January 2nd Granada - Día de la Toma

Every January 2nd, Granada celebrates what is known as the Día de la Toma  (Day of the Conquest). There are many flags, official ceremonies, and speeches.  Many people see this as a victory like winning a football trophy  when the Catholics beat the Muslims.   1492 was a very important year and this is when Columbus received a grant from the Catholic Monarchs for boats  to discover the Americas.  This was a very important day in history. 

In the year of writing this (2026)  there is much more interest and polemics surrounding the Día de la Toma than usual. There seems to be a tendency to be more extreme in the world of politics.  The right wing belives that  many problems are caused by foreigners and the solution is getting rid of them.  We are seeing this right now with ICE in the USA.   The people of the right are very triumphalist about the "Toma" and how the Catholics kicked the Muslim's ass.  On the one hand the left is much more guarded and would rather replace the celebration with something less  triumphalist. 

I am a foreign immigrant  living in Spain. It makes me nervous because like the Jews in Germany we could get the blame for all bad things that happen in the country and I could end my days on a boat to nowhere or worse in a gas chamber.  I just hope that things calm down a bit. 

On social media you see many people extolling the glorious history of Spain and how proud they are of the "Toma".  However, if you look into the history you will find that although this history was very important most people would not be proud of what happened. 

This is a summary of what happened. 

Granada did not fall by storm. It was surrendered through a pact signed on November 25, 1491, between Boabdil and the Catholic Monarchs. The Capitulations of Granada guaranteed the Muslim population religious freedom, respect for their laws, their property, and their customs. It was not a symbolic concession: it was a solemn commitment.

That commitment was short-lived.
From 1499 onward, with the intervention of Cardinal Cisneros, forced conversions, arrests, and the burning of books in Arabic (except for medical texts) began. In 1501, the forced conversion of Granada's Muslims was decreed, without even allowing them the exile that had been offered to the Jews in 1492. 

Granada's Muslims are often presented as Arabs or Berbers, as if they were foreigners. However, the population of the Kingdom of Granada was predominantly Muladi, descendants of the Hispano-Roman and Visigothic population that adopted Islam over the centuries. They were not invaders: they were the native population.

Denying this reality facilitated everything that followed: persecution, cultural repression, and, finally, expulsion. Under Philip II, the Arabic language and traditional customs were prohibited. In 1568, the Alpujarras Rebellion broke out, not out of fanaticism, but because of the repeated violation of a signed and sworn treaty. After their defeat, the Granadan Moriscos were deported and, in 1609, definitively expelled from Spain.

More reading:

What actually  happened on the 2nd Juanuary 1492. Click here 

The taking of Granada was one of the final steps of the "reconquista" Click here for more info 

History of the expusions after the reconquista. Click here 

The day that Granada was handed over to the Christians Click Here

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Last Modified on January 5th, 2026
Created on January 3rd, 2026
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