Art islamique
of some renown till at least the end of the thirteenth century, and in cities like Burgos and Valladolid
Mudéjar carpenters held a monopoly. Ribbed domes were also typically identified with Mudéjar
craftsmen. In Seville, Mudéjar artisans were chosen by Christian kings Alfonso XI and Pedro the Cruel
in the fourteenth century to build extensions and renovations to the eighth-century Muslim Alcázar
(from Arabic al-qasr, fortified palace) because they were traditionally trained, father to son. These
craftsmen were therefore quite simply the best and most highly skilled for carving the elegant
muqarnas (stalactite vaulting) and the delicate stucco arcades. The Nasrid king Muhammad V in
Granada, living in exile under Pedro’s protection, is even known to have lent his Muslim artisans from
the Alhambra in an amicable exchange.
The gardeners at the gardens of the Alcázar were Muslim up till the sixteenth century.
The inexorable progress of the Reconquista evidently did not interfere with Christian rulers’
enthusiasm for the artistic work of their Muslim subjects and they continued to commission the
styles they liked, or else simply adapted the existing Islamic buildings to become churches, as with
the Cordoba Mezquita and the Cristo de la Luz Church (Bab al-Mardum Mosque) in Toledo.
The latter, a little church, was originally a private mosque built from brick, a miniaturised copy of Al-
Hakam’s extension to the Cordoba Mezquita in 961. Like that extension, it combines horseshoe and
trefoil arches, blind arcades of interlocking arches, and is square in shape, just 8 metres along each
side.
The most remarkable feature comes in the nine ribbed vaults of its ceiling, each one different in the
patterning of its ribs, as if the mason was conducting a kind of experiment. This unique form of rib
vaulting, used here in Bab al-Mardum (998–1000) some thirty-five years after the Cordoba Mezquita
ribbed domes, is thought to be the forerunner of the quadripartite vault. As in the Cordoba Mezquita,
each one is a loadbearing vault, where the ribs are also decorative. It is a design where a pair of
slimmer and therefore lighter crossed arches divide the space between the thicker ribs into four
smaller segments which can then be filled in with lighter materials.
Here in Cordoba and Toledo the very first steps were taken towards the Gothic rib vaulting and fan
vaulting that gradually became more and more sophisticated over the course of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries before reaching its apogee in the exquisite late Gothic fan vaulting of the
fifteenth-century Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, the largest fanvaulted ceiling in the world.
In Portugal, very few Islamic buildings have survived intact and virtually all mosques were rebuilt as
churches and cathedrals after the Reconquista, so that their Islamic features are no longer visible. The
sole exception is at Mértola in the Alentejo, now a church but with its interior still clearly a mosque in
the Cordoba style, with five naves and a forest of slender pillars carrying arched cross vaults.
Abd al-Rahman III and his successors only enjoyed the estate for what were to be the final sixty-five
years of Umayyad rule in Andalusia. Burnt, looted and plundered in 1013 by mutinous Berber troops,
Muslims and Christians alike, its ruins slowly disappeared under the mud dragged down from the
mountains by heavy rains. After that it lay buried and forgotten for nine centuries. Excavators began
work in 1910, but still only a tenth of the palace has been uncovered. In July 2018, Madinat al-Zahra
was finally recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage site, and it is described on the UNESCO website as
the largest known city built from scratch in western Europe at that time. The magnificent palace city
was laid out over three terraced platforms, with elaborate gardens on the lower level. In their beauty
and complexity one can again see the characteristic Islamic strivings to create an earthly paradise.
The facades of Madinat al-Zahra were inspired by Umayyad art, using vegetal ornamentation and
wide archaic elongated Kufic script, first employed to great effect above all in the Dome of the Rock,
at a time when,
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Abd al-Rahman III et ses successeurs ne jouirent du domaine que pendant les soixante-cinq dernières
années de la domination omeyyade en Andalousie. Brûlé, pillé et saccagé en 1013 par des troupes
berbères mutines, musulmanes et chrétiennes, ses ruines ont lentement disparu sous la boue
charriée des montagnes par les fortes pluies. Elle est ensuite restée enfouie et oubliée pendant neuf
siècles. Des excavateurs ont commencé à travailler en 1910, mais seul un dixième du palais a été mis
au jour. En juillet 2018, Madinat al-Zahra a finalement été reconnue comme site du patrimoine
mondial de l'UNESCO, et elle est décrite sur le site web de l'UNESCO comme la plus grande ville
connue construite à partir de rien en Europe occidentale à cette époque. La magnifique cité-palais a
été aménagée sur trois plates-formes en terrasses, avec des jardins élaborés au niveau inférieur. La
beauté et la complexité de ces jardins témoignent une fois de plus de la volonté de l'Islam de créer un
paradis terrestre. Les façades de Madinat al-Zahra s'inspirent de l'art omeyyade, avec des ornements
végétaux et une écriture coufique archaïque allongée, utilisée pour la première fois avec grand effet,
surtout dans le Dôme du Rocher, à une époque où les habitants de Madinat al-Zahra n'étaient pas
encore en mesure de s'adapter à l'architecture islamique,
