Masjid-e-Qurtuba, The Lament of Andalusia

رثـــــاء  الأنـــدلــس

حيث المساجد قد صارت كنائسَ ما      فـيـهنَّ  إلا نـواقيسٌ وصُـلبانُ

حتى  المحاريبُ تبكي وهي جامدةٌ      حـتى الـمنابرُ ترثي وهي عيدانُ

Where the mosques have become churches,

Where only bells and crosses may be found

Even the mihrabs weep

Though they are solid,

Even the pulpits mourn

Though they are made of wood

al rundi

13th century

For Slide Show Click Here



Masjid e Qurtuba was the last stop we had for Cordoba, and hence the last place I visited related to Muslim Andalus. All of us build up an image in our minds when we have a lifetime hearing about it. That image may be quite different from what it is in reality. Similar was my experience about the Masjid. My initial impression was," I expected something different!" No dome, gunbad, no high ceilings and the mosque was DARK. Then the direction of the qibla  and the privileged priority seating of the royal family, with a separate entrance. All of this was quite difficult to overcome. But during the tour, the majesty of it weighed on me slowly and by the end of the tour, I had to make one round again, on my own, to reflect on it. And reflected I indeed, trying to absorb the image of the mosque as it would have been in the days when faithful flocked it and answered the call of the muezzin.



And since coming back and reflecting on it, and reading about it, the image and the grandeur of the Mosque has only magnified.

It is indeed a work of art, love, dedication and faith. The idea of the mosque was to make the faithful transcend time and space and take him far off away to the never-to-return oasis of Syria, Damascus, in the middle of a desert, and sure it does that.

تیرا جلال و جمال مرد خدا کی دلیل 

وہ بھی جلیل و جمیل ، تو بھی جلیل و جمیل 

تیری بنا پائیدار ، تیرے ستوں بیشمار
شام کے صحرا میں ہو جیسے ہجوم نخیل 

The guide took us to the mosque in the end of the city tour; he wanted the best for the last. By that time we had visited the Alcazar, the streets and patios of Cordoba, the Horse yards, the Inquisition halls and the statues of sons of Cordoba. We entered through the Northwest door, and what we see is a big courtyard with palm trees. It used to be the courtyard where the faithful would have performed the wuzu,  the ablution before entering the mosque proper. You see the  minar, now a Belfry like the other towers of mosques, at the northern end. The walls of of the courtyard had the pieces of the ceiling wood. Looking at the building of the mosque from the courtyard you see a big square protrusion in the middle of the roof. That is what I realized later on, was the cathedral in the middle of the mosque.  

And then we entered the masjid proper. It was strange, a sense of hesitancy  Here I am entering one of the greatest mosques in the history, and everyone, including myself, is entering with their shoes on. Our emotions run high when a non Muslim enters, even inadvertently, to our mosques with shoes on. They should know better, etc etc. Now I am doing the same! To my surprise, I did not feel enraged, I somehow accepted it and convinced myself ie this is not a mosque anymore and faithful had themselves handed over the keys of the city and the mosque to the Christians almost 900 years back, June 29th, 1236 to be exact.





It is not clear to me whether anyone has ever prayed in this mosque after that day. I am not sure about the story behind Iqbal's picture praying namaz which sitting (qaida)  in the masjid, but in 2010 Austrian Muslims tried to pray in the mosque and were arrested.

 

 

 

 



Floor Plan

Floor plan

QIBLA'S DIRECTION:

As soon as we entered the mosque, the guide explained the direction of the qibla and the reason, as he thought, of it not facing Mecca. It bothered me then and it bothers me now, although there are more than one 'logical' reasons to explain that. (guide's and otherwise)

 The true direction of qibla from Cordoba is 100 degree East. Doubt that the Abdur Rahman I would not have known that. So far I have heard and read a few theories about it.

1. It was built on a Roman Visigoth church, and the construction of the church demanded the layout to be the way it was ie that the naves should be north south and not east west. . This was narrated by our tour guide.
2. Abdur Rahman wanted to imitate and surpass the Ummayad Mosque in Damascus, and as the Qibla is south from Damascus, he replicated it in Cordoba. That is mentioned by some orientalists. Not to forget that the direction of the original mosque, Masjid-e-Nabwi, the Prophet's Mosque is facing south. So in a way the Cordoba Mosque, like the Damascus Mosque and the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, would face south. 
3. Maliki school of thought allowed a greater latitude in the qibla being away from the right direction, so it was okay.
4. Hakam II, to whom is the credit for the magnificent Mehrab,  had a chance to redirect the qibla. He refused, stating that his creed is to obey and follow, mazhabuna ittiba'

The other issue which bothered me was that there is a separate section for the royal family, with a separate entrance.  Here again it is stated that Hakam II tried to recreate the ambiance of the Prophet's Mosque, where the household is nearby and almost within the mosque.

