The City of
Al-Zahra*
By Tor Eigeland
The most magnificent of Islamic Spain was probably not the
well-known Alhambra which still stands in all its splendor in
Granada, but another remarkable palace complex which once stood in
the foothills five miles west of Cordoba: Madinat al-Zahra, City of
the Flower, or Blooming City.
Begun in 936 by Caliph Abd al-Rahman III as a country home for his
court favorite, al-Zahra, it grew in concept and was not completed
until 40 years later by al-Hakam II.
In 1010, during a Berber revolt, Madinat al-Zahra was destroyed. Its
stones were quarried for other buildings over the centuries until,
covered by earth and vines, its site was nearly forgotten. Only in
recent times did the Spanish Government painstakingly begin to
restore some of the palace, piece by tiny broken piece.
During the few brief decades of its glory Madinat al-Zahra elicited
an abundance of superlatives from contemporary writers. Ten thousand
men and 2,500 mules labored to build the palace, which contained
some 4,300 marble columns, many imported from North Africa and
Italy, and 140 columns sent by the emperor Constantine VII of
Byzantium. Walls were inlaid with ivory, ebony and jasper.
An exquisite green marble fountain was imported from Syria and
surrounding it were 12 red-gold statues encrusted with pearls and
gems. The statues were made in Cordoba and represented a cockerel, a
kite, a vulture, a lion, a stag, a crocodile, an eagle, a dragon, a
dove, a falcon, a duck and a hen.
Nearly 14,000 people lived in the palace-city when it was finished:
servants, soldiers, women and children. The complex included some
400 buildings with inns, schools, workshops and even a zoo.
Evidently 1,200 loaves of bread a day were required just to feed the
fish in the ornamental ponds.
To dazzle visitors there was a pool of quicksilver in the reception
hall which set off a kaleidoscope of flashing light when struck by
sunlight. The mystic MuhyiI-din ibn al-'Arabi wrote an account of
one visit to the palace--by an embassy of Christians from the north
of Spain whom the caliph particularly wished to awe with the
magnificence of his court. Along their route from Cordoba to Madinat
al-Zahra he had stationed a double rank of soldiers, "their naked
swords, both broad and long, meeting at the tips like the rafters of
a roof. On the caliph's orders the ambassadors progressed between
the ranks as under a roofed passage."
Within the gate the caliph had ordered the ground covered with
brocades. "At regular intervals he placed dignitaries whom they took
for kings, for they were seated on splendid chairs and arrayed in
brocades and silk. Each time the ambassadors saw one of these
dignitaries they prostrated themselves before him, imagining him to
be the caliph, whereupon they were told, 'Raise your heads! This is
but a slave of his slaves!'
"At last they entered a courtyard strewn with sand. At the center
was the caliph. His clothes were coarse and short. What he was
wearing was worth not more four Dirhams. He was seated on the
ground, his head bent; in from of him was a Koran, a sword and fire.
'Behold the ruler,' the ambassadors were told."
* Aramco World Magazine (Sep-Oct 1976)
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