Nasr (1 November 1287 – 16 November 1322), full name Abu al-Juyush Nasr ibn Muhammad (), was the fourth Nasrid ruler of the Emirate of Granada from 14 March 1309 until his abdication on 8 February 1314. He was the son of Muhammad II al-Faqih and Shams al-Duha. He ascended the throne after his brother Muhammad III was dethroned in a palace revolution. At the time of his accession, Granada faced a three-front war against Castile, Aragon and the Marinid Sultanate, triggered by his predecessor's foreign policy. He made peace with the Marinids in September 1309, ceding to them the African port of Ceuta, which had already been captured, as well as Algeciras and Ronda in Europe. Granada lost Gibraltar to a Castilian siege in September, but successfully defended Algeciras until it was given to the Marinids, who continued its defense until the siege was abandoned in January 1310. James II of Aragon sued for peace after Granadan defenders defeated the Aragonese siege of Almería in December 1309, withdrawing his forces and leaving the Emirate's territories by January. In the ensuing treaty, Nasr agreed to pay tributes and indemnities to Ferdinand IV of Castile and yield some border towns in exchange for seven years of peace.
Despite achieving peace with relatively minimal losses, Nasr was unpopular at court as he was suspected of being pro-Christian and accused of devoting so much time to astronomy that he neglected his duties as ruler. A rebellion started by his brother-in-law Abu Said Faraj in 1311 was initially repulsed, but a second campaign by Abu Said's son Ismail ended in the capture of the Alhambra palace and Nasr's abdication on 8 February 1314 in favour of Ismail, now Ismail I. He was allowed to rule the eastern province of Guadix, styling himself "King of Guadix", and attempted to regain the throne with help from Castile. Ismail defeated the Castilian forces in the Battle of the Vega of Granada, resulting in a truce that ended their support for Nasr. Nasr died without an heir in 1322.
Birth and early life
Abu al-Juyush Nasr ibn Muhammad was born on 1 November 1287 (24 Ramadan 686 AH), likely in the Alhambra, the Nasrid fortress and royal complex in Granada. His father was Muhammad II, () the second Nasrid Sultan of Granada. His mother was Shams al-Duha, the second wife of Muhammad, a Christian and a former slave. Muhammad had other children from his first wife: the firstborn Muhammad (later Muhammad III, born 1257, ) and Fatima (–1349). Their father, known by the epithet al-Faqih ("the canon-lawyer") due to his erudition and education, encouraged intellectual activities in his children; Muhammad was intensively engaged in poetry, while Fatima studied the barnamaj—the biobibliographies of Islamic scholars—and Nasr studied astronomy. Nasr's much older brother Muhammad was named heir (wali al-ahd) during their father's reign.
Muhammad III became the sultan after the death of their father in 1302. In the last few years of his reign, the emirate was on the verge of war against a triple alliance of its larger neighbors, the Christian kingdoms of Castile and Aragon on the Iberian peninsula and the Marinid Sultanate in North Africa. The potentially disastrous war, as well as the extravagance of the vizier (chief minister) Ibn al-Hakim, sparked anger among the people of Granada. On 14 March 1309 (Eid ul-Fitr, 1 Shawwal 708 AH), a palace revolution instigated by a group of Granadan nobles including the vizier's rival, Atiq ibn al-Mawl, forced Muhammad III to abdicate in favor of Nasr. Muhammad III retired to an estate in Almuñécar, while Ibn al-Hakim was killed by Ibn al-Mawl during the turmoil and his corpse was defiled by a mob. Nasr became the new sultan and appointed Ibn al-Mawl—the main instigator of the coup and a member of an influential family in Granada—as his vizier.
War against the triple alliance Granada was in a very dangerous situation when Nasr took power, without allies and with three larger enemies preparing for war against it. One of the main points of contention was Granada's occupation of Ceuta, a port on the North African coast of the Strait of Gibraltar which had rebelled against the Marinids in 1304 and was conquered by Granada in 1306 during Muhammad III's reign. The Granadan capture of Ceuta, in addition to its control of Algeciras and Gibraltar, other ports in the Strait, as well as Málaga and Almería further east, had given it strong control of both sides of the Strait, alienating not only the Marinids but also Castile and Aragon.
The Marinids commenced an attack against Ceuta on 12 May 1309 and secured a formal alliance with Aragon in early July. Aragon was to send galleys and knights to help the Marinids take Ceuta in exchange for deliveries of wheat and barley to Aragon, commercial benefits for Catalan traders in Morocco and agreement for both parties to not make a separate peace. The agreement also stipulated that, once captured, the territory would be handed back to the Marinids but the port would first be sacked and all movable goods would be given to Aragon. However, on 20 July 1309, the people of Ceuta overthrew their Nasrid rulers and allowed the Marinids to enter the city without Aragonese help. The return of Ceuta softened the Marinid stance against Granada and the two Muslim states then entered into negotiations. Nasr had already sent his envoys to the Marinid court at Fez since April and, by late September 1309, a peace agreement was reached. In addition to accepting Marinid rule over Ceuta, Nasr had to yield Algeciras and Ronda—both in Europe—and their surrounding territories. Thus, the Marinids once again had outposts on Granada's traditional territories on the southern Iberian peninsula, after their last withdrawal in 1294. No longer needing help from Aragon, the Marinids discarded the alliance between them and did not send the booty from Ceuta as promised; soon King James II of Aragon wrote to his Castilian counterpart Ferdinand IV about the Marinid Sultan Abu al-Rabi Sulayman, "It seems to us, King, that from now on we can regard that king as an enemy".
