When describing the construction of the Alhambra, Bettany Hughes credits "a huge empire stretching as far as China" with supplying the resources. Moorish Spain, however, was a breakaway state; a rival to, not a part of the Abbasid Caliphate. Furthermore, the Alhambra was built in the mid-14th century, one hundred years after the Abbasid Caliphate fell, and over 400 years after the Abbasids lost control of everything outside Iraq.