The taxi wound through the tight streets of Cordoba's old town. The white buildings seemed to lean into one another, sheltering the little plazas tucked between them. Little promises of things yet to be discovered.
I arrived at my hotel / bar / restaurant and was greeted by a dog. He didn't speak English. Nobody there did, in fact. But it was cheap, well-located and conveniently, my room was just up the stairs from the bar. My first night there I was adopted by a British couple who had tried to park their car in Cordoba. The resulting dents were a topic of much discussion at dinner. They invited me over after seeing me eating alone with my copy of War and Peace. I gladly accepted their invitation. Nothing like War and Peace to encourage one to seek out company.
When I talk to fellow travelers and I mention Cordoba and the Mezquita, many of them have no idea what or where I'm talking about. I find this difficult to understand, since the city itself is so beautiful, and the Mezquita is a place of infinite spirituality and architectural grandeur. The first time I saw a picture of the Mezquita, I knew that this was a place that I had to see in person.
Cordoba is a one of the great cities in southern Spain. I personally think it gives Granada a run for the money. And the Mezquita easily competes with the Alhambra. Not necessarily in size or historical significance maybe, but the architecture is completely stunning. The temple-turned-church-turned-mosque-turned-Catholic cathedral is magical. One of those special places in the world - sacred.
Southern Spain is such an interesting place. This is one of those places where people, cultures, and religions have marched through over and over and each has left a mark.
The Mezquita was built by Abd al-Rahman, a Umayyad ruler who fled Damascus and claimed Moorish Spain as his own. His reign - and the building of the Mezquita - was a continuation of what his family had lost in Syria.
"...the qibla of this mosque - the orientation that in all mosques points the faithful toward Mecca when they pray - is not in the direction of Mecca but something more like due south, as it would be if the mosque were indeed in Damascus." - from The Ornament of the World by Maria Rosa Menocal.
The site has been a Roman temple, a Visigoth church (mosaics from the original church are still visible through a hole in the floor), a mosque, and is now a Catholic Cathedral - and they don't let you forget it, either. The literature available to tourists is all Virgin Mary this, Christian worship that. Some Muslims are calling to have the Mezquita become a mosque again, but they have been rebuked. That it was "originally" a Visigoth church site is an argument that is used to keep Islam out.
Religious strife aside, the architecture of this place demands your full attention. More than 850 columns of granite, jasper, onyx and marble create magnificent candy cane arches that are arranged in patterns, tricking the eye into thinking they go on forever. The mihrab ("place of prayer" in Arabic) is richly decorated. It once held a gilt copy of the Koran - the worn stones show where pilgrims circled it on their knees.
The original mosque was built between 785 and 787, but the building evolved over the years. In June 1236, Cordoba was conquered by the Christians and the mosque became a Catholic church. Then during the 16th century a cathedral was built smack in the middle of the mosque.
Just to round itself out, religiously speaking, the city also gave birth to one of the greatest Jewish thinkers of all time.
Moses Ben Maimon (better known as Maimonides), the most prolific and influential Torah scholar on the Middle Ages was born in Cordoba in 1135. There is a statue of him in a scholarly pose in one of the squares. Maimonides was already known as a prodigy when the Almohads led a wave of Muslim fundamentalism into Spain beginning in 1146. Many Jews from Southern Spain fled north into Christian areas, or into Africa - looking, perhaps for a more tolerant Muslim regime. Maimonides was one such refugee. His family ended up in Egypt - where he became world famous as a philosopher, scholar and medical doctor.
The old town is a warren of little white houses with little blue pots on the walls, filled with little red flowers. It is warm and the sounds of the horse drawn carriages going past my room reverberate through the open balcony doors. I felt in Cordoba how I imagine others have felt in this city. Comfortable - but still a stranger.
A palm tree stands in the middle of Rusafa,
Born in the West, far from the land of palms.
I said to it: How like me you are, far away and in exile,
In long separation from family and friends.
You have sprung from soil in which you are a stranger;
And I, like you, am far from home.