Meanwhile, at the end of July 1309 the Christian forces, including not only the forces of Castile and Aragon but also those of Portugal, who joined the alliance on 3 July 1309, laid siege to Algeciras, a port in the western end of the Emirate, led by Ferdinand IV. Soon, a detachment of this force also besieged nearby Gibraltar. Two siege engines attacked the walls of Gibraltar while Aragonese ships blockaded its port. The city surrendered on 12 September 1309, just before Nasr's peace with the Marinids. The city's mosque was converted into a church, and 1,125 of its inhabitants left for North Africa rather than live under Christian rule. Although this port was less important than Algeciras, its conquest was still significant as it gave Castile a strategic foothold on the Straits of Gibraltar. It would return to Muslim hands in 1333, and again to Castile in 1464, in a long struggle for the ports on the strait. The siege of Algeciras remained underway, and as per the Granada–Marinid peace settlement, the city changed hands to the Marinids, for whom the garrison now fought. The Marinids sent troops and supplies to reinforce the city, while Nasr redirected his attention to the eastern front. In either late October or November, a contingent of 500 Castilian knights led by the king's uncle Infante John and the king's cousin Juan Manuel left the siege of Algeciras, demoralizing the rest of the besiegers and making them vulnerable to a counterattack. Ferdinand IV was still determined to continue the siege, vowing that he preferred death in battle to the dishonour of withdrawing from Algeciras.
On the eastern front, Aragonese troops besieged Almería with some support from Castile. The city managed to stockpile supplies and improve its defenses due to the late arrival of the Aragonese forces, led by James II, by sea in mid-August 1309. A series of assaults against the city failed, and Nasr sent troops under Uthman ibn Abi al-Ula to relieve it. They took a position in nearby Marchena after defeating an Aragonese contingent there and continuously harassed the besieger's foraging parties. By the time winter approached, the city still held out, and the weakening of the siege of Algeciras in November meant that Granada could send more reinforcements to the east. At the end of December, James II and Nasr agreed to a truce and that the Aragonese king would evacuate his troops from Granadan territories. The evacuation was completed in January 1310 after some incidents. At one point during the evacuation, Nasr wrote to James that the city's defenders had to put the remaining Aragonese troops under detention because they were pillaging Granadan territories. Nasr further noted that the Muslims gave them housing and food at their own expense "because some of them were starving" while waiting for the Aragonese ships to pick them up.
Ferdinand IV's siege of Algeciras made little progress, and by January 1310 he lifted the siege and entered into talks with Nasr. Hostilities still continued—for instance, Castilian troops under the king's brother, Infante Peter, captured Tempul (near Jerez) and the Castilian-Aragonese fleet still patrolled Granadan waters in May. A seven-year peace treaty was signed on 26 May 1310; Nasr agreed to pay an indemnity of 150,000 gold doblas and an annual tribute of 11,000 doblas to Castile. In addition to Gibraltar, Granada yielded some frontier towns, including Quesada and Bedmar, gained by Muhammad III in the previous war. Both monarchs agreed to help each other against their enemies; Nasr became a vassal of Castile and was to provide up to three months of military service per year if summoned, with his own troops and at his own expense. Markets would be opened between the two kingdoms, and Ferdinand IV was to appoint a special judge of the frontiers (juez de la frontera) to adjudicate disputes between Christians and Muslims in the border regions. No historical records of a Granada-Aragon treaty are found, but it is known that Nasr agreed to pay James II 65,000 doblas in indemnity, 30,000 of which was to be given by Ferdinand IV.
The Marinid presence on the Iberian Peninsula proved to be short-lived. Abu al-Rabi died in November 1310 and was succeeded by Abu Said Uthman II, who wanted to further expand his Iberian territories. He sent a fleet across the strait, but it was defeated by Castile off Algeciras on 25 July 1311. He decided to disengage and returned his Iberian holdings, including Algeciras and Ronda, to Nasr.
Rebellion and downfall Despite his success in ending the three-front war with minimal losses, Nasr and his vizier Ibn al-Hajj—who replaced Ibn al-Mawl when the latter fled to North Africa—soon became unpopular at court. The historian L. P. Harvey writes that the reason is not clear, and while the near-contemporary scholar Ibn Khaldun writes that this was due to their "tendencies towards violence and injustice", Harvey rejects this as a "hostile propaganda". The Arabist scholar Antonio Fernández-Puertas linked their unpopularity to Nasr's pursuit of science, which was deemed excessive by his nobles, as well as the suspected pro-Christian tendencies of the sultan and the vizier. Nasr was said to spend too much time building astrolabes and astronomical tables, neglecting his duties as monarch. The suspicion of pro-Christian sympathy stemmed from his education by his Christian mother and his good relationship with Ferdinand IV. Ibn al-Hajj was also unpopular as he was believed to have too much power over the sultan. Compounding their image problem, they both often dressed in the Castilian manner.