The Nasrid Kingdom of Granada (1232-1492) was the last Islamic state in al-Andalus. It has long been considered a historical afterthought, even an anomaly, but this impression must be rectified: here we place the kingdom in a new context, within the processes of change that were taking place across all Western Islamic societies in the late Middle Ages. Despite being the last Islamic entity in the Iberian Peninsula, Granada was neither isolated nor exclusively associated with the nearest Islamic lands. The special relationship between Nasrid territory and the surrounding Christian states accelerated historical processes of change. This volume edited by Adela Fábregas examines the Nasrid kingdom through its politics, society, economics, and culture. Contributors: Daniel Baloup, Bárbara Boloix-Gallardo, María Elena Díez Jorge, Adela Fábregas, Ángel Galán Sánchez, Alberto García Porras, Expiración García Sánchez, Raúl González Arévalo, Pierre Guichard, Antonio Malpica Cuello, Christine Mazzoli-Guintard, Rafael G. Peinado, Antonio Peláez Rovira, José Miguel Puerta Vílchez, María Dolores Rodríguez-Gómez, Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza, Roser Salicrú i Lluch, Bilal Sarr, Francisco Vidal-Castro, Gerard Wiegers, Amalia Zomeño.

A Companion to Islamic Granada gathers, for the first time in English, a number of essays exploring aspects of the Islamic history of this city from the 8th through the 15th centuries from an interdisciplinary perspective. This collective volume examines the political development of Medieval Gharnāṭa under the rule of different dynasties, drawing on both historiographical and archaeological sources. It also analyses the complexity of its religious and multicultural society, as well as its economic, scientific, and intellectual life. The volume also transcends the year 1492, analysing the development of both the mudejar and the morisco populations and their contribution to Grenadian culture and architecture up to the 17th century. Contributors are: Bárbara Boloix-Gallardo, María Jesús Viguera-Molíns, Alberto García-Porras, Antonio Malpica–Cuello, Bilal Sarr-Marroco, Allen Fromherz, Bernard Vincent, Maribel Fierro–Bello, Ma Luisa Ávila–Navarro, Juan Pedro Monferrer–Sala, José Martínez–Delgado, Luis Bernabé–Pons, Adela Fábregas–García, Josef Ženka, Amalia Zomeño–Rodríguez, Delfina Serrano–Ruano, Julio Samsó–Moya, Celia del Moral-Molina, José Miguel Puerta–Vílchez, Antonio Orihuela–Uzal, Ieva Rėklaitytė, and Rafael López–Guzmán.

The expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain (1609-1614) represents an important episode of ethnic, political and religious cleansing which affected about 300,000 persons. The controversial measure was legimitized by an ideology of religious and political unity that served to defend the expulsion of them all, crypto-Muslims and sincere converts to Christianity alike. The first part focuses on the decision to expel the Moriscos, its historical context and the role of such institutions as the Vatican and the religious orders, and nations such as France, Italy, the Dutch Republic, Morocco and the Ottoman Empire. The second part studies the aftermath of the expulsion, the forced migrations, settlement and Diaspora of the Moriscos, comparing their vicissitudes with that of the Jewish conversos. Contributors are Youssef El Alaoui, Rafael Benítez Sánchez Blanco, Luis Fernando Bernabé Pons, Paulo Broggio, Miguel Ángel de Bunes Ibarra, Antonio Feros, Mercedes García-Arenal, Jorge Gil Herrera,Tijana Krstić, Sakina Missoum, Natalia Muchnik, Stefania Pastore, Juan Ignacio Pulido Serrano, James B. Tueller, Olatz Villanueva Zubizarreta, Bernard Vincent, and Gerard Wiegers.

Mamluk Cairo, a Crossroads for Embassies offers an up-to-date insight into the diplomacy and diplomatics of the Mamluk sultanate with Muslim and non-Muslim powers. This rich volume covers the whole chronological span of the sultanate as well as the various areas of the diplomatic relations established by (or with) the Mamluk sultanate. Twenty-six essays are divided in geographical sections that broadly respect the political division of the world as the Mamluk chancery perceived it. In addition, two introductory essays provide the present stage of research in the fields of, respectively, diplomatics and diplomacy. With contributions by Frédéric Bauden, Lotfi Ben Miled, Michele Bernardini, Bárbara Boloix Gallardo, Anne F. Broadbridge, Mounira Chapoutot-Remadi, Stephan Conermann, Nicholas Coureas, Malika Dekkiche, Rémi Dewière, Kristof D’hulster, Marie Favereau, Gladys Frantz-Murphy, Yehoshua Frenkel, Hend Gilli-Elewy, Ludvik Kalus, Anna Kollatz, Julien Loiseau, Maria Filomena Lopes de Barros, John L. Meloy, Pierre Moukarzel, Lucian Reinfandt, Alessandro Rizzo, Éric Vallet, Valentina Vezzoli and Patrick Wing.

