This article addresses in detail the process of urbanization of Gharnāta (Granada), which starts with the collapse of the Spanish Umayyads and continues during the Party-Kings (mulūk al-tawāif), at the center of the scholarly activities; in this regard, we do not encounter the name of Gharnāta as a city in the sources of al-Andalus until the 5/11^th century. Gharnāta, in which the Islamic sovereignty continued the longest time in al-Andalus, depended on Ilbīra (Elvira) administratively after the Islamic conquest till the 5/11^th century and its name was rarely seen in the sources of al-Andalus as a small settlement. The urbanization in Gharnāta started in the 5/11^th century when Zīrīds, being one of the famous families of the Barbary tribes that took attention in the process of collapse of Spanish Umayyads, separated from Ilbīra, where they ruled, together the citizens and administered Gharnāta for the sake of themselves after their settlement. Remarkable scholarly activities started in Gharnāta during the rule of Zīrīds. This point takes the attention because important scholarly activities were not seen in the city till the Party-Kings era. The students of Gharnāta travelled (rihla) not only within al-Andalus but also outside. By this way, rich scholarly accumulation was carried and ulama families were emerged in the city. Because of migration of Ilbīra and the social problems of Cordoba at the same time, many people along with many scholars inhabited in Gharnāta at the beginning of the 5/11^th century. After that time the city had rapidly became one of the scholarly centers of al-Andalus.

The changing administrative and political position of Gharnāta reflected on the scholarly activities. The loss of Ilbīra’s early brilliant days and the considerable dynamism in Gharnāta were the most important results of the problems which occurred in Cordoba in the concept of this article. The change being in these two cities is explicitly seen in the records of the Andalusian authors of the bio-bibliographic dictionaries. Ilbīra, which was had a lively scholarly atmosphere until the beginning of the 5/11^th century, is gradually encountered in the records of the bio-bibliographic dictionaries after this century. However, the names of scholars from Ilbīra is seen in the Andalusian bio-bibliographic dictionaries from the beginning of the 5/11^th century to the middle of the 6/12^th century although their numbers compared to the past is remarkably decreased. On the contrary of the situation in Ilbīra, the name of Gharnāta, which is rarely seen in the bio-bibliographic dictionaries until the period in question, became more to appear in the 5/11^th century reveals the transformation in the process. It can be said that the presence of a large number of people from Ilbīra among the many active scholars in Gharnāta at the beginning of the 5/11^th century accelerated the formation process of the scholarly life in the city. On the other side, the examples of the students, who before went to the cities inside or outside al-Andalus in order to improve their education, indicate that the formation process in terms of scholarly activities has begun in Gharnāta because the Andalusian or Moorish students came to Gharnāta to take lessons from the scholars who died at the first half of the 6/12^th century.  

            The first stage that should be examined in terms of scholarly activities in Gharnāta, which became the most important scholarly center in the last two and half centuries of the Islamic rule in Andalusia, is the studies which carried on in the city in the 5/11^th century. In this period, a rich accumulation was moved in Gharnāta by the way of travels and the family of scholars appeared. In this context, the existence of the students is remarkable because some of them contacted the close relations with firstly Cordoba and the other cities of al-Andalus, and some of them went to the center of scholar outside the al-Andalus like Mecca and Egypt after their education in al-Andalus. It is seen that the major part of the works which were followed in the lessons by the way of reading in Gharnāta. Therefore, some fundamental works like the al-Muwatta’ and al-Mudawwana, which were studied by almost every student since a few centuries in al-Andalus, were learned by the way of discussion. Many examples, which introduce that a work could be read in Gharnāta or in any city from different scholars, show that a rich scholarly accumulation moved in the city. Thus, the records of Ibn al-Atiyya who is one of the eminent scholars of that time express that the Bukhārī’s Sahīh was in circulation by its different narratives in al-Andalus in the 5/11^th century.

            The bio-bibliographic dictionaries that reached today reveal that almost all scholars from Gharnāta lived in the 5/11^th century were specialist in the field of religious sciences. On the one hand, it cannot be ignored the fact that a statistical inference depending on these records can be incomplete. Because the works that mention the scholars who were specialist especially intellectual sciences in al-Andalus ended with Tabaqāt al-umam which was written by Sāid al-Andalusī; consequently, the prominent people in intellectual sciences in Gharnāta during the period in question are not explicitly seen. Similarly, it can be thought that the scholars living in some cities may not be reflected in statistics because of the probable difficulties that the authors of the bio-bibliographic dictionaries could encounter in reaching the biographies of these scholars. However, the information was given in al-Ihāta fī akhbār Gharnāta was written as Gharnāta city history by litterateur, historian and statesman Ibn al-Khatīb lived in the 8/14^th century reveals that the arguments for Gharnāta suggested in this article remain valid because this work did not offer a different picture from other the bio-bibliographic dictionaries.