In the winter of 1349, the highest court official of the Nasrid Dynasty, based within Granada’s Alhambra Palace delivered the eulogy for a dynasty member who had recently died. Not one of the notable rulers, the Sultans, or even a prince. Rather, a woman, a queen, a Sultana. She would become my inspiration for the first two novels of a series set in medieval Moorish Spain, Sultana and Sultana’s Legacy.
“…She was Fatima, daughter of Muhammad II. She was the cream of the kingdom, the central pearl of the dynasty, the pride of the harem women, the height of honor and respect, the link that gave the people the protection of the kings and her life was a reminder of the legacy of the royal family.”
How had Fatima achieved such accolades, when no other royal women of the Moorish courts earned the distinction?
Fatima descended from the royal line established by her grandfather in 1237 at Granada, after the city’s capture from its previous Muslim overlords. At the time of her death she was in her nineties, so her birth occurred between 1250 and 1259. Long before her grandfather has seized power in Moorish Spain, he had strengthened relations with his primary allies by marrying his female descendants to their sons. The first signal of fractured ties came with Fatima’s marriage, not to one of the Sultan’s supporters, but the child of his murdered brother.
Fatima’s nuptials would trigger a civil war, which lasted almost twenty years, pitting former friends with lifelong blood ties between them against each other. The union occurred in 1266 when Fatima could have been as old as sixteen or as young as seven. I tended to believe in the earlier age as the couple’s eldest child did not arrive until 1279. In the intervening years, her grandfather had died, and her father reigned. Through him, Fatima had one full-blood brother, and at least four sisters and two brothers of half-blood, whom the new Sultan’s favored concubine had birthed. Soon after she became a mother, Fatima’s husband ruled as governor of his birthplace at Malaga on the southern coast of the peninsula. The small family moved there, where Fatima had at least one more son and three other unidentified children. The princess whose life I fictionalized in Sultana might not have anticipated the great destiny awaiting her, as it unfolded in the pages of Sultana’s Legacy.
The first dramatic shift occurred with the sudden death of her father in 1302, a victim of Fatima’s murderous full-blood brother. I’ve guessed at how she might have felt about the incident, but the history is clear that her husband gave the newest Sultan his full support. Seven years later, a coup occurred and catapulted Fatima’s younger half-brother to the throne. The deadly inclination of the Nasrid princes to remove legitimate Sultans would continue, deeply affecting Fatima’s life.
In the interim, periodic wars with the kingdoms in Castile, Aragón, and Portugal continued, causing a continual realignment of the borders between Christian and Muslim Spain. The northern Moroccan kingdom also intervened in Granada’s politics. Both of Fatima’s brothers had been weak, ineffectual rulers dominated by their court ministers and mired in cross-border conflicts. If either man had sired heirs, those princes never succeeded their fathers. The next Sultan would prove much stronger than his predecessors, although no one might have anticipated his rise.
He was Fatima’s eldest son. In 1314, he besieged his uncle just outside the capital and won. But not before he had imprisoned and exiled his own father, after rumors of treason. How did Fatima feel about these occurrences? While I’ve portrayed her reaction in the novel, the historical record holds no information. Despite any ill possible feelings she might have borne, after her husband died six years later, Fatima returned to her birthplace at Granada. She nurtured her grandchildren, at least four princes (the eldest boys having been born in 1316 and 1318 respectively) and two princesses, born of three mothers. But the murder of her eldest son in 1326 by three grandsons of his paternal uncle must have shattered Fatima’s idyllic happiness. As her eldest grandson assumed the throne, I speculated about her hopes for the future, yet they would not find fulfillment for he died violently too at the age of eighteen. His younger brother succeeded him in 1333, a child whose sole authority permitted him to select the food he wanted to eat at mealtimes. Otherwise, Fatima dominated every aspect of his life.
The progeny, sister, and mother of Sultans, Fatima became a matriarch of her own royal line. All future Nasrid Sultans until the end of the dynasty descended from her. She gained her greatest access to power with the ascension of her eldest grandchildren. Through them, her influence extended beyond the traditional roles expected of women in Moorish harems. But she had paid dearly for the achievement. The murders of her father, eldest son, and eldest grandson. She also showed a streak of the Nasrid cruelty. It had become the custom of the highest court official to report the day’s events within the throne room and council chamber to Fatima. At one time, she despaired over the chief minister’s growing control in the young Sultan’s life. So, in 1329 after he had offered his summary within the confines of Fatima’s house, two of her servants seized and stabbed him to death.
As one of my sources described her, “Of all the descendants of Muhammad II, Fatima was the most prominent, not only for being the mother of his grandson Sultan Ismail,but also for her unusual participation in Nasrid politics for generations of rulers. It is thereforepossible to say that she was one of the most significant women with historical repercussions for the entire dynasty.” How could I not have written about such a remarkable figure?
Fatima died at dawn on February 26, 1349. In 1892 during an excavation of the long-emptied royal graves, archaeologists identified thirty tombs. Eight distinctly belonged to children. One once held the remains of a woman; could this have been the location of Fatima’s grave?
The possible triumphs and heartbreaks of Fatima’slife became fictionalized in the first two novels of my Moorish Spain series, Sultana and Sultana’s Legacy, available now.
Lisa Yarde, April 16, 2016
