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Islamic council calls for Cordoba cathedral to become ecumenical
Spain Herald.com ^ | February 17, 2006

Posted on 02/17/2006 2:33:20 AM PST by Asereje

The Spanish Islamic council has asked prime minister Rodriguez Zapatero to promote the conversion of Cordoba cathedral, which was previously a mosque, into an ecumenical temple. The council said that the gesture "would help with the foundation of the Alliance of Civilizations," and denounced "a continued campaign of Islamophobia in some media outlets." Mansur Escudero, president of the council, thanked Zapatero for his "brave support for alliance and understanding between civilizations, which should not leave out in any way the different religions." He said that the conversion of St. Sophia's Basilica in Istanbul and Cordoba cathedral to ecumenical temples would "allow Christians, Muslims, and believers in other religions to pray together to the same God and strengthen spiritual and brotherly links," and added, "We are convinced that the Catholic Church, which works for ecumenicalism and dialogue between Christianity and Islam, will receive this initiative favorably."


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: ecumenism; islam; religion
Its construction was begun by Abd al-Rahman I in 785 after pulling down the Visigothic Church of San Vicente.

Considering that they destroyed every Church to buil their mosques or converted them into mosques, a good gesture would be if they gave back them to their original use which was christian. Then we could start speaking about sharing them

1 posted on 02/17/2006 2:33:22 AM PST by Asereje
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To: Asereje

"Its construction was begun by Abd al-Rahman I in 785 after pulling down the Visigothic Church of San Vicente. "

Yeah, right! One more effort to convert the community to islam...by spoonfeeding mushy diet of tolerance.


2 posted on 02/17/2006 2:38:20 AM PST by Shery (S. H. in APOland)
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To: Asereje

This is positive.


3 posted on 02/17/2006 2:39:52 AM PST by sangrila
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To: Asereje

Zapatero will probably be there tomorrow to hand over the keys.


4 posted on 02/17/2006 2:47:03 AM PST by livius
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To: Asereje

The Hagia Sophia, formerly a church, now a mosque.

5 posted on 02/17/2006 2:47:24 AM PST by CarrotAndStick (The articles posted by me needn't necessarily reflect my opinion.)
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To: Asereje

http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/001637.php

Cordoba Cathedral may see return of Muslims

An interesting contrast to the desecration of the cathedral in Kosovo comes from the Guardian, with thanks to Elisot, who points out what this article doesn't mention: that the Cordoba mosque was built on top of a destroyed Christian church. What is also noteworthy about this initiative is the absolute lack of reciprocity from the Islamic world, where numerous churches have been converted to mosques — or even of any apparent sense that any reciprocity is even called for.

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.

The addition of the cathedral was only the most recent change of use for a site that has seen the ebb and flow of the world's great religions.

The Visigoths had their own cathedral on the site before they were defeated by the Moors. Before that, a temple to the Roman god Janus had stood there.

For Muslims, the most important part of the mosque is the mihrab, the recess in the south-eastern wall which indicates the direction of Mecca for prayer.

In the Córdoba mosque, the mihrab is outside the cathedral itself, so in theory it would be possible for Muslims to pray without affecting ceremonies in the cathedral.

The Islamic Council has lodged a formal request with the Vatican for Muslims to be allowed to pray in the mosque. "The request was very well received," Mansur Escudero, secretary of the Islamic council, told El Mundo.

The plan also has support from local politicians. Antonio Hurtado, a spokesman for the local Socialists, told El Mundo: "We hope to see Córdoba become a place for the meeting of faiths."

The city's United Left (IU) mayor, Rosa Aguilar, is also believed to be in favour of the move, although she has said that now is not the time for the council to debate the issue.

"There has been a series of meetings between the IU and the Islamic Council to open up a dialogue between religions," her deputy, Andrès Ocaòa, told Europa Press. "In today's world, we have to make every effort to maximise our knowledge of different cultures to help us live together better."


