Saturday, February 25, 2012

Alhambra in Granda

One of the things we did in Spain was to visit Alhambra which is an old Islamic palace in Granda, and an awesome example of Islamic architecture. It was extraordinarily beautiful. It was cool to see right after Catholic cathedrals; Islam is much more strict on iconography, so Islam doesn't decorate things with scenes from the Bible like Catholic cathedrals, but instead with Arabic writing and geometric symbols. Islam is also really into the idea of infinity (God is everywhere, etc). You got a good idea of this at Alhambra.



Those are three different areas of the palace, and any writing you see is saying "God is most high" over and over and over and over and over and over and over. It says this phrase everywhere at Alhambra! (There are other things said as well, including parts that aren't the same thing repeated over and over, but this phrase is really really prominent). 
It's interesting to compare it to Catholic art although I'm not sure if I have anything intelligent to say about it. All I'll say is that seeing the same praise of God written a million times wherever you go gives you a sense of awe different from the sense of awe you get from high ceilings and elaborate depictions of Biblical characters, but I'm not sure how exactly it's different. 

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