Alhambra Palace

Dawn on Charles V palace in Alhambra, Granada, Spain.

The Alhambra is a palace and fortress complex located in Granada, Andalusia, Spain. It is one of the most famous monuments of Islamic architecture and one of the best-preserved palaces of the historic Islamic world, in addition to containing notable examples of Spanish Renaissance architecture.

Alhambra derives from the Arabic الْحَمْرَاء (al-Ḥamrāʼ), meaning lit, 'the red one', the complete form of which was الْقَلْعَةُ ٱلْحَمْرَاءُ al-Qalʻat al-Ḥamrāʼ "the red fortress (qalat)". Little is known about the architects and craftsmen who built the Alhambra Palace, but more is known about the Dīwān al-Ins͟hā', or chancery. This institution seems to have played an increasingly important role in the design of buildings, probably because inscriptions came to feature so prominently in their decoration. The head of the chancery was often also the vizier (prime minister) of the sultan.

The Alhambra features various styles of the Arabic epigraphy that developed under the Nasrid dynasty, and particularly under Yusuf I and Muhammad V. José Miguel Puerta Vílchez compares the walls of the Alhambra to the pages of a manuscript, drawing similarities between the zilīj-covered dados and the geometric manuscript illuminations, and the epigraphical forms in the palace to calligraphic motifs in contemporary Arabic manuscripts. Inscriptions typically ran in vertical or horizontal bands or they were set inside cartouches of round or rectangular shape.

There is No Victor But God

Most major inscriptions in the Alhambra use the Naskhi or cursive script, which was the most common script used in writing after the early Islamic period. The texts of the Alhambra include "devout, regal, votive, and Qur'anic phrases and sentences," formed into arabesques, carved into wood and marble, and glazed onto tiles.