I do not know whether it was a custom in the early centuries of Islam, but we grew up with this concept of mosque being the great equalizer and who so ever comes first occupies the front rows. 

HISTORY OF EXPANSION:

As you see the floor plan, the mosque has undergone many expansions. The original mosque of Abdur Rahman I was what is now the north west part of the complex. Later Abdur Rahman II expanded in the direction of the qibla and doubled the size of the mosque. Abdur Rahman III made the tower and make some changes.

Later Hakam II extended it further south, and mehrab was once again erected. The most beautiful section of the mosque. Fine work, with artisans commissioned loaned/forcibly asked from Byzantine christian land, and plenty of gold etc. More on it later. 

The fourth expansion was by Al Mansur across the whole length of the mosque and the courtyard. It just expanded the size of the mosque as he, like many of his predecessors wanted to etch his name in the history as one of those who expanded the mosque.

With this final expansion, the Qurtuba Mosque became the largest mosque of the world in its time. Maliki tradition made it obligatory for the faithful to congregate in one central mosque for Friday Prayers, even when the city population had increased. It was one of the main reasons of continual expansion.

On a Friday prayer there would be 600,000 congregants  The size was 250,000 square feet, quite large even by today's standard. Faisal Mosque's covered area is 54,000 sq ft.

Now the cathedral which sits inside it, has no more than 20 to fifty parishioners on a Sunday. 

DIFFERENCES FROM THE DAMASCUS MOSQUE:

Although the plan of Damascus was imitated, there were two main differences. One was the height of the arches, it was higher in Cordoba, and the second was the alignment of the columns. In Damascus the columns are parallel to the wall of Qibla. In Qurtuba, it was perpendicular to the wall of Qibla, which is the tradition of Visigoth church it replaced. Most of the churches have this alignment ie from the door of the church to the other end.

PRAYER HALL:
The walls are original, as old as 1200 years old. It is quite a marvel. The roof and the floor are not original any more, Many of the roof wood is hanging outside in the courtyard for display.

As soon as you enter the main hall, they want to make sure that you see the relics of the original Visigoth Roman church, which is buried under the floor of the mosque. They have glass on the floor and you can see a part of the original church.

WHY THE MOSQUE WAS BUILT ON THE CHURCH?
Vatican has a simple explanation. It was the holiest place in the city and the invaders, ie Muslims occupied it and made their own church on top of the demolished church. Muslim historians do not deny the preexistence of the church on the site. They claim that for a long while the Muslims prayed in the church along with the christian, in the same tradition as Muslims did initially in Jerusalem (and in fact in Medina). It was later when Abdur Rahman I decided to create a monument of a definite transition in history that the church was bought. Christians were given enough money to build a church at a different location.

COLUMNS:



The columns are double arches, the bottom one is a typical Andalusian horseshoe arch and the top one is a semicircular arch. The repeated pattern of red and white gives a strange and stark feeling. these are different stones, ie red bricks and beige stones. Esp if one is able to imagine the endless columns without the Cathedral sitting in the middle of the mosque, Then it would have been a lot of light and one could see across the whole length and diagonally across the hall.

MEHRAB:
The acoustics of the mehrab was phenomenal. It with a separate dome of its own, converted the box of the mehrab into a living microphone. Without the aid of modern speaker system, it was a marvel in it self that the  faithful in the last row was able to hear the Imam during the sermon and the prayers.

COURTYARD:
This is perhaps the area closest to its original form, and when one enters the mosque through this, one gets the feeling of being inside something holy. It was supposed to be filled with orange trees and was uses as the area for ablutions. Now it has tall palms and offers a serene area to reflect.

THE FALL OF CORDOBA:
when the Moors, ( and by this time it were not the Ummayads, or the Al Murabitoon or the Almuwahids, but the taifa rulers,  petty states, of Cordoba) finally agreed to open the door of the city, they prayed in the mosque for the final  time, Fajr of June 29, 1236.. The invader, Ferdinand III of Castile, who later earned papal sainthood and became the Saint Ferdinand, San Ferdinando, did not enter the mosque for quite a while.

