Madinat al-Zahra (Arabic: مدينة الزهراء‎ Madinat al-Zahra) was a Muslim medieval town located about 5 kilometers from Córdoba, Spain. Its ruins were discovered about ninety years ago. Only about 10 percent of the 112 sites have been excavated and restored. The city, which flourished for approximately 80 years, had been built by caliph Abd ar-Rahman III of Córdoba starting between 936 and 940. After he had proclaimed himself caliph in 929, establishing the independent Umayyad Caliphate in the west, he decided to show his subjects and the world his power by building a palace-city 5 km from Córdoba. The largest known city built from scratch in Western Europe, would be described by travelers from northern Europe and from the East as a dazzling series of palaces full of treasures never seen before. Around 1010, Madinat al-Zahra was sacked during the civil war that led to the dissolution of the Caliphate of Cordoba.[1] The raid effectively wiped the city off the map for a millennium. Popular legend holds that the Caliph named al-Zahra, or Azahara, after his favorite concubine, and that a statue of a woman stood over the entrance. Others, imagining his demanding lover, say that he built this new city just to please her. The truth, however, has probably more to do with politics than love. Abd ar-Rahman III ordered the construction of this city at a time when he had just finished consolidating his political power in the Iberian Peninsula and was entering into conflict with the Fatimid dynasty for the control of North Africa. Zahara means 'shining, radiant or blossoming' in Arabic: the name communicates aspirations of power and status, not romantic love. Al-Zahra is the most common title for the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad's, Fatimah al-Zahra. Fatima is the female progenitor of all Shia Imams after the first, Ali, to whom she was married. As such, the Fatimid Shia dynasty of North Africa, adorned many buildings and even towns with her name. A female scholar in her own right, her title al-Zahra (the brilliant) was given to the oldest functioning university in the world, the al-Az'har/al-Azhar university in Cairo in AD 968, built by the Fatimids. The Umayyads' ambitions in North Africa could well explain the usage of the name for the new city to rival the Fatimids' influence there through Islamic/Shia religious iconography. Gracias por su comentarios en mi imagen de ayer: