noun, feminine/alkaˈθaba/plural: alcazabas
a Moorish fortress within or beside a walled city
“no se transforma una alcazaba en castillo ni una mezquita en catedral para luego dejarla en manos del pueblo que crucificó a Cristo…” — one doesn’t turn a Moorish fortress into a castle, nor a mosque into a cathedral, only to leave it in the hands of the people that crucified Christ…
Borrowed from Arabic قَصَبَة (qaṣaba), via Andalusian Arabic. Cognate with English casbah.