The mosque was washed and cleansed of the infidels and consecrated. Then the King Ferdinand entered and was immediately enamored by the thing of beauty he saw. A part of the mosque was declared the church and services were offered there.

For a long time, the elite and the rulers of the area felt privileged enough to be buried inside the mosque, and one sees many of the graves inside the mosque.

Three centuries later, in 1532 the clergy was influential enough in convincing the King Charles V, who had never seen the mosque to build a cathedral in the place of the mosque. He allowed it and the center of the mosque was demolished to make the cathedral. Later when the King arrived to see the progress, he is claimed to have said, that you have replaced what was exceptional with what is ordinary. He decided the cathedral not to be larger than what was already built and the rest of the mosque structure was left intact. So is it today.

CATHEDRAL:



If for a minute one does not think of it in religious terms, the cathedral is pretty beautiful. It offers the contrast of what a mosque and a church are similar in and are different about. It sits in the middle of the mosque, and the layout is east west axis.

TREASURY:
Next to the mehrab is the treasury where some important artifacts are placed.
There used to be a treasury in the times of Ummayads and reportedly the four pages of Quran drenched in blood, when Caliph Usman was killed, were displayed here. Ummayads had strong sense of destiny as the bearers of Quran as one of them, Usman was the first to compile the Quran in one book form and ironically he was killed while reading Quran. It is not clear to me where those relics are, but now the treasury, rebuilt by Christians is their museum of conquest.





It includes the painting of the Moors giving away the city keys to Ferdinand, It has the famous Christ  which is taken out every year in the procession.



http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasirgondal/7981477792/sizes/z/in/set-72157632530655915/
There is a Christ statue made out of one long piece of ivory, which is perhaps the biggest single ivory statue of Christ.



OFFICIAL GRAFFITI:
Many of the original carpenters have left their names inscribed and they are on the display. One can see the names Masood, etc etc.

اے حرم قرطبہ ! عشق سے تیرا وجود 

عشق سراپا دوام ، جس میں نہیں رفت و بود 

ا

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References:

1. Ibn Arabi
2. The meaning of the Great Mosque of Cordoba in the tenth century
3. The Legacy of Muslim Spain
4. The Great Mosque of Cordoba
5. Iqbal Urdu
6. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/01/muslim-catholic-mosque-fight
7. http://www.qibladirection.com/qibladirection_Maps.aspx#GotoMap

The Year of The Elephant

کافر ہوں کہ مومن ہوں خدا جانے میں کیا ہوں

میں بندہ ہوں ان کا  جو ہیں سلطان مدینہ 

Sir Krishan Prasad Shad.

Tradition has is that the Prophet was born and died in the Rabial Awal, the third month of the lunar Hijazi calender. Today, Thursday is the twelfth, considered by many as the day of his arrival and departure from the world.

Muhammad the man has intrigued many, perhaps more than anybody else in the history. He has been loved and hated, maligned and  praised, worshiped and cursed, both in his lifetime and long after that.

Regarding historic evidence, existence of  none of the earlier 'prophets' can be independently  verified. The word has yet to know scientifically whether Moses or Jesus ever lived on this earth. For what we know, there may have not been any of the Biblical figures, but Muhammad is a reality, documented by the uninterrupted narrations/traditions of his life and words.

I do not think that there is any other person who has single handed delivered so much. All his limitations aside, medical or psychological, literacy or the lack of, no sibling, no parent, financial handicaps and so on; he made a nation out of a tribal culture, gave voice to the disenfranchised, and established an egalitarian community. Much of what was accomplished in his 23 years of message could not be reproduced in the rest of the world until a few centuries back.

He was a man and had all the limitations and handicaps a human and a man can have. Despite what he was, his legacy is however what he left behind. 

And much did he leave behind. A long list of scattered revelations which got compiled much later into a book, an abundance of his recorded words and actions, and the oral history of his peers, documented over centuries. 

What happened to his people and his message after his death is both his redemption and his burden. His folks, over the centuries, failed to carry the spirit of the message and have increasingly brought embarrassment and earned ridicule. It is ironic that he could see far ahead what many did not see for thousand years, and yet many of his followers cannot see beyond seventh century. 

