Alhambra: The Nasrid Palace-Fortress of Granada

The Alhambra is a walled palace and fortress complex on the Sabika hill above Granada in southern Spain, built mainly by the Nasrid dynasty between about 1238 and 1492. It was the seat of the Emirate of Granada, the last Muslim state in the Iberian Peninsula, and its 14th-century palaces, with their courtyards, carved stucco, tilework and inscriptions, are the most complete surviving example of medieval Islamic palace architecture in Europe. Today the Alhambra is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most visited monuments in Spain.

Origins and name

The name Alhambra comes from the Arabic al-qal’a al-hamra, the red fortress, probably because of the reddish colour of its rammed-earth walls. A fortress stood on the hill before the Nasrids; Arabic sources mention one in the 9th century, and in the 11th century the Zirid rulers of Granada had a fortified residence nearby. These earlier works were modest compared with what followed.

The emirate itself was founded in the 1230s by Muhammad I ibn al-Ahmar. As the Christian kingdoms of Castile and Aragon advanced after their victory at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, Córdoba fell in 1236 and Seville in 1248. Muhammad I made Granada his capital in 1238 and accepted vassal status under Castile, paying tribute to keep his state alive.

Building the palace-city

Muhammad I began building the Alhambra as a fortified royal city. He strengthened the Alcazaba, the military fortress at the western tip of the hill, and built a channel, the Acequia Real or royal canal, that brought water from the river Darro several kilometres upstream. Water made everything else possible: palaces, gardens, baths and fountains.

His successors added walls, towers and residences. Muhammad II and Muhammad III extended the complex, and the Generalife, a summer palace with terraced gardens on the slope to the east, was built in the late 13th or early 14th century and decorated under Ismail I around 1319. The Partal, one of the earliest surviving palace buildings, dates from the early 14th century.

The Alhambra was not a single building but a small city. Within its walls were the royal palaces, homes for officials and servants, workshops, a mosque, baths and a district for court staff. Some 30 towers punctuated the outer walls.

The great palaces of the 14th century

The two most famous palaces were built by two rulers of the 14th century, when Granada enjoyed relative stability and prosperity.

Yusuf I (ruled 1333–1354) built the Comares Palace. Its centre is the Court of the Myrtles, a long rectangular pool flanked by hedges of myrtle, which reflects the massive Comares Tower. Inside the tower is the Hall of the Ambassadors, the throne room, crowned by a wooden ceiling of thousands of inlaid pieces representing the seven heavens of Islamic cosmology. Yusuf I also built the Gate of Justice, completed in 1348, as the main entrance to the complex.

Muhammad V (ruled 1354–1359 and 1362–1391) built the Palace of the Lions, begun in the 1370s. Its courtyard, the Court of the Lions, is surrounded by arcades of slender marble columns, with a central fountain whose basin rests on twelve stone lions. Water channels run from the fountain into the halls on each side. The Hall of the Two Sisters and the Hall of the Abencerrajes have domes covered with muqarnas, intricate honeycomb vaulting made of thousands of small cells of carved plaster.

Daily life in the palace-city depended on a large staff of guards, officials, craftsmen and servants. The Medina, the town district of the upper Alhambra, contained houses, workshops, a royal mosque built under Muhammad III, public baths and kilns for pottery and tiles. Little of it survives above ground, but excavations have revealed its streets and foundations, showing that the Alhambra functioned as a small self-contained city as well as a royal residence.

Art, inscriptions and meaning

The Alhambra’s walls carry an extraordinary density of decoration: carved and painted stucco, glazed tile panels (alicatado) with geometric patterns, carved wooden ceilings and calligraphy. The Nasrid motto, “There is no victor but God” (wa-la ghaliba illa Allah), is repeated thousands of times across the palaces.

Many walls also bear poems by court poets and vizier-writers, especially Ibn al-Jayyab, Lisan al-Din Ibn al-Khatib and Ibn Zamrak. Some of these poems speak in the voice of the building itself, praising the ruler and comparing the rooms and fountains to stars and jewels. The poems around the fountain of the lions, by Ibn Zamrak, describe the flow of water and the strength of the lions.

