Muhammad XII

Muhammad XII appears in the novel through the story of Granada’s surrender: a ruler who gives up the Alhambra Palace and leaves his kingdom in grief. Catalina’s retelling makes his departure an intimate image of conquest and loss, one that she returns to in conversation and song.

The Surrender of the Alhambra Palace

Catalina recounts that Muhammad XII came out of the Alhambra Palace, the red fortress said never to fall, carrying its keys on a silk cushion. He bowed and handed them to her parents, Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, then rode away. The scene places the transfer of power in a single ceremonial gesture: the keys pass to the conquerors, while the former ruler departs from the place they now possess.

A Defeated Ruler in Memory

The story does not end with the surrender. At a mountain pass, Muhammad XII looks back at his kingdom and weeps; his mother rebukes him for grieving over what he could not hold as a man. Catalina presents the episode as tragic, while Arthur, Prince of Wales, responds with laughter at the severity of the maternal reproach. Their different reactions leave the story’s grief and its harsh judgment side by side.

Story, Song, and Political Loss

Muhammad XII’s fall recurs as a tale Catalina is asked to hear again: the request recalls the golden keys on a silk cushion and the ruler’s departure. She also sings of Alhama’s loss before telling Arthur of the surrender, making the account part of a remembered sequence in which Granada’s defeat is both narrated and lamented. Muhammad XII is therefore present less as an active participant in the novel’s events than as the central figure in Catalina’s account of a kingdom lost and a ruler forced to leave it.