Banu'l-Ahmar

Granada

When the Almohad Caliph al-Ma'mun, enthroned in Seville in AH 624 / AD 1227, returned to Morocco, a member of the vizier Banu al-Ahmar family, Muhammad bin Yusuf bin Nasr, proclaimed himself king (627 / 1230) founding the Nasrid dynasty, which ruled Granada until 897 / 1492.
He stayed in power by paying an annual tribute to the king of Castile and assisted passively in the breathtaking progress of the Christian Reconquista, with the surrender of Córdoba (633 / 1236), Jaen and Arjona (643 / 1246), and Seville (645 / 1248).
Thanks to their plotting and dealing and the occasional military support of the Marinids, the Nasrids experienced a veritable golden age, the most stunning examples of which being the Alhambra and the Generalife. This splendour lasted until 886 / 1482 when Boabdil (Abu 'Abdallah) overthrew his father but failed to contain the Reconquista. Malaga fell in 892 / 1487; Baeza and Almeria in 894 / 1489, among other places. He ended up capitulating, and the Catholic kings entered Granada on 2 January 1492, closing the book on the epic that was 'al-Andalus'.
The existence of al-Andalus as a Muslim political entity lasted nearly 800 years, but the Reconquista, which began in 722 (Battle of Pelayo / Covadonga) lasted nearly 900, continuing to 1610 with successive waves of expulsions of 'moriscos'.
However, although al-Andalus ceased to exist as a political entity, its cultural and artistic influence lived on in Spain, where Mudejar art conditioned architectural thought until the 18th century, and in Morocco, where Hispano-Moorish architecture and craftsmanship successfully combined Hispano-Visigothic art with traits of the Muslim West and the Berbers, the latter having survived through the Sharif dynasties.