yusuf I (1333-54) and Muhammad V (1354-59 and 1362-91) finished building the Alhambra.

By the 15th century the Moors had been forced to withdraw to their only remaining stronghold, Granada. The city, and with it the last of Moorish Spain, fell to the Roman Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabela at the Alhambra in 1492. Moslems and Jews were ultimately forced out of the country or made to convert to Christianity during an intense period of ethnic cleansing. The splendor that had characterized Granada under the Moors ebbed until a new university had been established and all the cultural and monumental trappings of the new Christian Granada had begun to take shape.