InshALLAH, I am going to post a series about Muslims palace in Granada, spain knows as Alhambra. Its a fortress, palace and garden in 1. It reminds us about the golden days of muslim rule. I am referring to the book " Moorish spain" for this.
It was during the long reign of Amir Muhammad 5, that the Alhambra at Granada took on its final form.
The alhambra was more than just a palatial dwelling-place for the amirs. Like Abd al-Rehman 3's Madina az- zahra it contained a fortress and its garrison, mosques, baths, government offices, lodgings for residents or visiting dignitaries, gardens, stablesworkshops. However,what the visitor of today goes to Alhambra to see precisely what would not have been visible to 14th century visitor - the amiral family's private apartments and their linking courtyards. These offer a unique architectural ensemble, the only reasonably complete surviving palace-complex of medieval islamic ruler, in a natural setting of unparalleled grandeur against the backdrop of the Sierra Nevada.
Mohammad 5's craftsmen, architects, eingineers and gardeners created for him a series of palaces which allows the visitor to comprehend in a concentrated form all the major elements in the islamic architectural asthetics.spatial entities are combined and recombined. Mass abd aoperture are so grouped as to maximise the effects of the play of light and shade. Decoration in wood, tile and above all stucco is applied to wall and ceilings. Water is used, as for exmple in the patio de lions arrayanes, the court of myrtles, to multiply columns and arches by reflection, to cast light into shade and spread ripple over decoration. The piled 'honeycomb' work in stucco, which would then have been painted, can be literaly breathtaking, as witness gasp of tourists as they contemplate the extraordinary 'exploding firework'
of the ceiling of Sela de los dos Hermanas just off the famouir Patio de lions Leones. Contemporaries recognised that a wondrous of the poems of Ibn Zamrak, the chief Minister of Mohammad 5 in the latter part of his reign. Here is one of them
(The sabika is the spur on which Alhambra stands)
Stay a while here on the terrace of the sabika and look about you
This city is a wife, whose husband is still a hill:
Girt she is by water and by flowers,
Which glisten at her throat,
Ringed with streams; and behold the groves of trees which are wedding guests, whose thirst is being assuaged by the water-channels
The sabika hill sits like a garland on Granada's brow,
In which the stars would be entwind,
And the Alhambra (God preserver it)
Is the ruby set above the garland.
Granada is a bride whose headdress is the sabika, and whose adornments are its flowers.
It was during the long reign of Amir Muhammad 5, that the Alhambra at Granada took on its final form.
The alhambra was more than just a palatial dwelling-place for the amirs. Like Abd al-Rehman 3's Madina az- zahra it contained a fortress and its garrison, mosques, baths, government offices, lodgings for residents or visiting dignitaries, gardens, stablesworkshops. However,what the visitor of today goes to Alhambra to see precisely what would not have been visible to 14th century visitor - the amiral family's private apartments and their linking courtyards. These offer a unique architectural ensemble, the only reasonably complete surviving palace-complex of medieval islamic ruler, in a natural setting of unparalleled grandeur against the backdrop of the Sierra Nevada.
Mohammad 5's craftsmen, architects, eingineers and gardeners created for him a series of palaces which allows the visitor to comprehend in a concentrated form all the major elements in the islamic architectural asthetics.spatial entities are combined and recombined. Mass abd aoperture are so grouped as to maximise the effects of the play of light and shade. Decoration in wood, tile and above all stucco is applied to wall and ceilings. Water is used, as for exmple in the patio de lions arrayanes, the court of myrtles, to multiply columns and arches by reflection, to cast light into shade and spread ripple over decoration. The piled 'honeycomb' work in stucco, which would then have been painted, can be literaly breathtaking, as witness gasp of tourists as they contemplate the extraordinary 'exploding firework'
of the ceiling of Sela de los dos Hermanas just off the famouir Patio de lions Leones. Contemporaries recognised that a wondrous of the poems of Ibn Zamrak, the chief Minister of Mohammad 5 in the latter part of his reign. Here is one of them
(The sabika is the spur on which Alhambra stands)
Stay a while here on the terrace of the sabika and look about you
This city is a wife, whose husband is still a hill:
Girt she is by water and by flowers,
Which glisten at her throat,
Ringed with streams; and behold the groves of trees which are wedding guests, whose thirst is being assuaged by the water-channels
The sabika hill sits like a garland on Granada's brow,
In which the stars would be entwind,
And the Alhambra (God preserver it)
Is the ruby set above the garland.
Granada is a bride whose headdress is the sabika, and whose adornments are its flowers.