text:  And like a fairy fabric did Az-zahra vanish; for so utterly was it destroyed during the wars and civil tumults attending the fall of the race which raised it that at the present day not a stone can be found not a vestige even of the foundations traced to show where it once stood; and all that we know of this "wondrous freak of magnificence" is drawn from the glowing accounts of contemporary writers who saw it during the brief period of its glory