The Storm

From the Arabian Conquest of Iberia in early 8th century, people who believed in Islamic religion were dominant in Iberia. The Christian states, including Castile, Leon, Aragon, and Portugal, therefore, fought the “Reconquista” (Spanish term for Reconquest), recovering territories from the Muslims, which was eventually achieved in 1492, after the destruction of the Emirate of Granada, the last Muslim state on Iberian Peninsula.

Before its downfall, Granada was struggling between the powerful Christian nations Castile and Aragon, as well as the mighty Muslim Marinid Dynasty from Northern Africa. Granada was experiencing an extremely difficult period. Eventually, a lucky natural disaster saved her.

It was a normal day in 1350.

The Castilian troops, commanded by their king Alfonso XI of Castile, were invading Granada. Alfonso XI was a thirty-nine-year-old man, with brown hair and blue eyes. He had all his armour on and carried a silver sword in his hand. He was determined to wipe out all the Muslim forces on the Iberian Peninsula and complete the Reconquista9. His strategy was to capture Gibraltar, and then other cities ruled by the Emirate of Granada would fall one by one.

Emir Yusuf I of Granada, looked at the sky and wished. “Beg no more power from Allah, just please save our nation and keep our civilians secured.”

The sky of Gibraltar suddenly turned dark. It was really strange to see such significant change of the weather in such little time. A Castilian soldier reported the scene to his King.

“That does not matter,” replied King Alfonso XI, “With our best love to Christianity and Jesus Christ, we can conquer all Muslim lands despite natural disasters.” After that, the King continued to let his army attack the city, as well as using gunpowder to bomb the city.

The sky had stayed grey for almost five hours. The sea level kept on rising up, and thunder continued giving out loud noise, just like the roaring of an old man. Lightning might be the only thing that could be seen clearly under the dark grey sky. It was hard to think who gave the light out, whether Jesus Christ, or Allah.

The situation finally turned into chaos. Wind was blowing like a naughty boy, who was blowing his bubbles, unstoppably and rudely. Water started to fall from the sky, and each of them was big as a coconut, hitting the ground and the Castilian soldiers rapidly and heavily. The soldier reported to Alfonso XI once again. But unluckily, the determined king did not want to stop the siege.

“Now, keep on our offensive and the enemies will surrender soon!” Shouted Alfonso XI.

This time, the Christ no longer blessed his believers. The storm finally took place and landed on the coast of Gibraltar. The storm seemed to be the mercenary of Kingdom of Granada, attacking the Castilian soldiers and the Castilian King. Within twenty minutes, the storm crushed the resistances of the Castilians and made the soldiers a series of corpses. Dramatically, the Muslims in Gibraltar defeated their enemies without any efforts.

King Alfonso XI wasn’t directly killed by the destructive storm but by his deteriorated health condition, Two days later, the young king died helplessly. The main cause of his sorrowful death was the Black Death that would kill millions of Europeans in the next half a decade. After the King’s death, Castilian army retreated and restored peace with Kingdom of Granada.

Yusuf I’s fully victory of defending his country was praised by his people. He, however, gave a speech to his civilians to show his respect to Allah:

“Thankfully, our great leader, Allah, blessed us and assisted us with a natural disaster against the aggressive Christians that wanted to steal our lands. Actually, we should thank our Allah, but do not thank me.”

With the assistance of the great storm of Gibraltar, the Kingdom of Granada had continued to survive on the Iberian Peninsula for over a century, until its final defeat in 1492. People who witnessed that enormous natural power realised that: human power is still very weak compared to natural power.