[3] In the late thirteen and early fourteenth centuries, Castile, the Marinids of Morocco and the Nasrids of Granada fought for the control of the Strait of Gibraltar.
This "battle" (Spanish: la Cuestión del Estrecho) is a major chapter in the history of the Christian reconquest of Spain.
With the implosion of the Almohad Caliphate and the Reconquista onslaught of the 1220–40s, the north shore of the Strait of Gibraltar came under the jurisdiction of the Nasrid Emirate of Granada, a reduced successor state to al-Andalus.
After the capture of the city, it was expected that Sancho would lay siege to Algeciras (it did not eventually happen) in order to sever the most direct links of the Marinids with the Iberian peninsula.
[8] The Castilian account of the First Siege of Gibraltar indicates that it was only a small place, with "one thousand one hundred and twenty-five Moors" within at the time of its fall.
[12] The population of Spanish Christians was reduced to eating their own shoes and belts before the town's governor, Vasco Pérez de Meira, surrendered on 17 June 1333.
Following the restoration of peace, Abu al-Hasan ordered a refortification of Gibraltar "with strong walls as a halo surrounds the crescent moon".
[11] Many details of the rebuilt city are known due to the work of Abu al-Hasan's biographer, Ibn Marzuq, whose Musnad (written around 1370–1) describes the reconstruction of Gibraltar.
The city was expanded, and a new defensive wall was built to cover the western and southern flanks, with towers and connecting passages added to strengthen them.