Ibn al-Jayyab

Ibn al-Jayyāb al-Gharnāṭī (ابن الجياب الغرناطي); Abū al-Ḥasan ‘Alī b. Muḥammad b. Suleiman b.

He was of Arab heritage descending from the Ansar tribe[citation needed] and was born in Granada, where he grew up and became involved with a group of distinguished scholars in that city.

He wrote his qasidas (poems) in a neo-classical style, and some still decorate the walls of the summer palace of the Nasrid sultans, the Alhambra.

[1] Ibn al-Jayyab's poems are etched into multiple areas of Alhambra including the Tower of the Captive (also known as the Qalahurra of Yusuf I), the Hall of Ambassadors, and the entrance of the Sala de la Barca.

[2] Below is one of his poems from the Tower of the Captive: This piece of art has come to decorate the Alhambra; which is the home of the peaceful and of the warriors; Calahorra that contains a palace.

It is a palace in which magnificence is shared among its ceiling, its floor and its four walls; on the stuccowork and on the glazed tiles there are wonders, but the carved wooden ceilings are even more extraordinary; these were all united and their union gave birth to the most perfect construction in the place where the highest mansion already stood; they seem poetic images, paronomasias and transpositions, the decorative branches and inlays.

[4] It is recorded that when the Yusuf was going to create a substitute to himself he had Ibn al-Jayyab, in his capacity of chief secretary, draft the legal paper to have this done.