encapsulated photos on Flickr

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Inside the Mezquita (Mihrab) by Neil Noland

The Mezquita encapsulates about 1,500 years of Cordoban history in one location.

The building that you will see standing on this location is simultaneously called: the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba (Mezquita-Catedral de Cordoba), the Great Mosque of Cordoba (Mezquita de Cordoba), and Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption (Catedral de Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion). How on Earth did that come to pass? Well, a little history of the site...

Before the Christians were the Moors, and before the Moors, the Visigoths...who had built a (presumably humble, I imagine) church called St. Vincent's here. It was a Catholic church.

When the Moors came along in 711 A.D., everyone prayed happily in the church (most likely different times and different locations in the church). Eventually, the Moorish ruler, Abd al-Rahman I, bought out the Christian interest in the church and ordered construction of the Great Mosque on the site in 784 A.D..

Subsequent rulers expanded the mosque. Abd al-Rahman II ordered a new minaret (the current bell tower) to be built. (The site of the original minaret is a few meters inside the Door of Forgiveness on the patio of oranges.) Al-Hakam II enlarged the building and enriched the mihrab (most important section of the mosque) in 961 A.D. The last of the expansions took place in 987 A.D. under al-Mansur with the completion of the outer naves (practically doubling the size of the building) and courtyard. At that time, the mosque could accommodate about 35,000 people.

There have been subtractions, too. There was once a raised walkway that connected the mosque to the palace which no longer exists.

Architecturally, it was originally a square design with a central nave leading from the door to the mihrab with 5 naves on each side. The columns (jasper, onyx, marble, granite) are from a previous Roman building on site. The double arches are in horseshoe shape (typical Muslim design) and are made of stone and brick in the original section and painted stone in the "new" 987 A.D. expansion.

Well, that's a rough summary of the mosque, but this is a cathedral, too. When King Fernando III reconquered Cordoba in 1236, I'm told he found the mosque so beautiful he didn't want to destroy it. (Look at the Seville Cathedral in contrast; that was the site of the mosque and, well...it's almost completely gone.)

This is the opposite. The minaret stopped being a minaret calling Muslims to prayer and was converted into the bell tower that you see.

The most bizarre thing, though, is the interior of the mosque. Along the edges, the naves have primarily been converted into chapels. There are about 45 chapels around the building. There's also an (old) main chapel and a current chapel which is beautiful. Standing inside the current chapel, you almost forget you're in a mosque. Also, there's a sacristy that has a few treasures and looks like it has no business being in a mosque.

It's a very strange (and beautiful) dynamic that you see in this place. This doesn't come for free, though.

Spanish Muslims would like to pray here in the mosque. It's their history, too. They've petitioned both the Spanish church and the Vatican, only to be repeatedly denied. In 2010, a few Muslim tourists (from an eastern European tour group) prayed here and were stopped by guards who told them to continue with the tour or leave. They began to fight...

Who knows what the future of this place will be? Nothing on this planet seems to last forever.

Inside the Mezquita by Neil Noland