The world had selectively taken out of this record whatever it deemed suitable for its purposes. There is much for anyone to hate and discredit him and people have done that over a millennium including many of today's world. I wish and hope that their knowledge and wisdom continues to expand and eventually open up the gates of their hearts and minds.

Countless many, however, over the centuries have loved him much more than any other person in the universe. Despite the caricature of his person, which is increasingly portrayed as a misogynist, possessed, megalomaniac, warmonger, deceitful and a slaveholder, his name, the mere mouthing of which make you lips kiss each other twice, has been synonymous with love, affection, solace, passion and guidance. 

One is known by how many hearts one has touched and how many lives one has blessed. He is alive in many hearts who would not be fazed by the insults hurled on him. My thanks and greetings to all the Aishiqaane Rasul who had the good grace to keep their love and respect for the Prophet steadfast during these trying times.

Happy Birthday. 

Blessed be he on the day he was born and the day he passed away.

میں خاک کف پاے سگ کوے مدینہ 

SAGES AND LOVERS OF CORDOBA

THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF CORDOBA

Sages, Lovers and Angels

Every city is proud of her sons and daughters and Cordoba is no exception. In European tradition, they erect a statue. Our tour guide, a native Cordoban made an interesting observation that while the Muslims and Jews have their narrative in art through words, calligraphy and patterns, Christians do it through the human faces. It is through the paintings and statues of human faces and figures, telling the story for the posterity.

Spaniards have come out of their zeal to bury or burn every Moorish relic and have understood the depth of the Muslim influence into their culture and history. Not only that they own it and proudly display it, they get good financial return on it. 

Out of the many statues in the city, very few are of Christians. Here are what I could not help avoid noticing.

Four sons of Cordoba each has a statue to his credit, one Roman, two Muslims and one Jewish.

SENECA The Younger.

Outside one of the remaining gates of the city, Puerta de Almadovar, stands Seneca. His father, Seneca the Elder, was a philosopher in his own right, but the son became more famous in history. He was a son of Cordoba, later to become an adviser to Nero. In the end he committed suicide after blamed in a conspiracy to kill Nero.



He was a dramatist, considered pioneer of tragic drama and is known to have influenced many including Shakespeare.


AL GAFEQUI


Ibn Muhammad Ibn Aslam Qassoum Gafequi Al- Arab was an eye doctor and an expert in cataract. He is the one I had not heard of at all until I visited Cordoba. His bust is raised opposite to the oldest Hospital in the city and now the Faculty of Arts in the Plaza del Cardenal Salazar .


MAIMONIDES:



Hardly any physician esp in the West has not heard of him. The famous Jewish doctor eventually left Andalus to find his place as the court physician of Saladin (Salahuddin Ayubi) in Egypt. 

His statue, down the street from the synagogue   was the most visited and many were keen to touch his shoes, as the fable goes by that one may get some wisdom rubbing his feet. He is one of the pioneers of the coexistence of science and religion.

IBN RUSH (AVERROES)
aka Ibne Ruchd Perhaps the most significant son of Cordoba but least recognized. It seems he had no palpable influence on Muslims until recent history.  He preceded Maimonides by a decade. His refutation of the Ghazali doctrine in his masterpiece "Incoherence of the incoherence" تهافت التهافت Tahāfut al-Tahāfut   to Ghazali's "Incoherence" was the source of the thought process which is claimed to influence the renaissance thinkers. His concept that both the secular knowledge and philosophy of the learned elite and the religious beliefs of the masses can lead to truth. He work influenced the fundamentalists Almohads to a degree but eventually he fell from the favor, he was forced to be in exile to Lucena, a Jewish village outside Cordoba. His books were burned. Eventually he was allowed to return but dies soon after that. Apparently he died in Marrakesh, as it says on his statue.

Although he may have been one of the most important link between the older Greek sages and the Modern West, providing his own insight and critique, not only on the works but also on the interpretations of Ghalazi and Ibne Sina, he was almost forgotten in his own Muslim world. The interest in him is a recent phenomenon. 

Reading more about him one finds that he wrote many a time three versions of his commentaries on the same work, the summary is jami,  the abridged version is takhlees  and the complete dissertation is tafseer. 

Whereas Maimonides was constantly surrounded by visitors, I found Ibn Rushd alone in the sun out side the city wall. He was NOT in the tour we had, and I had to look for him. 