The palaces were designed for a life of ceremony, privacy and pleasure. Rooms open onto courtyards where water, plants, light and shade create a controlled environment, in contrast to the plain, fortified exterior. Historians such as Oleg Grabar have stressed that the Alhambra was an image of paradise and of royal power as much as a residence.

The fall of Granada and Christian rule

The emirate survived for more than two and a half centuries, but internal feuds and pressure from Castile weakened it. During the war of 1482–1491 the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, conquered its towns one by one. On 2 January 1492 Muhammad XII, known as Boabdil, handed over the keys of the city, an event described in the article on the Fall of Granada.

The new rulers took over the Alhambra as a royal residence and converted its mosque into a church. On 31 March 1492 they signed there the Alhambra Decree, which ordered the expulsion of Jews from their kingdoms who would not convert.

In 1526 the Emperor Charles V stayed in the Alhambra on his honeymoon and decided to build a new palace within it. The Palace of Charles V, designed by Pedro Machuca and begun in 1527, is a square Renaissance building with a circular courtyard. Work stopped and started for centuries, and the building was only fully roofed in the 20th century. Some Nasrid structures were demolished to make room for it.

Myths and facts

A popular idea is that the Alhambra was built all at once by a single ruler. In fact it grew over more than two centuries, and much of what visitors see today also reflects Christian-era alterations and modern restoration.

Another misconception is that the twelve lions were made specially for Muhammad V’s palace. Some historians have argued that the lions are older and may come from an 11th-century palace, but this theory is debated, and many specialists date them to the 14th century.

The romantic tales of the Abencerrajes, a noble family said to have been massacred in the hall that bears their name, come from later legends and Spanish literature and cannot be confirmed as historical fact.

By the numbers

Decline, rediscovery and legacy

From the 17th century the Alhambra was neglected. Parts were occupied by squatters, used as stores or left to decay. During the Napoleonic Wars French troops occupied it from 1810 to 1812 and, when they left, blew up several towers; tradition credits a local soldier with saving more of the walls from destruction.

In the 19th century Romantic travellers made the Alhambra famous. The American writer Washington Irving lived in the palace in 1829 and published Tales of the Alhambra in 1832, which mixed history and legend and drew visitors from across Europe and America. The British architect Owen Jones, working with Jules Goury, studied its decoration and published detailed colour plates from 1836, which influenced Victorian design.

Restoration began in the 19th century, sometimes with heavy-handed additions, notably by Rafael Contreras. The architect Leopoldo Torres Balbás, who directed works from 1923 to 1936, introduced a more scientific approach that aimed to preserve and clarify rather than invent. The Court of the Lions fountain was restored between 2007 and 2012.

The Alhambra is the most famous monument of al-Andalus, alongside the Great Mosque of Córdoba. Its patterns inspired artists and architects far beyond Spain; the Dutch artist M. C. Escher visited in 1922 and 1936 and drew on its tilework for his tessellations. Its gardens and water features influenced later landscape design.

UNESCO inscribed the Alhambra and the Generalife as a World Heritage Site in 1984 and extended the listing in 1994 to include the Albaicín, the old Muslim quarter on the facing hill. Visitor numbers are limited each day to protect the fragile decoration.

Timeline

• 1238: Muhammad I makes Granada his capital and begins work on the Alhambra.
• c. 1319: Decoration of the Generalife under Ismail I.
• 1348: Gate of Justice completed under Yusuf I.
• 1370s: Muhammad V builds the Palace of the Lions.
• 1492, 2 January: Granada surrenders to Ferdinand and Isabella.
• 1527: Work begins on the Palace of Charles V.
• 1812: Retreating French troops blow up several towers.
• 1832: Washington Irving publishes Tales of the Alhambra.
• 1984: The Alhambra and Generalife become a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Why it matters

The Alhambra is the last great monument of Islamic Spain and a rare surviving medieval palace whose rooms, gardens and inscriptions still convey how its rulers lived and saw themselves. It stands at the meeting point of Islamic and European history, from the Nasrid court to the Catholic Monarchs, Charles V and the Romantic travellers who made it world-famous.