Today I continued reading the novel Leo Africanus (1986) by Lebanese-French author Amin Maalouf. I made an audio recording of the English translation of the most powerful excerpts I’ve read so far, the first part of a chapter titled “The Year of the Fall (897 A.H. / 4 November 1491 - 22 October 1492)”. You can find the audio recording at the bottom of this post. The recording is about 28 minutes long.
Leo Africanus is a fictionalized interpretation of the life story of al-Hasan Muhammad al-Wazzan al-Fassi, also known as Leo Africanus. A Berber Andalusian diplomat, traveler, and writer, Leo Africanus is best known for his widely-read treatise of geography on North Africa and the Nile Valley, titled Description of Africa (ca. 1526).
Leo Africanus was an Andalusian Moor (a Muslim from Granada in present-day Andalusia, Spain) whose family was displaced to to Fez, Morocco, following the Castilian conquest of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada in 1492. He traveled widely in Africa both as a diplomat and as a man of commerce. In the early 16th century, he was captured by Christian pirates in the Mediterranean and was gifted to Pope Leo X. He converted to Christianity—he was baptized Giovanni Leone—and enjoyed favor in Rome for years, where he taught Arabic and learnt Latin and Italian.
Leo’s shape-shifting identity, reflected in the many variations of his name, represents a time in Mediterranean history where mobility was prized above a fixed affiliation to an ethnicity or religion.
In “The Year of the Fall”, the narrator (al-Hasan) describes his parent’s memories of the fall of Granada. The main part of the chapter is taken up by al-Hasan’s father recounting a fateful meeting in the Alhambra palace. Ferdinand of Castile has Granada in a siege. Its residents are starving. People are hoarding food and supplies. The sultan, Muhammad XII, known to the Spanish as Boabdil, has invited the city’s Muslim dignitaries to make a decision on the city’s fate. Should they fight, or surrender to the Christians?
The passage resonates with me for various reasons. First, it gives an emotional, and excruciatingly human dimension to a historical event that was fundamental in shaping the largely mono-cultural impression that dominates our contemporary understanding of Europe. Second, it powerfully takes up the debate on the moral obligation of a leader to his/her people at a time of crisis. Do we fight for pride, or survival? Should a leader be motivated by short-term gain and comfort, or by a long-term vision of dignity and glory, even if it means the destruction of a people?
Context
On January 2, 1492, Boabdil, the last Muslim leader of Granada, relinquished his power to Isabel of Castille and Ferdinand of Aragon, the so-called Catholic Monarchs. The fall of Granada marked the end of more than 700 years of Muslim presence and control in the Iberian peninsula. The Catholic conquest of the Muslim kingdoms of Spain also marked the end of religious diversity in the region and the beginning of a brutal crackdown on the Muslim and Jewish faiths through the Spanish Inquisition. In 1492, Isabel and Ferdinand issued the Alhambra decree, which ordered the expulsion of all practicing Jews from their kingdoms. Muslim and Jewish residents were forcibly converted to Christianity. In 1609, King Philip ordered the expulsion of the Moriscos; descendants of Muslims who had converted to Christianity and remained in Iberia.
The sound quality of the recording is far from perfect, but I did what I could with my phone.