Posted by Robert at April 19, 2004 02:05 PM | Print this entry

Comments
(Note: Comments on articles are unmoderated, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Dhimmi Watch or Robert Spencer. Comments that are off-topic, offensive, slanderous, or otherwise annoying may be summarily deleted. However, the fact that particular comments remain on the site IN NO WAY constitutes an endorsement by Robert Spencer of the views expressed therein.)
Oriana Fallaci's La Forza della Ragione details just how fully many in the Vatican, and individual bishops and priests, have collaborated in making Italy, and other parts of Europe, welcoming for Muslims, even handing over churches for use by Muslims as living quarters. Her long indictment is overwhelming. It goes far beyond the desire to placate Muslims because otherwise they may harm Christians in the Middle East, and has become a vehicle for those priests who detest their own civilization, and exhibit a diseased sympathy for those who would not, for one minute, were Muslims to rule, to tolerate them or their own believers. Surely at Cordoba, with the bluish whitewash of the walls, and narrow streets, and the reddish gitanillas hanging over the balconies in the Juderia, a stand must be taken, and this request, with its sinister cheek, be rejected. Somewhere there has to be a Charles Martel moment -- if not in Cordoba, then by closing the mosques in Rome and Paris and Brussels and London and...Europe must be made not friendly, but hostile, to demographic conquest, and removing the mosques will be indispensable.

The idea that the Christians are being asked for a gesture of reconciliation, just after the Madrid bombing, and then the desecration of the corpse -- taken out of the grave -- of the Spanish anti-terrorist policeman, fills one with fury.

Posted by: Hugh at April 19, 2004 03:10 PM
What reconciliation are muslims expecting? It was they who invaded. Where is their apology for this? When will they be asked to renounce their "Colonialism?"

They bemoan the Crusades like a broken record but ignore their own transgressions.

I believe the secular aspects of the government and city council will pressure the Catholic Church in the area to placate the muslims. I hope that the Church of Rome will deny the request and sled light on the one-sidedness of muslim's requests.

Here is an interesting fact, the spokeswoman for the Islamic Council is a convert. Because Spain is mainly Roman Catholic, she most likely was Christian. Because she has left the True Faith, she is an apostate. She is still alive and well. She would not be afforded the same if she decided to leave Islam.

Which is the more compassionate and tolerant Faith?

John

Posted by: John at April 19, 2004 05:22 PM
Reading articles like this makes so angry I can't even put into words! The unmitigated gall of these people!


A little help please...

Can someone tell me the correct pronunciation of dhimmi?

Posted by: Skeptic at April 19, 2004 07:35 PM
Islam is saying "Welcome back, we missed you, you had to know you were ours all along." Of course the Spanish will give in because they have accepted their dhimmitude.

As for any expectation of reciprocity, the return of churches from the clutches of Islam, don't hold your breath. For Islam, Muslims are people, and non-Muslims are not. They are Infidels, beings fit only for hell, lower than dogs. (Which to Muslims are pretty darn low as it is.)

They will not be satisfied until all the non-Muslim holy places have been destroyed, converted to mosques, museums, or placed under "Muslim protection," and all living creatures are subjected to their will.

Posted by: epg at April 19, 2004 09:03 PM
The honey venom slides from the muslim mouth that it would be a good jester for the vatican. The truth is thay will make a mockery of this jester as thay have done before. The pope will grant their wishes, falling to the venom of satans children and their friendship. Christianity will not survive with weak links to defend it; if the vatican should complie let us christians and jews worship in a mosque as a sign of our undying friendship with the muslim.

Posted by: christian at April 19, 2004 09:11 PM
The grand myth of the "creative, tolerant Andalus" should be exposed.

Granted, at rare times, temporarily, it manifested some positive qualities - in comparison to the Europe of the Dark Ages and to other parts of the Dar el-Islam then - but, objectively, it was never the paradise which it's often nowadays painted by the apologists for Jihad.

Normally, it was a society where dhimmitude was rigidly enforced: the fact that a tiny handful of Jews and Christians could occasionally, exceptionally, aberrantly, rise out of their endemic wretchedness (shared with the bulk of the Moslems living there) made it slightly better than anything else around at that period, but it was hardly the good and just place that it's idolized as today.

Great care ought to be applied in heaping praise on el-Andalus; no effort at all should be expended to return to its spurious "glory-days".

Posted by: HG at April 20, 2004 02:57 AM
There is NO way that ANY Christian church should allow Muslim services - would a mosque in Egypt, etc allow for Christian services in it?

The old glory days of Andalucia are soon to become the "gory days" for the dhimmis in Spain.

jihan

Posted by: jihan at April 20, 2004 07:01 AM
They bemoan the Crusades because they [the Muslims] started the crusades and then lost much of what they conquered.

