ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the decorative programme of the Alhambra palace 'Mexuar', a former Nasrid council chamber used as a private chapel following the Christian conquest of Granada in 1492. The Mexuar is often overlooked by scholars on the basis that its many layers of ruined and restored features resist a single periodised reading. The foundations of the Mexuar are part of a private palace erected for Ismail I between 1314 and 1325, which was almost completely demolished and rebuilt by his grandson Muhammad V between 1362 and 1365 for the occasion of the mawlid, or Birth of the Prophet celebration. The Mexuar, often disregarded as a 'hodgepodge' of arbitrary features, comes alive through a postcolonial reading of its surfaces, helping to unearth the hierarchies and networks that informed its material transformation. Muslims remained in Granada in significant numbers even after the traditional partitioning and conversions administered by the frontier parish.
