Fatima.Mernessi_The-Forgotten-Queens-of-Islam-EN

How Does One Say 'Queen' in Islam? 17
Muhammad Abu 'Abdallah, the last king of Granada. The son took
power by following the instructions of his mother in 887/1482 and
held it until the fateful date of 896/1492, that is, one year after the
fall of Granada. He was the last king of the Banu Nasr (or Banu
al-Ahmar) dynasty of Granada (629/1232 to 896/1492), and remains
forever linked in Arab memory with one of the most unforgettable
defeats of our history. It was his flight before the advancing armies
of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic monarchs, that sounded the
death knell of the Muslim empire in Spain, which had lasted more
than eight centuries. So we can understand why Arab history throws
a veil over the role played by 'A'isha al-Hurra, witness of and actor
in one of the most traumatizing periods in the history of Islam.
The emergence of 'A'isha al-Hurra on the political scene began
with marital unhappiness. She resided in the sumptuous Palace of
the Alhambra, after giving her husband two sons, Muhammad (Abu
'Abdallah) and Yusuf, and after living, not without some danger,
through the series of military catastrophes that preceded the fall.
She became involved in political action when her husband, much
older than she, succumbed to the charms of Isabella, a Spanish
prisoner of war who succeeded in becoming his favourite. Isabella
had been captured by the Arabs when she was just a child during
a military expedition. As an accomplished favourite who had mastered
the art of seduction, she decided to convert to Islam, a gesture
that could not but flatter the Arab sovereign, and took the name
of Soraya. The sultan fell madly in love with her, freed her first,
and married her soon after, according to Islamic tradition. Soraya
bore him children, which strengthened her position, and in the
existing explosive political situation started to use her ascendancy
over the caliph to achieve the triumph of her own people. The elite
of Granada, sensing the danger represented by the rise of the
Spanish wife, responded to the call of the Arab wife, who had clear
aims: depose the father, who was a traitor to the Arab cause,
replace him with his son Abu 'Abdallah. 'A'isha played on the
nationalist fervour of the Andalusians, who were anxious about
their future. 21 The Palace of the Alhambra became a battlefield,
divided between two women who represented two enemy cultures,
one of which was fated to disappear. The Arab queen, al-Hurra,
who occupied the wing of the palace which contained the famous
Court of Lions, decided to take action. Fleeing the palace, she
organized attacks from the outside until the overthrow of her husband
and the accession of her son Abu 'Abdallah to the throne at
the age of 25. 22