Posted by: Malcolm at April 20, 2004 11:49 AM
White muslim converts, like reformed smokers, are the most zealous is pushing muslim demands, cf. Adel Smith in Italy with crucifixes in the classroom. Also, isn't Ibrahim Cooper of Cair one?

Posted by: Silvester at April 20, 2004 02:13 PM


6 posted on 02/17/2006 2:51:49 AM PST by CarrotAndStick (The articles posted by me needn't necessarily reflect my opinion.)
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To: CarrotAndStick

I'm thinking of popping up the road to London and asking if I can Praise Jesus this Sunday in the Finbsbury Park Mosque.

'Bums rush' comes to mind for some reason.


7 posted on 02/17/2006 2:56:27 AM PST by vimto (Life isn't a dry run)
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To: vimto

Probably because they rush to raise their bums at the mosque..


8 posted on 02/17/2006 3:02:00 AM PST by sheik yerbouty ( Make America and the world a jihad free zone!)
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To: CarrotAndStick
Interesting post with interesting quotes, etc. This is true:

It goes far beyond the desire to placate Muslims because otherwise they may harm Christians in the Middle East, and has become a vehicle for those priests who detest their own civilization

Much of the clerical concern over "immigrants" (while Spain and Italy do have immigrants from Eastern Europe, the immigrants in question here are virtually always Moroccan or ME and illegal) that has led them to let groups of "immigrants" take over Catholic churches and live in them until somebody with common sense kicked them out is basically motivated by left-wing anti-Western feeling. These people hate their own culture so much that they are willing to collude with anybody in destroying it.

9 posted on 02/17/2006 3:04:37 AM PST by livius
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To: sheik yerbouty

Do I detect a hint of Frank Zappa in your tag line sir!

kind regards,


10 posted on 02/17/2006 3:11:06 AM PST by vimto (Life isn't a dry run)
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To: Asereje
I think the Pope has whispered on this topic.
11 posted on 02/17/2006 3:13:38 AM PST by SubMareener (Become a monthly donor! Free FreeRepublic.com from Quarterly FReepathons!)
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To: Asereje
"allow Christians, Muslims, and believers in other religions to pray together to the same God

This is great news! Calling for Muslims to renounce their false religion, and begin praying to God, instead of the false god allah. We Christians should welcome this opportunity for the conversion of the Muslim community.

12 posted on 02/17/2006 3:23:19 AM PST by FatherofFive (Choose life!)
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To: Asereje
Screw em... "Shoot em in the back Gomez"
13 posted on 02/17/2006 3:46:42 AM PST by Vaquero (time again for the Crusades.)
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To: CarrotAndStick
What I can get quite right is why he have to do such gesture? I mean we are who were conquered and we who have been murdered in Madrid and we still are waiting for the cooperation of the Morocco authorities to discover all the truth about who was involved in this terrorist attack, most of the terrorist were Moroccan.

Have French people to ask pardon for fighting back Nazis and recover their country? Have any Muslim ask pardon for invading Spain and destroying our culture and make us second citizens? For not letting open churches in Arabia?....

Why they lack of objectivity? Why are we always who have to apologize?

I don't have any against speak with them and share opinions and find channels to communicate...but to be hones I don't trust them. I am sorry but I have the feeling that they are kidding us, to make us confidence and use our democracy to recover what one day the lost. So I don't feel their intentions are clear and good for us. They are taking advantage of some of ours European tools but trying of reject others like free of speech as they don't really accept our rules and to integrate in our society. They want us to integrate in theirs.
14 posted on 02/17/2006 4:14:49 AM PST by Asereje
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To: SubMareener

I agree with the Pope.

Good link, thanks


15 posted on 02/17/2006 4:23:30 AM PST by Asereje
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To: CarrotAndStick
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."

That is, of course, until the islamists gain control and kill all of the infidels.

16 posted on 02/17/2006 4:48:16 AM PST by woofer (No amount of planning will ever replace dumb luck.)
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To: woofer

Isn't there a more appropriate place for the Muslims of Cordoba to worship? Like a local garbage dump?


17 posted on 02/17/2006 5:24:25 AM PST by BW2221
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To: vimto

I fondly remember his first two albums. "It was a long time ago, in a galaxy far away."


18 posted on 02/17/2006 6:35:45 AM PST by sheik yerbouty ( Make America and the world a jihad free zone!)
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To: Asereje

Over my dead body. Deus Volt.


19 posted on 02/18/2006 12:18:57 AM PST by The Cuban
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