the only illustrated manuscript from the Maghreh of the Almohad era to have come down to the present-day is an incomplete copy of a popular love story, Lacking conclusive clues as to date and origin, of the fourteen surviving miniatures, some illustrate genre scenes set in a garden with personages cheered by musicians. The motifs are reworked from contemporary Syrian and Mesopotamian production, with the introduction of elements for the most part familliar to Aldalus readers, for whom a work that, in the eye of some, was produced in Granada or Seville, may have been destined. It is this backdrop that spawned the numerous miradores, lobate arches, the alternately coloured sections of wall, and the differnt bonds used in the building stone. Beyond offering a tantalizing glimpse into the cultural life of the ruling classes of the time - with the gorgeous detail of the girl totally absorbed in the music and holding goblets of wine (a favourite subject that recurs in Almoravid textiles)- this precious manuscript is clearly the fruit of an élite tradition whose precedents are lost in the mist of time.