A beautifully illustrated exploration of the famed palace-city that was once the heart of Islamic SpainMadinat al-Zahra, a tenth-century palace-city on the western outskirts of C-rdoba, Spain, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, stands as a testament to the multicultural environment fostered by its founders. Built by ?Abd al-Rahman III (r. 929-961), a member of the Umayyad dynasty and the first caliph of al-Andalus, the city symbolized the caliph-s aspiration to rule over the Fatimid Caliphs of Ifriqiya in North Africa and the Abbasid Caliphs in Baghdad and was the site of vast cultural and artistic creation. The companion volume to an exhibition at New York University-s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, this book showcases the complex visual vocabulary of Madinat al-Zahra, which derived from diverse cultural traditions and was translated into new and unique architectural and material cultures. Thematic essays examine the history of the Islamic Caliphate in Muslim Iberia (al-
