“O Mosque of Cordoba! For thy existence and thy glory thou art indebted to love, to the tender passion that is immortal. In this way, thou, too, art eternal.”
Muhammad Iqbal
After driving for more than six hours, we finally reached Cordoba. Like most other travellers and tourists in the city, there was only one reason for our visit: the Great Mosque (or Mezquita), so beautifully eulogised by numerous writers and poets throughout history. I had waited a long time to visit; I knew its history well and had studied its architecture and decorative work at university, but I wasn’t prepared for the sadness and disappointment that I felt walking around its beautiful interior, in between its ‘horse-shoe’ arches.
What was once an open centre of worship and learning, at the heart of a community, was now dark and empty of worshippers. Most doors of the mosque, of which there are many on all sides of the building, were bolted shut, barring light from entering. I felt sad, not because this space no longer belonged to Muslims (as a side-note Spanish Muslims have repeatedly been denied permission to worship here), but because this was no longer a place of worship, open, welcoming and full of light.
Work on the Great Mosque began in 784, initiated by Caliph Abdur Rahman I. The original building was a small Visigoth church, but after the Muslim conquest in 711, it was shared by both Muslims and Christians. Later, the Caliph purchased the Christian half of the building, which was demolished to make way for the larger mosque. With its rectangular prayer hall, the layout of the building is much like that of the Great Mosque of Damascus and other early mosques. The hall contains 856 columns, the material for which was recycled from various Roman buildings. The well-known double arches employed by the building were an innovative new architectural device, allowing for a higher ceiling. The mosque’s mihrab was unique; it is not merely a niche in the wall, but a room in itself, complete with its own dome. Decorated with floral tile-work and Qur’anic inscriptions, the golden hues are still breathtaking to look at all these centuries later.
The mosque underwent a number of subsequent changes over the two centuries following its initial construction. By the end of this period, Cordoba itself had become the most populous city in the world, as well as a centre of education. Ibn Said reported that the Caliphal library at this time contained more than 400,000 volumes.[i] Science, literature and the arts flourished in this period, and numerous libraries, universities and medical schools were in operation throughout the city, which had earned its reputation as ‘the Ornament of the world.’ Al- Shaqundi, a thirteenth century resident noted:
“In the old time, Cordoba was the seat of empire, the centre of science, the beacon of religion, the abode of nobility and leadership. The inhabitants had deep respect for the Law and competed for the primacy in this science: and the kings humbled themselves before the doctors, exalting their station and acting in accordance with their opinions.”[ii]
During this time, the mosque would have been a hub of activity. With an estimated population of somewhere between 500,000 and a million residents, the mosque fulfilled a number of functions. Alongside its primary purpose as a communal prayer space, it served as an informal classroom and courtroom. According to Titus Burckhardt, many of those who taught at the mosque would have been famous, well-travelled men, who had visited the holy cities and completed their education in Arabia, Syria and Egypt. Sitting against a pillar in the great hall, they would teach students and visitors who would sit at their feet.
“They would draw on their incredibly certain memories, or would give a commentary on some fundamental text. All branches of learning that had some bearing on religion were taught, including not only knowledge of Arabic, in which the Koran was revealed, but also the law in all its aspects…”[iii]
In another part of the mosque, tribunals would be held by the supreme judge of Cordoba in a laid back and informal manner. The disputing parties would put forth their cases and the simply attired judge would dispense his ruling. The adhan (call to prayer), delivered from the minaret (now a church tower), would break-off the classes and court session, as worshippers, including those from the nearby markets, entered the mosque and assembled in rows behind the imam. As Burkhardt contends,
“ This rhythmenic repetition of the same ritual with its eternal, unchanging meaning, implanted an indelible seal on the entire way of life, and despite the disputes and troubles that divided Islamic Spain, the unity of this seal was never broken.”[iv]
In 1236, following a siege that lasted several months, Cordoba was conquered by King Ferdinand III of Castille as part of a wider campaign that would eventually end Islamic rule in Spain. 800 years after its construction, the Great Mosque was converted into a church. Its structure remained largely as it was, until 1528 when King Charles V gave permission for the construction of a cathedral in the courtyard. He later regretted his decision, reportedly commenting: “they have taken something unique in all the world and destroyed it to build something you can find in any city.” The imposing addition to the building, deprived it of “its unity of design” and was much lamented by later poets and art historians.[v] After the Reconquista, Cordoba steadily declined in importance, bringing to an end its reign as a world centre for poets, thinkers, scientists and scholars.
In 1931 Muhammad Iqbal, the poet and philosopher, visited the mosque and was granted permission to pray (he was one of the first Muslims to do so since the Reconquista). He was so moved by his visit that he later wrote:
“…immune from the shafts of time is the work of human hand,
When it has been conceived by impassioned men of God. Love illumines every act of the men divinely inspired:
Love is the essence of life-, love dies not, but death.”
Iqbal’s eulogy on the enduring nature of the works of a believer soon turns into a sorrowful lament of what once was. He asks,
“Where are the Moorish horsemen, the men of virtue, the embodiments of faith and the champions of truth?”
The beauty of the building, centuries after it was constructed by ‘impassioned men of God’, is undeniable. It doesn’t matter a great deal to me that Muslims no longer own or utilise this space, but it is both ironic and sad that the impetus behind its construction and the whole reason for its existence (and the city of Cordoba itself), is no longer acknowledged, even denied.
The mosque has been at the centre of some controversy in recent years, after it emerged that it had been renamed on Google Maps as ‘Cordoba Cathedral’ instead of Cordoba Mosque. It has been claimed that the Cathedral authorities have slowly been attempting to erase references to its Islamic past by altering its name and downplaying its Muslim heritage in any brochures and literature for the site. What was heartening to see however, is the backlash they faced from some local authority officials and ordinary Spanish citizens who saw this as a violation of the building’s history. In a letter signed by five former mayors of Cordoba, they stated,
“We especially express our concerns for the city council’s actions in relation to the Córdoba mosque, a masterpiece of Islamic art in Europe, and its decision to omit its Andalusian roots in brochures, posters, entrance tickets, audiovisual material and on the web…”
Thousands signed an online petition and the name ‘Cordoba Mosque’ was swiftly restored on Google Maps.
After my visit, I had left the mosque feeling a little empty. However, recently, I came across the words of Ahmad bin al-Mahdi al-Ghazzal, a Moroccan ambassador to Spain, who visited the mosque while on a diplomatic trip in 1766. 500 years after his own ancestors had been exiled from their homeland during the Reconquista, al-Ghazzal was able to put aside any personal sorrow and elevate himself above present realities. He reflected:
“We remembered what had happened there during the time of Islam…All of the sciences that were studied there, and all of the Qurʾanic verses that were recited there, and all of the prayers that were performed there, and how many times God (let him be exalted!) was revered there. And we began to imagine that the mosque’s walls and its columns were greeting us and consoling us from the great sorrow we felt, until we began to address the inanimate objects and to embrace the columns, one by one, and to kiss the walls and the surfaces of the mosque.”
Perhaps I ought to revisit.
For more on visiting Spain, read A Guide to Visiting Granada.
Footnotes
[i] Hendrickson, Jocelyn. “Andalusia.” In The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World. Oxford Islamic Studies Online, http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t236/e1129.
[ii] Quoted in Andalus: Hole, Edwyn, Spain Under the Muslims, 1958, pp.38.
[iii] Burckhardt, Titus, Moorish culture in Spain, 1972, pp 16.
[iv] Ibid.
[v] Murphy, James Cavanah, Arabian Antiquities of Spain 1760-1814, 1816.
