The Ark

The last stronghold of Muslim Spain to fall to the Christians, The Alhambra is the huge fortress and palace that overlooks Granada.

Transcript

This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.

From the Alhambra, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand read the decree to expel the Jews from Spain in 1492.

MANUEL DE FALLA MUSIC

Rachael Kohn: The music of Manuel de Falla conjures the image of one of Spain's greatest monuments, The Alhambra.

Hello, this is The Ark, and I'm Rachael Kohn.

On a hill overlooking the city of Granada, the Spanish composer lived next to this massive monument of Muslim Spain, built by the Nasrid dynasty in the 14th century. The ochre-coloured citadel was finally conquered by Ferdinand and Isabella, the King and Queen of Aragon and Castile, unifying Spain in the late 15th century. The Muslims vacated, and later were forced to convert to Christianity. The Jews of Spain were expelled. Manuel Rodriguez is a Granadino, and is an expert on the Alhambra.

What is it like to be a Granadino living under The Alhambra?

Manuel Rodriguez: I have such a different point of view about it today compared to when I was a child and I lived under the shade of The Alhambra walls.

Along the decade of the '60s it was still mysterious, a not very well known popular area, just more for professors, foreign people, not a place to go often because it was somehow scary, and possibly filled with heresies. Not a place to go when I was a child. Later on, everything has changed so radically today. I must say that I'm very surprised when I see the people waiting in a line for hours, six hours to get a ticket for The Alhambra.

Rachael Kohn: Manuel, how important is The Alhambra for the Muslim world, for Muslim history?

Manuel Rodriguez: I just can tell you what is my personal experience because 20 years experience. Well first of all, the percentage of Muslims coming to visit is extremely low, they don't even represent 1% of the total amount.

Rachael Kohn: That is in great contrast to its role in Muslim history.

Manuel Rodriguez: It's true. It's true, but there are different circumstances that in my opinion explain the presence in this monument. First of all, well to most of the ordinary people it's not a travel they can afford, first of all. A tour to Spain for a cultural purpose is something that I personally think that they don't even dream about. Most of their neighbour Muslims in Africa come for a different reason, looking for a job, and Muslims I've been with visiting The Alhambra, they know more their local Islam and don't know much about Spanish specificites, their social conditions and other features of the mediaeval period in Spain.

Rachael Kohn: Can you tell us what importance The Alhambra has in Muslim history?

Manuel Rodriguez: The importance will be that is a live or existing evidence of an almost mythical Islamic period where there were not as today in many concepts, in many fields, but very much ahead of their contemporaries, especially in the field of sciences. And artistically the result is an extraordinary and unique one. You may not compare The Alhambra to anything else of its time, that's a fact.

And then, well they see it with a total admiration despite they don't know profoundly the subjects or the historical circumstances in which the monument was built. But I feel they feel proud despite I don't see the personal identification with the Muslims today and those who were the builders of The Alhambra. But they feel the pride of being in front of the major Islamic mediaeval monument in the world, and that's it. One sees in their eyes pride and some joy, despite not much of comprehension.

Rachael Kohn: Well The Alhambra is certainly very large, and one can see it from many points in the city of Granada. What are its dimensions? How large is it, and what really is The Alhambra?

Manuel Rodriguez: The Alhambra is a hilltop city fortress, what in other words, can be called with the word 'citadel', and has exactly 11 hectares, 11 times in a square of 100 metres. And The Alhambra has 11 hectares, which in acres is about 25 acres. The outer walls have a perimeter of 2,400 metres. So it's a huge citadel that could have held a population close to 2000 people, not only soldiers but mainly civilians, also servants, as well as the leaders.

Rachael Kohn: And this was the last great stronghold of the Muslims in Spain, and they had been there for, what? 700 years?

Manuel Rodriguez: Absolutely. And the city under Islamic rule is Granada, exactly 780 years, of which The Alhambra reflects somehow the last 2-1/2 centuries. The Alhambra is necessarily to be related to the last dynasty, the Nasrids, and they began to rule in 1238 up to 1492, so roughly 2-1/2 centuries.

Rachael Kohn: And inside The Alhambra there are palaces, several?

Manuel Rodriguez: Yes, we have on the perimeter when one watches the profile of the walls, one discovers that Islamic palaces are integrated with the walls, are part of the wall somehow.

The Christian elements logically added on around the 16th century, will always be built on the upper plans, looking for showing off. So the citizens had to see the new elements emerging from the ancient complex, and then the bell towers were going to take the place of the ancient minarets, and that was a pretty emblematic conquest for a city.

Rachael Kohn: In fact Granada was very important for Christian Spain, because it was the last conquest under Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. What relationship did they have to The Alhambra?

Manuel Rodriguez: From a Castilian point of view, the west side of Spain which will have led their policy of reconquest much more than the Aragonese in times Ferdinand or John II of Aragon, they may have somehow focused as a late Crusade, not to the Holy Land, not to Jerusalem, but somehow looking for gathering different areas, different kingdoms under not only a single crown but a unique faith. That was their policy.

Rachael Kohn: So you're saying that they focused on Granada as a way of unifying the separate kingdoms of Spain?

