Muhammad XII of Granada

Abu Abdallah Muhammad XII, called Boabdil in European sources, was born around 1460 into the Nasrid dynasty that had ruled Granada since the thirteenth century. He became the emirate's 22nd sultan at a time when the Catholic Monarchs were tightening their grip on the peninsula. In 1492 he surrendered Granada, the final Muslim stronghold in Iberia, ending nearly 800 years of Islamic presence in Spain. He lived in exile until his death in 1533, a ruler who presided over not just the fall of a city but the extinction of an entire political order.