WHEN the Catholic armies entered the city of Granada in Spain in the late 15th century, they also took over Alhambra, the palace-fortress complex whose construction had started in 1238 under the Nasirid reign. It was built in stages by the Muslim rulers, with the bulk of their work being completed more than a century later. In 1492, the last Moorish ruler handed over the keys of the city to the new rulers and went into exile. For their part, it is said that the Catholic armies of Queen Isabella were confused about what they found inside the palace, including the hammams. Subsequently, many changes were made, including the building of a church to replace a mosque. Today, Moorish baths in Granada are among the reminders of the Islamic culture that once prevailed.

Baths were not popular among the European monarchy. Their own palaces including the Versailles — whose construction started in 1661, centuries after the Alhambra was built — smelled of human excrement because sanitation arrangements were lacking.

The Spanish have proved themselves appreciative of the Alhambra over the centuries. Almost two centuries ago, the celebrated American writer Washington Irving visited and stayed at Alhambra. Realising the historical worth of the Andalusian jewel, Irving was inspired to write his famous collection of essays Tales of the Alhambra, which greatly influenced Western readers. Earlier, Napoleon’s troops had damaged parts of the palace. Later, the locals themselves mistreated it. Its decrepit state led Irving to write, “I have often observed that the more proudly a mansion has been tenanted in the day of its prosperity, the humbler are its inhabitants in the day of its decline, and that the palace of a king commonly ends in being the nestling-place of the beggar. The Alhambra is in a rapid state of similar transition. Whenever a tower falls to decay, it is seized upon by some tatterdemalion family, who become joint-tenants with the bats and owls, of its gilded halls; and hang their rags, those standards of poverty, out of its windows and loopholes.” Restoration efforts started in earnest as the truth hit home.

Today, Alhambra is a World Heritage Site and under constant restoration work, with hundreds of people laboriously restoring the plaster and tiles that have made it so remarkable. Thousands of people throng to the palace everyday having paid hundreds of euros for tickets that must be booked months in advance.

A sense of serenity and wonder persists as the tourist wanders through courtyards full of fragrant orange trees.

Despite the crowds, there is magic at Alhambra. The genius undergirding the place’s construction entrances anyone who manages to walk its halls. It is uncanny, this magical ethereal feeling that surrounds the visitor — the palace rooms are not very large or terribly luxurious and quite unlike the Baroque palaces of Europe that would be built later. Yet, a strange sense of serenity and wonder persists and enraptures the sensitive soul wandering through its courtyards full of orange trees and their trademark scent.

There isn’t any science to prove the existence of the sort of energy that takes over at Alhambra. But places, just like particular people, have a certain kind of energy which can be dark or light, negative or positive.

In people, it can be pinned to what they do or may have done in the past — a kind of accumulated energy, which seems to envelop those we know to be evolved souls and who are full of peace and wisdom. Similarly, the energy that surrounds toxic people, who are consumed with envy and malice, is also strangely palpable — it radiates in a way as to make the other person uneasy or creates a sense of foreboding. It is said that the worst criminals palpably emit this dark and negative energy, which gives others a feeling of evil or danger being close by.

With respect to the energy of places — the spirit of place — our own memories can create experiences. It is said that the places where one is raised — an ancestral village or a grandparent’s home perhaps — leave a firm imprint on the soul, and whenever a person returns to these places a deep emotion is stirred within. This is why nearly everyone recognises and longs for the energy and imprint of the places which they frequented or lived in as children.

If the Alhambra gives rise to a sense of serenity — and perhaps a sense of nostalgia for history aficionados — places that have seen a lot of death and suffering also leave their imprint in the form of a negative energy. One example of this are the concentration camps where millions of Jews were killed during World War II. Even though the buildings and other structures at these former camps have been torn down for the most part, a heavy and dark energy hangs in the air as one approaches the sites of horror. It is as if the energy imprint of all the people that suffered there is still lingering.

The feelings evoked by certain places cast a strange sort of spell on those who encounter them. Perhaps there is some spiritual component to it. Whatever the case, the sense one gets upon entering a place is something one pays attention to, sometimes treating it as an early warning system.

The mystery of a place like Alhambra is that its creators seemed not only to know that intuitive senses of knowing and feeling would exist centuries later but also how to enhance them through the architectural spaces they created. The sounds of the fountains, the wafting fragrance of orange blossoms, the delicacy of the arches and the soaring ceilings are all part of an orchestral arrangement that still plays so many centuries after it was created.

All this shows that truth and beauty do not always come from gilt and gold but are part of our senses and emerge when the hidden magic of places leaves its luminous imprint on the human soul.

The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.

rafia.zakaria@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, December 18th, 2024