Manuel Rodriguez: Yes, well it could be. Granada remains as the very last Islamic stronghold, well somehow the reconquest won't be a fact until the last resisting stronghold falls. And that's January 2nd, 1492. So the city had been besieged during 11 months and never looking for their total or partial destruction of the area, the Christians had decided not to do so, looking for a negotiation process, looking for preserving, not necessarily the buildings, but the people and their economy and their production capacity, and their submission for paying taxes as well, that was economically necessary for the recovery of a war that had lasted too many decades, too many years possibly.

Nobody will have counted on the Islamic taxes support for the increase of America's discovery, but that would later be a fact and very important not to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, and retaining them promises initially the occasion to preserve their mother tongue and houses and temples for later, changing attitude and setting new rules, new conditions and forcing two massive conversions.

Rachael Kohn: Well Isabella would eventually resort to the edict of expulsion, both of Jews and of Muslims. That took place in The Alhambra?

Manuel Rodriguez: That was in March 30th, 1492, yes, the Hall of Ambassadors, also known by the name of the Hall of Throne. That was not solely her personal initiative, she was under extreme pressure because otherwise it will be a contradiction, such a decree or edict, compared to what she and he, the King, had signed both just three, four months before.

Rachael Kohn: They reneged on an agreement to allow them to continue?

Manuel Rodriguez: That's it, because the agreement had been made in the name of both groups, Muslims as well as Jews. So initially, it was not foreseen that one of the groups had to be expelled, that's a later decision, a modification of the contract.

I must say that if Isabella and Ferdinand had not been not under such extreme pressure by the clergy, Tomas de Torquemada, and so on, the Queen's personal confessor, possibly she had a different policy, possibly, we don't know. We now regret, because we now we really know the dimension of the economical mistake we made at that time, not only because of the economical reasons, because more important, much more, because we began to assume that either Sephardics or Muslims of Andalusi, are part of our own ancestors actually.

Rachael Kohn: Well the West has come to know about The Alhambra very much later, through the rose-tinted glasses of 19th century writers and artists. How did they view the Alhambra and who were they?

Manuel Rodriguez: It's a most unexpected thing for one of those young British or French or Central European tourists who take their person on a grand tour. And what about those coming from the States? The case of Washington Irving is very special, because he had plain determination to come to Spain when he was a teenager, he had possibly read gatherings from Spain by Richard Ford, the first writer who ever wrote a handbook for travellers to Spain, so that book was very much known to the higher social classes. And so to Spain, Granada, The Alhambra, mythical castles, exotic designs, the magic, the spell to all those dreamers came and painted and wrote it and made a possible new Alhambra emerge in the second half of the 19th century.

Especially David Roberts with his engravings, he made such a job with our city, and Washington Irving, and Chateaubriand, living with this lover in The Alhambra harem, and many others will make of the ruins of the citadel, a mythical place.

Rachael Kohn: Well if people were not seduced by The Tales of The Alhambra by Washington Irving, they might have been seduced by Manuel de Falla's music. Now he was inspired by this place, too.

Manuel Rodriguez: Manuel de Falla, all the time he spent in Granada, close to 20 years, he lived always close by The Alhambra. And even he lives for some period within the walls of The Alhambra.

Rachael Kohn: Is that in the gardens area?

Manuel Rodriguez: No, where he lived in The Alhambra was along the main streets of the citadel. But later, as the summer palace and gardens had been private, privately owned until 1921. When Falla arrived at Granada...his discovery of those terrace gardens and the views of Granada were to inspire him when he wrote 'Nights in the Gardens of Spain'. A big part of his piano suites will emerge when he was strolling The Alhambra perimeter all the palaces, all the gardens, also with his pupil for piano lessons, the poet Federico Garcia Lorca.

Rachael Kohn: Were the Spanish people as enamoured of the place as the artists were?

Manuel Rodriguez: That's not an easy question because well, I am one of those that thinks that the people follow the people. Granada has the prestige and the magic and the spell, it's in the music, in the songs written by Jerry Vale, Granada that all the tenors sang and everybody knows, and Granada has that glamour. There is something supporting that glamour in magic and spell and it's the landscape, the landscape of the city I must say it's not that I'm born here, but I've been all around Europe and many of the cities in Africa and so, well Granada is not the best, but it's certainly a place that is not easy to forget. And well, under such a support, such a landscape and the historical and artistical remains for the city, it's almost an impossible thing for a visitor to Spain not to think about Granada for a while.

Rachael Kohn: How many people actually go through The Alhambra daily?

Manuel Rodriguez: The average is very impressive, the average per day is 7,000 persons, which makes close to 2-1/2-million per year.

Rachael Kohn: I was speaking there to Manuel Rodriguez in Granada, when I was there recently.

Join me again next week for The Ark.

SONG - 'GRANADA'

Guests

Emanuel Fernando Rodriguez
is an historian who also takes tours through the Alhambra and Granada.

Further Information

Alhambra.org
An English language version of a site exploring the cultural and historical heritage of the Alhambra and Granada.
http://www.alhambra.org/ingles/home.asp?res=1024

Music

CD Title: Noches en los jardines de España
Artist: Joaquín Soriano (piano), Jose Serebrier/English Chamber Orchestra
Composer : M.De Falla
Record Co & CD No: Academy Sound & Vision LTD CDDCA775