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Vatican rebuff to Spanish Muslims Giles Tremlett in Madrid Monday May 3, 2004 The Guardian The Vatican will not allow Muslims to pray once more in the Mezquita, the former mosque that is now the cathedral of Cordoba, telling them they must "accept history" and not try to "take revenge" on the Catholic church. "We, too, want to live in peace with persons of other religions," Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, told the Vatican's AsiaNews agency. "However, we don't want to be pushed, manipulated and go against the very rules of our faith." Mgr...

Santiago cathedral is to lose its politically incorrect sculpture A STATUE of Spain’s patron saint, Saint James “the Moorslayer”, is to be removed from one of the country’s most famous cathedrals and pilgrimage centres in case it offends Muslims. The decision, announced by Santiago Cathedral’s church authorities, has outraged traditional Catholics, many of whom still light candles and pray to the 18th-century statue in the tiny chapel inside one of Christendom’s three greatest pilgrim places of worship. Although the cathedral’s spokesman insisted the decision was taken four months ago to remove the Moorslayer sculpture — which depicts the sword-wielding apostle...

In southern Spain, once the centre of an Islamic civilisation in Europe, the Muslim community has appealed to the Vatican to be allowed to pray alongside Christians in what was once the Great Mosque of Cordoba.It is one of the oldest buildings in the Islamic world and one of the most beautiful. The first thing I saw was a courtyard full of orange blossom. A fountain played in the middle. I felt that I was already back in the Middle Ages making my way towards the entrance of the mosque itself. The interior is stunning - a symmetrical forest of...

Vatican, Apr. 30 (CWNews.com) - A Vatican official has rejected the bid by Muslim groups to share the use of a Spanish cathedral which was once an Islamic mosque. Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, the president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, told the AsiaNews service that the Catholic Church could not agree to a demand advanced by Islamic leaders in Cordoba, who sought to use the city's cathedral for Muslim prayer services. The prelate remarked that a cathedral cannot be regarded in the same way as an inter-denominational airport chapel. While recognizing that the building was first constructed as a...

29 April, 2004 EUROPE - ISLAM Fr. Samir says Islamic “re-conquest” is possible thanks to Europe’s loss of identity. Beirut (AsiaNews) – The desire to "regain" the Mosque of Cordoba, now a Cathedral since 1236, is a clear sign of the Muslim tendency to “re-conquer” Europe. However, “the support given by certain Spanish government leaders in the city (of Cordoba) makes it all the more manifest just how much Europe has ‘lost its identity’, widespread now across the continent”, Fr. Samir Khalil, a professor in Beirut told AsiaNews. Jesuit Father Samir Khalil, 68, is one of the world’s greatest experts...

Cathedral may see return of MuslimsCenturies after Christian building was put at the centre of Córdoba's mosque, Vatican hears Spanish appeal to allow Islamic worship there Ben Sills in Granada Monday April 19, 2004The GuardianMuslims 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...

The body of a police special forces officer who died when Islamic terrorists blew themselves up in Madrid was taken from its grave, mutilated and burnt yesterday.The coffin and body of special agent Francisco Javier Torronteras were pulled from the tomb in Madrid Sur cemetery in Carabanchel and pushed 1,000 yards in a wheelbarrow before being doused with petrol and set alight.The body was found with a pick driven into its head and a spade dug into its chest.Although no motive was immediately apparent, police speculated that it could be the work of sympathisers of the Moroccan terrorist group that...

The miracle of the Barranco de Sangre was not of the usual healing kind. Local legend has it that after a savage battle between Europe's first Islamic guerrilla army and Spanish soldiers in the mountains of the south, a sun-baked gully now known as the Ravine of Blood witnessed a miraculous event. With the valley awash with the gore of both sides, the blood of the Christians miraculously flowed uphill to prevent it becoming tainted by that of the Muslims. The legend dates from the early 16th century when Spanish Catholic forces, spurred on by the Inquisition, slashed and burnt...

A month after the bombing of four commuter trains arriving at Madrid's Atocha station, Easter Mass was celebrated across Spain yesterday with emotion, as the faithful remembered the dead. The cathedral at Córdoba, however, was the focus of a different discussion. Its patio of orange trees and fountains gives way to what in the ninth century was the largest mosque in Europe and the symbol of Moorish civilisation rivalled at the time only by Baghdad and Damascus. Before its construction 1,150 years ago, Christians and Muslims shared the space with a dividing wall. Spanish Muslims are now asking the Vatican...

For many years, the Spanish people did not understand the symbolism of the name "Cordova", the name of hundreds of Arab schools. Amongst them is an Arab girl's school that is, for some reason, opposite Beit Hadassah in Hebron. The Spanish also believed that generous funding of the PLO and the PA would buy them quiet. It seems that they were mistaken. The history of the Arabs in Spain is ancient: it has continued for almost 800 years. It's now clear that it has not yet concluded. Spain was the banner of the massive Moslem conquests, which commenced in the...

