The Alhambra / being a brief record of the Arabian conquest of the Peninsula with a particular account of the Mohammedan architecture and decoration

by Albert Frederick Calvert

Mohammed had purchased peace by submission to the Christians; but he knew that where the elements were so discordant, and the motives for hostility so deep and ancient, it could not be secure or permanent. Acting, therefore, upon an old maxim, “Arm thyself in peace, and clothe thyself in Summer,” he improved the interval of tranquillity by fortifying his dominions, by replenishing his arsenals, and by promoting those useful arts which give wealth and real power to an empire.

“WA LA GHALIB ILA ALÁ!”—THERE IS NO CONQUEROR BUT GOD!—THE FAMOUS MOTTO, IN KUFIC CHARACTERS, OF MOHAMMED I. AND HIS SUCCESSORS, WHICH IS INSCRIBED ON THE WALLS OF THE ALHAMBRA IN COUNTLESS REPETITION.

He gave premiums and privileges to the best artisans, improved the breed of horses and other domestic animals, encouraged husbandry, and increased the fertility of the soil two-fold by his protection, making the lovely valleys of his kingdom to bloom like gardens. He fostered, also, the growth and fabrication of silk, until the looms of Granada surpassed even those of Syria in the fineness and beauty of their productions. He caused the prolific mines of gold and silver, and other metals of the mountainous regions of his dominions, to be diligently worked, and was the first King of Granada who, as we have seen, struck money with his name, taking great care, moreover, that the coins should be skilfully executed.

It was about this time, towards the middle of the thirteenth century, and just after his return from the siege of Seville (1248), that Mohammed commenced the splendid Palace of the Alhambra, superintending the building of it in person, mingling frequently amongst the artists and workmen, and directing their labour. He stored the gardens with the rarest plants, and with the most beautiful aromatic shrubs and flowers. Amid these scenes he delighted in reading histories, or in causing them to be related to him; and sometimes, in intervals of leisure, employed himself in the instruction of his three sons, for whom he had provided the most learned and virtuous masters. Mohammed ever remained loyal to Ferdinand, giving him repeated proofs of fidelity and attachment. When that renowned monarch died at Seville in 1254, Mohammed sent ambassadors to condole with his successor, Alonzo X., and with them a gallant train of Moorish cavaliers of distinguished rank to attend the obsequies. This grand testimony of respect was repeated by the Moslem monarch during the remainder of his life on each anniversary of the death of King Fernando el Santo, when a hundred Moorish knights repaired to Seville, and took their stations with lighted tapers in the Cathedral, around the tomb of the illustrious deceased.

Mohammed retained his vigour to an advanced age. In his seventy-ninth year he took the field on horseback, accompanied by the flower of his chivalry, to resist an invasion. As the army sallied forth from Granada, one of the adalides, or guides, who rode in the advance, accidentally shivered his lance against the arch of the gate. The counsellors of the king, alarmed by the circumstance, which was considered an evil omen, entreated him to return. The king persisted, and at noontide the omen, say the Moorish chroniclers, was fatally fulfilled. Mohammed was suddenly seen to fall from his horse. He was placed on a litter and borne towards Granada, but his illness increased to such a degree that they were obliged to pitch his tent on the Vega. His physicians were filled with consternation, and in a few hours he died; the Castilian prince, Don Philip, brother of Alonzo X., being by his side when he expired. His body was embalmed, enclosed in a silver coffin, and buried in the Alhambra, in a sepulchre of precious marble, amidst the unfeigned lamentations of his subjects, who bewailed him as a parent.

Such was the enlightened prince who founded the Alhambra, whose name remains emblazoned amongst its most delicate and graceful ornaments, and whose memory is calculated to inspire the loftiest associations in those who tread these fading scenes of his magnificence and glory.

Abu-el-Hejaj (Yúsuf I.), King of Granada, 1333-1354, who completed the Alhambra.

IN the royal Mosque, where the escutcheons of the Moorish kings hang side by side with those of the Castilian sovereigns—for the Mosque was, after the subjugation, consecrated as a Catholic chapel—perished the illustrious Yúsuf Abu-el-Hejaj, the high-minded prince who completed the Alhambra, and who, for his virtues and endowments, deserves almost equal renown with its magnanimous founder. Washington Irving was, perhaps, the first to draw forth, from the obscurity in which it had too long remained, the name of another of those princes of a departed and almost forgotten race, who reigned in elegance and splendour in Andalusia, when all Europe was in comparative barbarism.

To Yúsuf I. the Alhambra owes much of its splendour; he not only constructed the Gate of Justice and the Wine Gate, leading into the Palace, as appears from the inscriptions over their respective archways; but he must also have built, or decorated, many of the interior apartments, for his name appears frequently in The Hall of the Two Sisters, in that of the Baños, in the Court of the Fish-pond, and in the Hall of the Ambassadors.