Medina Azahara (Arabic: مدينة الزهراء‎ Madīnat az-Zahrā: literal meaning "the shining city") is the ruins of a vast, fortified Arab Muslim medieval palace-city built by Abd-ar-Rahman III (912–961), the first Umayyad Caliph of Córdoba, and located on the western outskirts of Córdoba, Spain. It was an Arab Muslim medieval town and the de facto capital of al-Andalus, or Muslim Spain, as the heart of the administration and government was within its walls.