4 GRANADA 



war with Alfonso, and to add to his troubles, 

 the Walis of Guadix, Malaga, and Comares 

 revolted against his authority. But an insurrection 

 soon after broke out in Castile, and Alfonso 

 was compelled to leave the Walis to fight their 

 own battles. Ibn Al Ahmar, an old man of eighty 

 years, wearily girded on his armour for another 

 of the campaigns he had learned to hate. But 

 his time for rest had come at last. A few miles 

 beyond the gates of his capital, his charger threw 

 him, as he rode at the head of his army. He 

 breathed his last at sundown, by the roadside, 

 surrounded by his weeping warriors. It was a 

 dark night for Granada. 



Al Ahmar's son, under the style of Mohammed 

 II., succeeded him at the age of thirty-eight years, 

 on January 21, 1273. Arabic historians have 

 lavished their encomiums upon him, as indeed 

 upon most of his dynasty. He is described as 

 a warrior and a statesman, as a man of letters 

 and a poet of considerable ability. During his 

 reign of twenty-nine years, he was almost con- 

 tinuously at war. Soon after his accession 

 he crushed the rebel Walis at Antequera, and then 

 paid a visit to Alfonso X. at Seville, with a view 

 to detaching the Castilian king from his alliance 

 with the defeated insurgents. In this he was 

 successful. Queen Violante, however, at the 

 conclusion of his visit, asked of him a boon, 