- Abd al-Rahman, builder of the Mezquita
I arrived at my hotel / bar / restaurant and was greeted by a dog. He didn't speak English. Nobody there did, in fact. But it was cheap, well-located and conveniently, my room was just up the stairs from the bar. My first night there I was adopted by a British couple who had tried to park their car in Cordoba. The resulting dents were a topic of much discussion at dinner. They invited me over after seeing me eating alone with my copy of War and Peace. I gladly accepted their invitation. Nothing like War and Peace to encourage one to seek out company.
When I talk to fellow travelers and I mention Cordoba and the Mezquita, many of them have no idea what or where I'm talking about. I find this difficult to understand, since the city itself is so beautiful, and the Mezquita is a place of infinite spirituality and architectural grandeur. The first time I saw a picture of the Mezquita, I knew that this was a place that I had to see in person.
Cordoba is a one of the great cities in southern Spain. I personally think it gives Granada a run for the money. And the Mezquita easily competes with the Alhambra. Not necessarily in size or historical significance maybe, but the architecture is completely stunning. The temple-turned-church-turned-mosque-turned-Catholic cathedral is magical. One of those special places in the world - sacred.
Southern Spain is such an interesting place. This is one of those places where people, cultures, and religions have marched through over and over and each has left a mark.
The Mezquita was built by Abd al-Rahman, a Umayyad ruler who fled Damascus and claimed Moorish Spain as his own. His reign - and the building of the Mezquita - was a continuation of what his family had lost in Syria.
"...the qibla of this mosque - the orientation that in all mosques points the faithful toward Mecca when they pray - is not in the direction of Mecca but something more like due south, as it would be if the mosque were indeed in Damascus." - from The Ornament of the World by Maria Rosa Menocal.
The site has been a Roman temple, a Visigoth church (mosaics from the original church are still visible through a hole in the floor), a mosque, and is now a Catholic Cathedral - and they don't let you forget it, either. The literature available to tourists is all Virgin Mary this, Christian worship that. Some Muslims are calling to have the Mezquita become a mosque again, but they have been rebuked. That it was "originally" a Visigoth church site is an argument that is used to keep Islam out.
Religious strife aside, the architecture of this place demands your full attention. More than 850 columns of granite, jasper, onyx and marble create magnificent candy cane arches that are arranged in patterns, tricking the eye into thinking they go on forever. The mihrab ("place of prayer" in Arabic) is richly decorated. It once held a gilt copy of the Koran - the worn stones show where pilgrims circled it on their knees.
The original mosque was built between 785 and 787, but the building evolved over the years. In June 1236, Cordoba was conquered by the Christians and the mosque became a Catholic church. Then during the 16th century a cathedral was built smack in the middle of the mosque.
Just to round itself out, religiously speaking, the city also gave birth to one of the greatest Jewish thinkers of all time.
Moses Ben Maimon (better known as Maimonides), the most prolific and influential Torah scholar on the Middle Ages was born in Cordoba in 1135. There is a statue of him in a scholarly pose in one of the squares. Maimonides was already known as a prodigy when the Almohads led a wave of Muslim fundamentalism into Spain beginning in 1146. Many Jews from Southern Spain fled north into Christian areas, or into Africa - looking, perhaps for a more tolerant Muslim regime. Maimonides was one such refugee. His family ended up in Egypt - where he became world famous as a philosopher, scholar and medical doctor.
The old town is a warren of little white houses with little blue pots on the walls, filled with little red flowers. It is warm and the sounds of the horse drawn carriages going past my room reverberate through the open balcony doors. I felt in Cordoba how I imagine others have felt in this city. Comfortable - but still a stranger.
A palm tree stands in the middle of Rusafa,
Born in the West, far from the land of palms.
I said to it: How like me you are, far away and in exile,
In long separation from family and friends.
You have sprung from soil in which you are a stranger;
And I, like you, am far from home.
- Abd al-Rahman, builder of the Mezquita
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