Abu l-Hasan Ali, Sultan of Granada

Abu l-Hasan Ali (Arabic: أبو الحسن علي‎‎ Abū al-Ḥasan ‘Alī; d. 1485), known as Muley Hacén in Spanish (Muley being derived from Arabic Mawlay = "My Lord"), was the twenty-first Nasrid ruler of the Emirate of Granada in Spain, from 1464 to 1482 and again from 1483 to 1485.

Life

Son of Said, Abu l-Hasan Ali became sultan in 1464, and in 1477 he refused to pay tribute to the Crown of Castile. In 1481 he ordered a invasion to the city of Zahara de la Sierra by surprise, killing and enslaving Christians unarmed. This action is taken by Isabella I of Castile as a pretext to start the war against Granada.

He was the father of Muhammad XII (also known as Boabdil), the last sultan of Granada, by his relative Aixa.

He took a captive Christian slave named Isabel de Solís and fall in love with her, renamed after her conversion as his second wife Zoraida or Soraya (Thuraya = "Star"), the daughter of Sancho Jiménez de Solís, Alcalde of La Peña de Martos, he had two sons. There are no other biographical elements on Zoraya: She could have joined him in his exile with her two sons. It seems that after the death of Abû Al-Hassan, Zoraya and her two sons re-converted to Catholicism. The sons took the name of Juan de Granada and Fernando de Granada.

Abu l-Hasan Ali appears as a character, along with Isabel de Solís, in the novel "People of the Book" by Geraldine Brooks.

External links

• "Réquiem por Granada" (1991) - DVD
• Part 17 of Washington Irving's Tales of the Alhambra — briefly mentions Mula Abul Hassan.

See also

• Mulhacén

References

Abu l-Hasan Ali, Sultan of Granada Nasrid dynasty Cadet branch of the Banu Khazraj Died: 1485
Regnal titles
Preceded by Said	Sultan of Granada 1464–1482	Succeeded by Muhammad XII
Preceded by Muhammad XII	Sultan of Granada 1483–1485	Succeeded by Muhammed XIII