HISTORY
The municipality's history is similar to that of other towns in the Alpujarra region, which has always developed its own distinct culture due to its geographical isolation. This culture reached its zenith during the Andalusian period, when the entire Alpujarra was an important agricultural emporium specialising in silk production. Historically, Cádiar has been a meeting point for the various roads crossing the Alpujarra region. Due to its location on a flat area, it was called Albacete. The earliest written record of Cádiar is from the twelfth-century Arab geographer al-Idrisi, who noted the existence of a castle called Hisn al-Qadir. During the Muslim era, the town had a mosque, several cemeteries, and at least three neighbourhoods, each with its own walls. During the Nasrid period, it belonged to the extensive Tahá of Jubiles, alongside 16 other villages.
Following the Catholic Monarchs' conquest of Granada in 1492, the population gradually became subject to intolerable pressure. In 1568, Fernando de Córdoba y Valor (also known as Aben Humeya), a wealthy landowner from the area, took up arms against Felipe II, who granted this place the status of a villa in the sixteenth century. This sparked a general Morisco uprising throughout the Kingdom of Granada, with Cádiar becoming the setting for many of the events that occurred during the Morisco uprising of 1568. According to popular tradition, the proclamation of Aben Humeya as leader of the rebels took place in Narila, near the town centre of the current municipality of Cádiar, in the shade of an old olive tree that is preserved today. According to some historians, internal disputes among the Moriscos themselves, together with the leader's arbitrary and tyrannical behaviour, caused him to lose the support of the rebels, who assassinated him in October 1569 in his own Palace of Lanjarón. In any case, he was succeeded by his cousin Abén Aboo, who was also assassinated by one of his men on 13 March 1571 in Bérchules. The War of the Alpujarras ended here. The Moriscos were definitively expelled in 1609. Later, the Alpujarra was populated by peasants from the current provinces of Jaén and Córdoba, although a minority of settlers also came from Castile. Today, Cádiar is the economic and business centre of the region