The Nasrid kingdom of Granada was formed during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as a province, a kuraof the Almohad caliphate, managing to remain the last Islamic stronghold of al-Andalus from its founding year, 1232, by Sultan Muhammad I (Carrasco, 2009: 397), until the year of the end of the Peninsular Reconquest by of the Catholic Monarchs, in 1492. This is the history of the Nasrid sultanas.
Like all political structures, whether old or current, it was followed by moments of crisis, but also of great political, economic and cultural excellence; and, despite what is popularly believed, many of those times were given thanks to the intervention of our protagonists, who on so many occasions had to act hidden in the harem.
In another of our articles we talked about the power of the caliphate in the figure of Abderramán III.
power in the kingdom
In the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada, the concept of political and military power, as in the rest of the Muslim world, was fundamentally expressed in the caliph and imam, figures referring to the representatives of the Prophet, whose mission was divine, delegated by Allah through the shariathe divine law. Any person who met strict criteria, governed by the principle of exclusion, could aspire to these titles: they had to be Arab and male. Therefore, that a woman could represent Allah as a descendant of Muhammad was considered blasphemy, despite the fact that to acquire these titles it was necessary to refer to the genealogy created by the daughter of the Prophet, Fātima, which shows us the importance of ancestry. female from the very origins of Islam (Mernissi, 2014: 44).
Women could only acquire the title of sultana or malikas (queens), being more frequent to use the second name, because “the ability of women to direct something ‘minor’ is discussed, it goes without saying that their candidacy to direct the ‘major’ would not even be taken into account” (Mernissi, 2014 : 62). Thus, locally they could establish their authority, but they needed a certificate of legitimacy, that is, the caliphal blessing, which was impossible to obtain due to the orthodox denial of its spiritual validity (seen as a historical violation), which left them at the mercy of other claimants to the throne (Mernissi, 2014: 50-56). In other words, no caliph or emir validated them politically based on strict religious and moral values, which caused them to appear weak before other political opponents who could win social and military support more quickly.
Legal capacity of women
Despite the aforementioned, it should be noted that legally, women could act freely, so they could own and manage their properties “by and for themselves” under male guardianship. This aspect was governed by Maliki law (one of the schools of Islamic law), specifically by the trunk law, according to which women could inherit with an inbred purposethat is to say, that family assets remain within the dynastic nucleus.
This legal capacity was due to the socio-political context in which the kingdom of Granada was submerged from its beginnings: firstly, was subject to the Reconquest, which caused the male population to be reduced and, secondly, the territory was practically devastated; thus, women, of different ethnic origin, were in the majority and necessary to preserve the territory jurisdictionally (Boloix, 2013: 38-39).
Secondly, Legally, the feminine sphere of this kingdom was divided according to the freedom of said women.that is to say, free and slaves, whose ethnic, social and religious origin was varied, which was reflected in the harems of the various reigns that followed one another during the two centuries.
This freedom, or the lack of it, was not really an impediment to hold socio-political power within the Nasrid kingdom of Granada, since throughout its historiography we see how many slaves became concubines of the emirs on multiple occasions. , and if they had sons or daughters with them, they became concubines-mothers and, therefore, managed not only to climb socially, but also to acquire their freedom. Likewise, it should be noted that the union of an emir with one of these slaves was not socially disapproved due to because the Arab people considered themselves descendants of Agar, the slave-concubine of Abraham or Ismael, from whose union Muhammad himself descended (Boloix, 2013: 179).
In the case of free women from the Nasrid dynasty itself, they departed from the Islamic canons in an unusual way: normally when it came to getting married, Islamic women came from a socially inferior lineage, but Nasrid women on multiple occasions they were the transmitters of the nobility of their own lineage; that is, throughout the history of this Muslim stronghold there were numerous emirs who came to power thanks to their female and not male ancestry (Boloix, 2013: 187-190).
Daily reality of the sultanas
The reality of these exceptional women was subject to the permissiveness of Islamic law that the emir could have a maximum of four legal wives, Arab and Muslim, and countless concubines, Arabized and Islamized; Thus, the harem was “a mixed and diverse environment, in the sense of integrating women of different ethnic origins, (…), religious and cultural” (Boloix, 2013: 165).
Only the emir and permitted male relatives had access to the female part of the Alhambra, divided from the male, since female functions were carried out in this harem: the search for rest and pleasure, “as well as as a fundamental vehicle for the perpetuation of the lineage” (Boloix, 2013: 167). Thus, the fundamental value was modestyfor which they should always be veiled, hidden from the view of others as a sign of respectability.
