Word: boabdill
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...Philippines on one of his favorite quotes, "Don't cry like a woman over the kingdom that you lost because you did not defend it like a man," which he mistakenly attributed to Cervantes [WORLD, Dec. 16]. The source of that quote was actually Sultana Ayelsha, mother of Boabdil (Abu-Abdallah), the last king of Granada. After surrendering the city to Ferdinand and Isabella in January 1492, Boabdil left Granada. On his way out, he stopped at a mountaintop to look for the last time at the beautiful city he had lost, and wept. His mother reproved...
Like their geological counterparts, the fault lines of history seem to converge on the countries of the Mediterranean basin. It was in the Spanish city of Granada that King Boabdil, the last Moorish monarch of Muslim al-Andalus, made his final stand against the Christian forces of the reconquista before fleeing to North Africa. Here, too, are buried Ferdinand of Aragon and his queen, Isabella of Castile, who ousted Boabdil in 1492 and later reneged on a promise to allow religious tolerance in their newly conquered kingdom. These days Ferdinand and Isabella must be spinning in their shared mausoleum...
Concentrating on Spain, Anti-Historian Philip Guedalla reverses history by awarding Boabdil, the Moorish King of Granada, the victory in his battle with Ferdinand and Isabella at Lanjaron in 1491. Actually, Ferdinand and Isabella won, expelled the Moors, and, for good measure, drove away Spain's Jews under the threat of forced conversion. Spain thus was depleted of most of its learning, most of its artisans and half of its cultural inheritance...
...Spain. Such history tinkering, though, can go on forever. Suppose Don John and Mary had established a Catholic England. Would cross-Channel Calvinism have undermined it eventually? Suppose Luther had been unable to find a nail in Wittenberg for all those theses. Or better, suppose Guedalla's Boabdil had crossed the Pyrenees and swept through France, creating a Moorish Europe. Might there be mosques in Manchester today...
...author whose genius never came to flower, found himself not once but twice. The first time was in Granada, when he was recovering from a nervous breakdown brought on by an unsuccessful love-affair. Just for something to do, he one day inquired for himself at the expensive Hotel Boabdil, thinking he would thus get a sight of the hotel register, see who was there. To his dismay the porter said the gentleman was in and was expecting him, led Tristram to a room. An elderly stranger rose to greet him: it was Tristram himself, but middleaged. He fainted, came...