Spanish expansion and Ottoman intervention

The conquest of the kingdom of Granada was the product of the crusading fervour of the Castilian aristocracy and peasantry; Spanish expansion along the Maghribi coastline was the result of the religious ardour of the Castilians being harnessed to Aragon's long-standing occupation with Mediterranean politics. The idea of the crusade was deeply ingrained in Castile, and the nobility had grown to look upon fighting the Muslims as a fitting means of enrichment and proving their aristocratic qualities. After the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453 the Pope took a special interest in exciting the crusading spirit of the Castilian aristocracy, so that when in 1479 Isabella ascended the throne of Castile she and her husband Ferdinand of Aragon found the idea of the crusade ready at hand to be used for rallying their people behind them. From 1482 the war against Granada was pursued methodically, and the conquest of Granada ten years later was achieved mostly through exploiting the internecine conflicts of its ruling dynasty.

When the war was resumed the king of Granada Abul-Hasan was at loggerheads with his brother al-Zaghal, the ruler of Malaga. In the same year or early in 1483 al-Zaghal replaced his brother, who had become blind; but Abul-Hasan's son Abu ʿAbdulla (Boabdil), who had rebelled against his father in Guadix, resented his uncle's assumption of the throne and occupied Granada when al-Zaghal was away in one of the battles with Castile.