Although the marriages of the emirs should preferably be with legitimate women, especially with paternal cousins for the aforementioned endogamous purpose), “the rest of the unions established by these sovereigns were with concubines, women who, although external to the lineage, did not imply the establishment of exogamous links with other groups, since they themselves had been torn from their familiar environments to be imported and sold” (Boloix, 2013: 172).
The children born to these concubines were as legitimate as those born to a Nasrid wife. and, therefore, they had inheritance rights, which caused these women to become involved not only in the family environment, but politically, managing on several occasions to interpose their children before those born of a legitimate union from the dynastic point of view. . Thus, legitimate wives were the strongest opponents of concubinage because they were the greatest victims of this situation along with the inheritance rights of their children, which was legally supported by certain jurists.
Examples of highlighting sultanas
Nasrid women never became “true titular queens” for the reasons stated above, but they stood out for the importance that their blood had.
Perhaps the greatest exponent in this sense was Fātima (659-749/1260-1349), “sister, daughter and granddaughter of kings”: her grandfather was Muhammad I, the first emir of the Nasrid kingdom, her father Muhammad II and his brothers, the sultans Muhammad III and Nasr (Boloix, 2015: 54). Thus, Fātima participated in the political life of several generations; her marriage to the Malagan arráez or caudillo Abū Sa’īd Faray consolidated his fidelity towards the new emir, Muhammad III, and from this marriage was born the one who would be another emir, Ismāil I, who appealed to the royal blood of his mother to usurping the throne as it was, which is why this new reigning branch should have been known as “the Fātima dynasty” (Boloix, 2013: 65-66).
If we focus on the life of Fatima, There are some highly noteworthy aspects.. Thanks to the importance given by his father, Muhammad II “the Wise” (al-Faqīd) to culture (Carrasco, Martos and Souto, 2009: 402), Fātima was educated along with her siblings in an exceptional way; so much so, that the sultana stood out as a writer of the barnamay (biobibliographical repertoires), which ensured her a role as a wise woman in Andalusian history (Boloix, 2013: 61).
From this moment, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, despite the internal and external conflictive situation, much more information about the women of this kingdom began to be known, including the concubines-wives-mothers who married various emirs (Boloix, 2013 : 38-39).
In this context, Fātima stood as an intermediary al-hurrahor “the Noble”, daughter of Muhammad V, who managed to prevent dynastic tensions between her brother, the emir Muhammad IX “the Lefty”, and his son, the future Yūsuf V “the Lame”, thanks to the good relationship between the Noble and her brother. In addition, this influence is present in the documentation, since in 1444 María de Castilla, queen consort of King Alfonso V of Aragón, addressed her directly by way of congratulations for said dynastic intervention.
On the other hand, it is worth noting the duality of the double marriage of Muhammad IX, who married his paternal cousin, Umm al-Fath, and a slave, Zahr al-Riyād. Umm al-Fath was the daughter, wife and sister of kings and, according to sources, she had a great influence on the king “because of her sincere harmony”, so he did not decide matters without her (Boloix, 2013: 93), which shows its political relevance. At the same time, this pre-eminence was also held by Zahr al- Riyād since, after her husband’s loss of power caused by the usurpations of power by three other claimants to the throne, he made the decision to assassinate the warden ‘Ali al-Amin, vizier of one of those usurpers; this allowed Muhammad IX to return to the throne (Boloix, 2013: 95-97). In addition, she stands out because she sent her several letters from the Crown of Aragon; thus, “the great participation of this woman in spheres so exclusive to men is surprising” (Boloix, 2013: 98).
Secondly, this situation is also observable in the marriages of Muley Hacén, father of the last emir of Granada, Boabdil “el Chico”; he married, firstly, ‘Ā’iša, his first cousin, and secondly, Soraya, a Christian captive.
Although the sources state that ‘Ā’iša was a “woman of opinion, (…) and courage” (Boloix, 2013: 107), her husband showed greater favoritism towards his concubine and their son, letting her influence him in such a way that it generated numerous conflicts that caused different sectors of society to no longer be obedient to him, and he managed to that their marriage be legalized when he bribed various judges (Boloix, 2013: 124). The conflict reached such a point that Soraya, in order to put her son Sa’d before her in succession, is suspected of intervening in the death of ‘Ā’iša’s son, Yūsuf. Furthermore, when the emir died, Soraya remained in the Alhambra as sultana consort, while ‘Ā’iša watched over to save the life of…