Commander Musa ibn Abi Ghassan and his role in the Sultanate of Granada

Abstract

Abstract:

The Spanish besieged the city of Granada on 12 Jumada al-Thani 896 AH/ 23 April 1491 AD, which lasted for seven months. The Granadans tried to defend the city but to no avail. Abu Abdullah al-Saghir decided to surrender the city to the Spanish. Most of the leaders agreed with Abu Abdullah al-Saghir’s opinion, except for Musa ibn Abi Ghassan, who refused and said his famous saying: “It is better for me to be counted among those who died defending Granada than to be counted among those who witnessed its surrender”, Following the fall of the city of Granada in 879 AH - 1492 AD and the surrender of the city to the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand II and Isabella I, Muslims were subjected to all kinds of torture and persecution, as the Spanish persecuted Muslims in various ways and means, using a policy of violence, force and threats to force them to convert to Christianity. Years of persecution and conversion to Christianity followed one after the other for Muslims by the Inquisition, The Spanish rulers issued several decrees to eradicate Arab and Islamic culture. This is where a number of leaders emerged who played a role in defending the afflicted people. Among these was Musa ibn Abi al-Ghassan, who played a key role in defending the city of Granada and preferred death on the battlefield to surrendering the city to the Spanish. He defended Granada, refusing to surrender the city to the Spanish. The research was divided into an introduction, four sections, a conclusion, and the most important results. In the first section, I studied the life of the leader Musa bin Abi Ghassan, his name, and his lineage. In the second section, I studied the political conditions in the Sultanate of Granada during the reign of the Banu al-Ahmar sultans. In the third section, I studied the role of the leader Musa bin Abi Ghassan in the siege of the Sultanate of Granada. In the fourth section, I studied Musa bin Abi Ghassan’s departure from the city of Granada and his rejection of the peace treaty, and what followed it in terms of the fall of Granada. I concluded the research with the most important results and listed the sources and references.