Q. & A. 711 to 1707 with solved Papers css 1971 to date

Alhamra Palace
The Alhamra is one of the best known and most studied monuments of Islamic architecture. Yet, curiously, much about it, is still not clearly understood. Even the purpose for which it was constructed may be less obvious than is suggested by contemporary guide books or by the existing, romanticized stories of such writers as Washington Irving.
The historical background of the Alhamra is fairly clear. Although the city of Granada dates from pre-Islamic times, the superbly defensible spur of land overlooking it from the northeast was hardly used at ail until the eleventh century, when minor local rulers began to develop it as a fortress and when one of the court wazirs may have planned a palace there. Little is known of those early activities beyond the tale reflections preserved in chronicles and poetry. In the thirteenth century the Nasrid dynasty, the last Muslim dynasty of Andalusia, made Granada its capital and turned the hill of the Alhamra (the Red Palace) into a royal city. The outer walls were completed, water was brought by aqueduct from the

700
Political and Cultural History of Islam
mountain above, and a citadel was established on the western most part of the ridge. A mosque, baths and houses were built for the private retinue of the princes, splendid gardens were designed and planted inside the walled area and on the slope of the mountains above it and a royal burial place was marked off. Not much remains of most of these constructions, however, except the outer walls and the citadel, and it is virtually impossible to reconstruct the character of the Alhamra in full power-a citadel-city-within-a- city, so typical of late medieval Islam.
What does remain today, reasonably well preserved, are two large architectural units, set at a right angle to each other. Each has a central open court with a ”water piece” in the middle - a long pool in the Court of Myrtles and a fountain in the Court of the Lions. A series of rooms and halls open into the courts, either directly or through arcades. There is a bath between the two units, and a number of smaller rooms and courts are located between the two formal units and the citadel proper. In all likelihood, living quarters were located below the Court of the Lions is ar area that was rebuilt after the Christian conquest.11
The Hispano-Muslim system of decoration reached its culminating point in the Nasrid palace Alhamra. This acropolis of Granada, with its excessive decoration in mosaics, stalac tiles and inscriptions, was conce.ved and constructed on so extensive and magnificent a scale that it has been accepted as the last word in such workmanship. Begun by Muhammad I al-Ghalib 1248, its construction was completed by Abu-al- Hajjaj Yusuf (1333-54) and by his successor Muhammad V al-Ghani (1354-9). Most of the interior decoration is ascribed by the inscriptions on the walls to Abu-al-Hajjaj. The most celebrated portion is the Court of Linns. In the centre of this court twelve marble lions stand in a circle, each spouting a jet of water from its mouth. Among the surrounding profusion of decotation these lions, together with the ceiling of the so-called Hall of Justice, are the most important monuments of art. The ceiling depicts scenes painted on leather illustrating tales of chivalry and hunting episodes, besides al-Ghalib’s motto, Wa-laghalib ilia Allah (but there is no conqueror other than Allah); others, employed for dscorStive purposes only, are represented as addressing the visitor in tfieir function of ornament. The striking feature of the
Emile, Spaimsh Art. P 105.
Literary & Scientific Development in Muslim Spam
701
Court of the Lions is the infinite subtlety of its forms. Real, tangible architectural structures are arranged in a way that creates fleeting, ever changing impressions. Sturdy marble is combined with cheap stucco. The design of the court seems almost perfectly that do for correspond to the obvious features of the plan, as can be seen, for example, in the manner in which single and double columns have been ordered.
Throughout the Alhamra - especially in the Court of the Myrtles, where the effects are particularly striking open and covered space are combined and contrasted according to a system whereby interiors are always in the presence of exterior spaces, with pavilions projecting into open areas. This elusive, illusory quality is found in the decoration, also. Every fragment of so-called muqarnas (stalactite) design is a three-dimensional shape outlining a void, forming a complex line, and having an independent design of its own on its surface. By daylight or at night, the same features appear in opposite ways, dominant or recessive, columns that are brilliantly around sunlight.
It is possible to suggest that these extraordinary and carefully contrived contrasts have specific, yet somewhat contradictory meanings. One interpretation projects a paradisic setting, inasmuch as the poems inscribed under one of the domes to the side of the Court of the Lions imply that it was metaphorically the rotating dome of heaven. The other interpretat on suggests an embodiment of the idea that nothing made or seen by man is real, since ”there is no victor but God”, as inscriptions throughout the building repeat again and again. This mystical Islamic interpretation may be the official one; but, in a deeper sense, the true meaning of the Alhamra is in the eye, the mind, and the soul of the behoider.^
Hoag, P 45

CIIAITKH