The story of this place
Begun around 1238 by Muhammad I, founder of the Nasrid dynasty, the Alhambra grew over two centuries into the most refined Islamic palace in Europe, its Court of the Lions and honeycombed muqarnas ceilings dripping with poetry carved into stucco. On 2 January 1492 Boabdil, the last Nasrid emir, handed the keys to Ferdinand and Isabella, ending nearly 800 years of Muslim rule in Iberia. Legend says he wept at a mountain pass—'the Moor's last sigh'—while his mother scolded him for crying like a woman over what he could not defend as a man. Washington Irving lived among its ruins in 1829 and rescued its fame.