Cordoba Cathedral
After the conquest of Granada, King Charles V decided the construction of a Cathedral that would surpass the Mosque in height while respecting the latter.
Posted on 04/19/2004 7:10:38 AM PDT by NYer
Muslims across Spain are lobbying the Roman Catholic church in the southern city of Córdoba to make a symbolic gesture of reconciliation between faiths by allowing them to pray in the city's cathedral. Córdoba's renaissance cathedral sits in the centre of an ancient mosque complex, and local Muslims want to be allowed to pray there again. They have appealed to the Vatican to intercede on their behalf. Zakarias Maza, the director of the Taqwa mosque in neighbouring Granada, said yesterday: "We hope the Vatican will give a signal that it has a vision of openness and dialogue. "It would be good if there were a gesture of tolerance on their part. "Córdoba has been a symbol of the union of three cultures for centuries. Even now, Jews and Muslims live together with Christians in the neighbourhood around the mosque." But he added: "The church council doesn't seem to be open to dialogue." The Muslim community in the south of Spain is growing as a result of immigration from north Africa, and due to Spaniards converting. Córdoba now has some 500 Muslims, too manyfor the city's existing mosque. There was widespread rejoicing among Muslims last year when a new and prominent mosque was opened in Granada after many years of negotiations, but church leaders in Córdoba appear reluctant to acknowledge the way Spanish society is evolving. A spokesman for the local bishop told El Mundo that the proposal faced a lot of obstacles and it would be many years before it came to anything. The proposals have also provoked anger in some parts of Spain's Catholic community. "Will Christians be able to pray in the mosques of Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Iran or Kuwait?" demanded one contributor to a Catholic website. "Muslims should practise what they preach!" The Muslim community is going out of its way to portray the proposals as a union, and not a clash of faiths. "In no way is this request about reclaiming our rights - far less any kind of reconquest," Isabel Romero, a member of the Islamic Council of Spain, told a local newspaper. "Instead, we want to give our support to the universal character of this building." Nowadays, Córdoba is a small provincial capital in one of the poorer regions in the Spanish interior, but 1,000 years ago it was one of the great cities of the world. As the capital of Moorish Spain, Córdoba became one of Islam's holiest places, and a centre of Islamic art and scholarship to rival Baghdad. The original mosque was built in the eighth century, following the conquest. It was expanded by successive generations of rulers until the city was taken by the Christians again in the 13th century. With its hundreds of marble columns and distinctive red-and-white brickwork, the mosque is considered one of Moorish Spain's greatest legacies, despite the 16th-century addition of the cathedral in its centre. It stands at the heart of a Unesco world heritage site.
After the conquest of Granada, King Charles V decided the construction of a Cathedral that would surpass the Mosque in height while respecting the latter.
In 780 AD, begin the construction of the biggest mosque the world had ever known over the structure of what it was known as the visgothic church of Saint Vincent.
The 23,400 square meters that occupies the actual mosque with almost 500 columns and superimposed arches, they are the partial creation of Abderramán I, of Abderramán II, of Alhaken II and of Almanzor already by the year 987 AD. It is considered the epitome of the caifal art, and its fantastic forest of columns and arches in its interior is one of the most beautiful spaces ever constructed in a house of worship. The orientation of the Mihrab, curiously is not towards Meccah. In 1253, at the center of its complex, a Christian cathedral is built.
And as a gesture of reconciliation, I suggest that the Mohammedans allow Christians to practice their religion freely in all formerly Christian lands conquered by Mohammedans, which would be the entire Mohammedan world.
Why should this or any church perform a Muslim outreach "gesture of reconcilliation"? What do they need to reconcile? How about the Muslims reconcile with the West by slithering away? Talk about a lie from the mouth of the Serpent. Isn't there a little fairy tale about a kid being convinced by a serpent to "pet me"? Maybe someone can recall how the story goes. It doesn't end well, I know that much.
Córdoba's renaissance cathedral sits in the centre of an ancient mosque complex, and local Muslims want to be allowed to pray there again. They have appealed to the Vatican to intercede on their behalf.
Well well, then what's the problem with Jews praying on the Temple Mount?
Once an Islamic holy place, always an Islamic holy place. I smell a "right of return" coming on.
And this reminds me... it seems like the news readers can't even mention a city in Iraq, without prefacing it with "the holy city of [insert name of city]". "Holy" must be an adjective meaning "overflowing with blood and death" in Arabic.
So they leveled our Church to put in their Mosque, and now they claim we are the ones being prickly because we won't let them deny Crist in a restored formerly desecrated Christian Church? F*** 'em.
Where's Charles Martel and El Cid when you need them?
Long gone, I'm afraid.
A liberal colleague was celebrating Spain's imminent withdrawal from Iraq today. "That'll send a message to Bush!"
Usually I ignore the diatribes, but today I said, "That they couldn't wait to surrender?"
You can imagine the rest.
The surrender continues.
Remember the Sudetenland.
And once a Mohammedan land, always a Mohammedan land. So that gives them Europe all the way up to Vienna.
Wake up, Spain!
Muslims pray with Washington Monument in rear.
Ibraham Hooper would say that you are not very Christian, tolerant, or loving.
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