La Mezquita

La Mezquita was ground zero for the flourishing culture of Córdoba during its four centuries of Moorish control and still stands as one of the largest mosques in the Islamic world. In its evolution, La Mezquita came to be a cathedral under the Christians. The mosque-cum-cathedral today advances Islamic, Mudéjar, Renaissance and Baroque styles.

[ Page of interest: Best of Spain ]

A Brief History of La Mezquita

Work on the mosque was begun in 784 AD under Abd Rahman-Rahman I on the site of a former Visigothic church, which had claimed the site of a former Roman temple. In a strange but not uncommon twist, the design was borrowed from a Christian basilica; various other Christian monuments throughout southern Spain were looted for the capitals and columns that would adorn the interior. Christians and Jews were put to work on the task and their names are inscribed on walls and columns throughout the mosque.

A century later, Abd Rahman-Rahman III oversaw the reinforcement of the north wall and erection of a new minaret, al Alminar, which was the tower used to call faithful to service. Fully a century after that in the years 962-976, Al Hakam II hired artists from the Orient to embellish the mosque’s attractive mirhab, the niche indicating the kiblah or sacred stone marking the direction to face when kneeling to Mecca. He also added 12 naves to the 12 already in place; eight more were added later under al-Mansur. The mirhab consists of three richly detailed chapels accented with blue and bronze colored ceramic mosaics, with carved marble and stucco latticework and numerous inscribed passages of the Koran.

The La Mezquita Structure

The structure itself is fairly unimpressive from the outside, a great dirty square of walls with false arches and no indication of what resides inside. The walls were originally open so that the faithful could enter from any direction and the effect must have been like that of walking into a great petrified forest of columns and arches. Now one must step through the gate and into the expansive Patio de Las Naranjas studded with orange trees to begin to surmise the scale of the place. Here the Muslims traditionally performed their ablutions, holy baths meant to cleanse the spirit, while inside they would invoke the fabled arm of Muhammad before setting off to battle the Christians. Once the Christians had reclaimed Córdoba in the 13th century and set to the task of reworking the mosque into a Christian domain, the walls were shut and chapels were added that can be seen lining the inside of the mosque/church where they collect dust. The Capilla de Santa Teresa is the most interesting with its 16th-century processional monstrance (a receptacle in which the consecrated Host is exposed for adoration) and heaps of gold and silver embellishment.

The Emergence of the Mosque-cum-Cathedral

Initially, only a few rows of the mosque’s trademark red and yellow banded arches were removed in the center to make way for the chapels. The actual Capilla Real was built later in the 16th century in a mix of Baroque, Gothic and plateresque styles. In touring the mosque, little emphasis is placed on the cathedral because so many consider it a monstrosity, nestled or perhaps plowed among the beautiful solid forest of columns with their Paleochristian and Roman capitals and their horseshoe arches, one atop of another filling 19 naves. Over 800 of these arches remain today and the sight of them is bewildering and sticks in the minds of visitors long after they’ve left. Upon seeing what the Christians had constructed in the mosque, King Carlos V, the man who had allowed the construction of the cathedral sight-unseen, is reported to have said, “If I had known what you were up to, you would not have done it. For what you have made here may be found in many other places, but what you have destroyed is to be found nowhere else in the world.”