In the legend of Moorish Spain, the last Muslim king of Granada, Boabdil, surrendered the keys to his city on Jan. 2, 1492, and on one of its hills, paused for a final glance at his lost dominion. The place would henceforth be known as El Ultimo Suspiro del Moro — "the Moor's Last Sigh." Boabdil's mother is said to have taunted him, and to have told him to "weep like a woman for the land he could not defend as a man." An Arab poet of our own era gave voice to a historical lament when he wrote that...

<p>Back Again, After 500 Years A new mosque opens in Spain. Good news? Not necessarily.</p> <p>For the first time in six centuries the muezzin's cry echoed over Spanish Granada with the inauguration in that city of a new mosque last week. The call to prayer hadn't been heard in the old capital of Moorish civilization since the last Muslim king was expelled by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492.</p>

<p>In the legend of Moorish Spain, the last Muslim king of Granada, Boabdil, surrendered the keys to his city on January 2, 1492, and on one of its hills, paused for a final glance at his lost dominion. The place would henceforth be known as El Ultimo Suspiro del Moro -- "the Moor's Last Sigh." Boabdil's mother is said to have taunted him, and to have told him to "weep like a woman for the land he could not defend as a man." An Arab poet of our own era gave voice to a historical lament when he wrote that as he walked the streets of Granada, he searched his pockets for the keys to its houses. Al Andalus -- Andalusia -- would become a deep wound, a reminder of dominions gained by Islam and then squandered. No wonder Muslim chroniclers added "May Allah return it to Islam," as they told and retold Granada's fate.</p>

MADRID (Reuters) - Muslims in Madrid are to stage their own protest on Sunday over the March 11 suspected al Qaeda-linked bombings, a day after Spaniards sent a stark message to their new premier to pull troops out of Iraq. Demonstrations late into Saturday across Spain against the occupation of Iraq were a reminder to incoming prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero that voters' expectations are high. Zapatero -- who scored a shock election victory against Spain's center-right government a week ago -- campaigned on a pledge to withdraw Spain's 1,300 troops from Iraq, unless the United Nations takes control...

The Spanish press has finally confirmed it: the outgoing government of premier Jose Maria Aznar - just like the Bush administration and the British government in relation to the non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq - lied and manipulated information concerning responsibility for the Madrid bombings. Since the morning of March 11, hours after the bombings took place, journalists at the Spanish news agency EFE knew that the official version blaming Basque separatists from ETA was false. According to the journalists, "already in the morning, EFE learned about the existence of a cellphone configured in Arabic, the van found...

Now that Spain has rejected its pro-American government in the wake of the Madrid bombings and Osama bin Laden has effectively become the Spanish Foreign Minister, the question is not so much “Why did this happen?” but “What took so long?” What is really surprising is not Spain’s spectacular act of appeasement but the fact that the anti-terror Aznar government bucked Europe’s prevailing winds in the first place. For over thirty years, Europe — including Spain — has been preparing for this moment: doing everything possible to transform itself into the newest homeland of a resurgent political Islam. The renowned...

Neighbours ... Mohamed Boulanour, left, and Joudi Abdelhadi. "Do I look like a terrorist to you?" asks Mohamed Boulanour, an Algerian immigrant, smiling yet deadly serious. "If you are Muslim they accuse you of being a terrorist. I had problems with the police a month ago, but thanks to my lawyer they had to let me go. They were saying I was part of al-Qaeda because I have a beard." Mr Boulanour, 40, now has much more than that. He has a notorious neighbour, the chief suspect in Madrid's train bombings, Jamal Zougam, who has been arrested with two...

The election in Spain that turned the government over to the Socialists sent a clear message to al Qaeda: Their bombing worked. Much of the population reportedly did not want to join the US-led coalition to impose regime change on Iraq. Now they have decided to sit on the sidelines of the global Jihad, but they will learn some very harsh lessons in the process. As far as the Jihadists are concerned, any show of weakness is always an invitation to attack again. Moreover, on March 11, an al Qaeda dispatch published in the Arabic newspaper, Al-Quds Hafs al-Masri, crowed...

CAIRO (Reuters) - Arabs fear the Madrid bombings will lead to discrimination against Muslims living in Europe and could push European governments closer to the confrontational Middle East policies of President Bush. "The consequences for Arabs and Muslims will be as bad as what happened to them in the United States (after Sept. 11, 2001)," Abdel-Rahman al-Rashed wrote in Asharq al-Awsat daily on Sunday. "The millions of Spaniards who took to the streets are a latent force of rage which we would do well to take heed of." The Spanish authorities are taking seriously a claim that al Qaeda was...

<p>MADRID Ali Mrazl, a Moroccan who has built a tranquil, solid life in Spain over the course of 16 years, wishes he could turn back time. .</p> <p>"People think less of you here now if you are Moroccan," said Mrazl, a store worker who lives in Madrid's immigrant quarter of Lavapies, where the police arrested three Moroccans with possible terrorist ties on Saturday. .</p>