In 1482, Abu Abdallah Muhammad XI became the twenty-third Muslim King of Granada. He would be the last. This is the first history of the ruler, known as Boabdil, whose disastrous reign and bitter defeat brought seven centuries of Moorish Spain to an end. It is an action-packed story of intrigue, treachery, cruelty, cunning, courtliness, bravery and tragedy. Basing her vivid account on original documents and sources, Elizabeth Drayson traces the origins and development of Islamic Spain. She describes the thirteenth-century founding of the Nasrid dynasty, the cultured and stable society it created, and the feuding which threatened it and had all but destroyed it by 1482, when Boabdil seized the throne. The new Sultan faced betrayals by his family, factions in the Alhambra palace, and ever more powerful onslaughts from the forces of Ferdinand and Isabella, monarchs of the newly united kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. By stratagem, diplomacy, courage and strength of will Boabdil prolonged his reign for ten years, but he never had much chance of survival. In 1492 Ferdinand and Isabella, magnificently attired in Moorish costume, entered Granada and took possession of the city. Boabdil went into exile. The Christian reconquest of Spain, that has reverberated so powerfully down the centuries, was complete.

Analyzes Muslim countries' contemporary problems, particularly violence, authoritarianism, and underdevelopment, comparing their historical levels of development with Western Europe.

In The Last Ta'ifa, Anthony H. Minnema shows how the Banu Hud, an Arab dynasty from Zaragoza, created and recreated their vision of an autonomous city-state (ta'ifa) in ways that reveal changes to legitimating strategies in al-Andalus and across the Mediterranean. In 1110, the Banu Hud lost control of their emirate in the north of Iberia and entered exile, ending their century-long rule. But far from accepting their fate, the dynasty adapted by serving Christian kings, nurturing rebellions, and carving out a new state in Murcia to recover, maintain, and grow their power. By tracing the Banu Hud across chronicles, charters, and coinage, Minnema shows how dynastic leaders borrowed their rivals' claims and symbols and engaged in similar types of military campaigns and complex alliances in an effort to cultivate authority. Drawing on Arabic, Latin, and vernacular sources, The Last Ta'ifa uses the history of the Banu Hud to connect the pursuit of legitimacy in al-Andalus to the politics of other emerging kingdoms and emirates. The actions of Hudid leaders, Minnema shows, echoed across the region as other kings, rebels, and adventurers employed parallel methods to gain power and resist the forces of centralization, highlighting the constructed nature of legitimacy in al-Andalus and the Mediterranean.

A magisterial, myth-dispelling history of Islamic Spain spanning the millennium between the founding of Islam in the seventh century and the final expulsion of Spain's Muslims in the seventeenth In Kingdoms of Faith, award-winning historian Brian A. Catlos rewrites the history of Islamic Spain from the ground up, evoking the cultural splendor of al-Andalus, while offering an authoritative new interpretation of the forces that shaped it. Prior accounts have portrayed Islamic Spain as a paradise of enlightened tolerance or the site where civilizations clashed. Catlos taps a wide array of primary sources to paint a more complex portrait, showing how Muslims, Christians, and Jews together built a sophisticated civilization that transformed the Western world, even as they waged relentless war against each other and their coreligionists. Religion was often the language of conflict, but seldom its cause -- a lesson we would do well to learn in our own time.

How widespread was authorship among rulers in the premodern Islamic world? The writings of different types of rulers in different regions and periods are analyzed in this book, from the early centuries in the central lands of Islam to 19th century Sudan. The composition of poetry appears as the most fertile area for authorship among rulers. Prose writings show a wide variety, from astrology to bookmaking, from autobiography to creeds. Some of the rulers made claims to special knowledge, but in all cases authorship played a special role in the construction of the rulers' authority and legitimacy. Contributors: Ahmed Ibrahim Abushouk, Sean W. Anthony, María Luisa Ávila†, Teresa Bernheimer, Philip Bockholt, Sonja Brentjes, Christiane Czygan, David Durand-Guédy, Anne-Marie Eddé, Sinem Eryılmaz, Maribel Fierro, Adam Gaiser, Angelika Hartmann†, Livnat Holtzman, Maher Jarrar, Robert S. Kramer, Christian Mauder, Matthew Melvin-Koushki, Letizia Osti, Jürgen Paul, Petra Schmidl, Tilman Seidensticker.