Muhammad VI of Granada

[1] Through a combination of diplomatic and military manoeuvres, the emirate succeeded in maintaining its independence, despite being located between two larger neighbours: the Christian Crown of Castile to the north and the Muslim Marinid Sultanate in Morocco.

The name of the princess he married was unknown, but she was a full-blooded sister of Ismail II and a half-sister of Muhammad V, who was born of a different mother.

[7] Muhammad was nicknamed el Bermejo ("The Red One")—apparently referring to his reddish hair and beard, originally by the Christians, but the name is also attested in Muslim sources.

[6] During the first reign of Muhammad V, el Bermejo was involved in a conspiracy that eventually deposed the Sultan in favour of Ismail II.

The other key participant of this conspiracy was Maryam, Ismail's ambitious mother, who had control of a substantial amount of wealth after the death of Yusuf I.

With Maryam's financial backing, el Bermejo led about 100 men to carry out a coup on 23 August 1359, a date predicted as auspicious by an astrologer.

Under cover of the night during the holy month of Ramadan, they scaled the walls of the Alhambra—the fortified palace compound of the Nasrids—taking advantage of a gap that was left unrepaired, and overwhelmed the guards.

They killed Muhammad V's chief minister, the hajib Abu Nu'aym Ridwan, in front of his family, demolished his house, and took his rich possessions.

[11] Muhammad V left for exile in North Africa after unsuccessfully trying to extend his control beyond Guadix and to secure help from his ally Peter I of Castile.

[13][11] Ismail was forced to surrender and offered to live in seclusion, but el Bermejo took him, barefooted and bareheaded, to a dungeon for criminals (tabaq), where he was executed.

[6] Muslim chroniclers described Muhammad VI as a coarse man in dress and manners as well as lacking in oratory skills.

He reportedly hunted with his dogs, appeared in public bareheaded and with rolled up sleeves, and he had a tic that moved his head right and left uncontrollably.

The six-year treaty was ratified in 16 February 1361 and included terms providing the freedom of emigrations for Aragon's Muslim subjects (mudéjares), similar to those secured by Ismail I in 1321, but soon this provision was rendered ineffective due to various unofficial obstacles implemented by Peter IV.

He pressured Abu Salim to allow Muhammad V to return to Granada by threatening to attack Marinid possessions on the Iberian Peninsula.

[6] They advanced towards the Vega of Granada, and appeared to have won several skirmishes in Pinos Puente, but despite the presence of Muhammad V, the Granadan royal army did not defect as they had hoped.

In a gesture of goodwill, he returned the most important of them, Diego García de Padilla, the Master of the Order of Calatrava and the brother of the royal mistress María, along with other captured knights and gifts to Castile, but this failed to appease Peter.

[6] Peter took numerous fortresses, including Cesna, Sagra (later retaken by Granada's forces), Benamejí, El Burgo, Ardales, Cañete, Turón, and Cuevas del Becerro.

Later, however, the Castilian king acted against his guests: he arrested them after a feast that he organized, imprisoned the entire retinue in Seville's shipyard, and seized their riches.

[6][26] For a time before they were buried, the Sultan hanged them near the section of the wall Muhammad VI had scaled to enter the Alhambra in the 1359 coup.