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- “Mezquita” is Spanish (from Arabic) for mosque but is commonly used to refer to the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba, which is now a Christian church only and not a working mosque. Officially, the name is Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption (Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Asuncion) but that is rarely used outside religious administration circles.
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Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba, Islamic mosque in Córdoba, Spain, which was converted into a Christian cathedral in the 13th century. The original structure was built by the Umayyad ruler ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān I in 784–786 with extensions in the 9th and 10th centuries that doubled its size, ultimately making.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
The Great Mosque of Córdoba (commonly referred to as La Mezquita) is one of the jewels of Islamic civilisation. It is to Córdoba what the Alhambra Palace is to Granada and the Giralda tower is to Seville, a unique focal point of identification, appropriated by Christians through conquest.
One of the world's greatest works of Islamic architecture, the Mezquita hints, with all its lustrous decoration, at a refined age when Muslims, Jews and Christians lived side by side and enriched their city with a heady interaction of diverse, vibrant cultures.
- Overview
- Temple/church/mosque/church
- A new capital
- The hypostyle hall
- The mihrab
- The horseshoe arch
- The dome
By Dr. Shadieh Mirmobiny
Known locally as Mezquita-Catedral, the Great Mosque of Córdoba is one of the oldest structures still standing from the time Muslims ruled Al-Andalus (Muslim Iberia including most of Spain, Portugal, and a small section of Southern France) in the late 8th century. Córdoba is a two hour train ride south of Madrid, and draws visitors from all over the world.
The buildings on this site are as complex as the extraordinarily rich history they illustrate. Historians believe that there had first been a temple to the Roman god, Janus, on this site. The temple was converted into a church by invading Visigoths who seized Córdoba in 572. Next, the church was converted into a mosque and then completely rebuilt b...
Following the overthrow of his family (the Umayyads) in Damascus by the incoming Abbasids, Prince Abd al-Rahman I escaped to southern Spain. Once there, he established control over almost all of the Iberian Peninsula and attempted to recreate the grandeur of Damascus in his new capital, Córdoba. He sponsored elaborate building programs, promoted ag...
The building itself was expanded over two hundred years. It is comprised of a large hypostyle prayer hall (hypostyle means, filled with columns), a courtyard with a fountain in the middle, an orange grove, a covered walkway circling the courtyard, and a minaret (a tower used to call the faithful to prayer) that is now encased in a squared, tapered ...
The focal point in the prayer hall is the famous horseshoe arched mihrab or prayer niche. A mihrab is used in a mosque to identify the wall that faces Mecca—the birth place of Islam in what is now Saudi Arabia. This is practical as Muslims face toward Mecca during their daily prayers. The mihrab in the Great Mosque of Córdoba is framed by an exquis...
The horseshoe-style arch was common in the architecture of the Visigoths, the people that ruled this area after the Roman empire collapsed and before the Umayyads arrived. The horseshoe arch eventually spread across North Africa from Morocco to Egypt and is an easily identified characteristic of Western Islamic architecture (though there are some e...
Above the mihrab, is an equally dazzling dome. It is built of crisscrossing ribs that create pointed arches all lavishly covered with gold mosaic in a radial pattern. This astonishing building technique anticipates later Gothic rib vaulting, though on a more modest scale.
The Great Mosque of Córdoba is a prime example of the Muslim world's ability to brilliantly develop architectural styles based on pre-existing regional traditions. Here is an extraordinary combination of the familiar and the innovative, a formal stylistic vocabulary that can be recognized as “Islamic” even today.
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Additional resources:
Al-Andalus: the art of Islamic Spain, ed. Jerrilynn D. Dodds (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art) 1992
Aug 16, 2022 · Córdoba's stunning mosque-cathedral showcases Spain's Muslim heritage. Christian forces captured the Umayyad capital in 1236, but left its glorious house of worship largely untouched when...
Member of the Umayyad dynasty and grandson of Caliph Hisham of Damascus, he managed to escape from the Abbasids and reach the Iberian Peninsula. His life in Cordoba began with the conquest of the city after triumphing in the battle of al-Musara, on 14 May of the year 756.
Mezquita de Córdoba. The Great Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba is the most important Islamic monument in the West, and one of the world’s most amazing sites. Its history sums up the complete evolution of the Omeyan style in Spain, along with the Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque styles present in the Christian part of the structure.
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