The Arabic Inscription:



http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasirgondal/7981483975/sizes/z/in/set-72157631523956456/




MONUMENT TO LOVERS:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasirgondal/7981435963/in/set-72157631523956456/

There are many stories and fables about Alhambra, and who knows what is fact and what is fiction, but here in Cordoba, there is a monument to a real love story in the days of Muslim Andalusia. 




It is a love story between two young members of aristocracy, One being a princess. So what happens happened and the two hands remained within touching distance from each other.

In loving memory to their affair are these two hands, one of a man and another of a woman. They are close to each other, but not really touching each other. This is to eternalize the memory of Ibn Zaytoon and Princess Valida. They both were poets and wrote passionately to each other. Things happened and someone else eventually stole the heart of Princess leaving ibne Zaytoon heartbroken.

In memory of this love lost, we read the marble plaque of this innocent love

Oh, how close we were and how far today! We separated the lot, and no dew to moisten, parched with desire, burning my insides, but instead, crying my eyes are saturated. Ibn Zaydun

I have my eyes jealous of me all, of yourself, your time and place, Even engraved you in my eyes, My jealousy never cease ... Wallada

ARCHANGEL SAN RAFAEL
And in the end it is the Soor e Israfeel.

Hazrat Israfeel Alehe Salaam


I have no idea that San Rafael is standing guard at the Roman Bridge which connects the city to the southern suburbia.

Next, Masjid e Qurtuba
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Refenence:
http://cordobapedia.wikanda.es/wiki/Mohamed_Al-Gafequi
http://www.iep.utm.edu/ibnrushd/
http://cordobapedia.wikanda.es/wiki/Monumento_a_Los_Amantes

Cordova, Once There Was

For slideshow click here.

Lying within the wrap of  alwadi alKabir the river, is the pearl of Cordova. The seat of the power, knowledge, wisdom, and wealth of Muslim Andalusia. Where sages pondered, poets wrote, nightingales sang, and beauty walked.

While Granada was the second lease on Muslim rule in Spain, the zenith of Moors and Islamic Spain was Cordoba. This was the center of Muslim Spain.  It was here that the Berbers captured in 711 and made a provincial capital of the Damascene Ummayad Caliphate in 716. Later when the Banu Abbas massacred the Bani Ummaya,  the lone survivor, Abdur Rahman I escaped to al Andalus. He founded the Emirate of Andalusia, Amarat-al Andalusia in 766. Much later, when there was a threat of Fatimid invasion of the Iberian peninsula the Ummayads declared a separate caliphate of their own Khilafatul Qurtuba, under Abdur Rahman III in 929. Perhaps this was the first and only time when the world had three caliphates, Abbasi, Fatimi and Ummayah. It was perhaps the second time that an Umayyad  declared a parallel caliphate in the presence of an existing Banu Hashim caliphate. First one would be Amir Muawiyah.

One of the seven gates of Cordoba, Puerto de Almodavar



The rule of Bani Ummayah (the Emirate and Caliphate combined) lasted for three centuries. As usual, the downfall of the Banu Ummayah was none other than the infighting and the futile wars of succession.  In 1031, the caliphate denigrated into several city states taifas.  The warring taifas, under threat of a Christian invasion, asked their co-coreligionists in Marrakesh, the al Murabitun, Almoravids for intervention, who complied. They were face covering puritanics,  the most famous being Yusuf Bin Tashfeen. He reestablished the formal relationship with Baghdad calling the Caliph Amirul Momeneen  he chose for himself the title of Amir ul Muslemeen.  He lived for more than a century. His successors were succeeded by even more conservative al Muwwahids, Almohads. For reasons un-researched by me, they moved the capital away from Cordoba to Seville.  Decisively defeated in 1212 by a coalition of Catholic kingdoms the Almohads retreated to North Africa leaving al Andalus to feeble taifas to defend for themselves. Qurtuba finally succumbed to the Catholics in 1236. After its fall to the La Reconquesta  the city slowly lost its name, fame and population. It got reduced to become and still remains a small provincial city. Although from time to time it has tried to be the political or cultural capital of European Union.

Cordoba was the worlds most populous city at the turn of the first millennium with the population around half a million at that time. After Baghdad, which had a population of about a million (much later in 1258) when it fell to the Mongols, Cordoba was perhaps the most glorious Muslim capital in its history which fell to the Infidels.  (Delhi was about a hundred thousand in 1857)

No matter what the revisionist historians claim about the pre-Islamic legacy of Cordoba, the golden age of Cordoba was under Muslims. Similarly, the pinnacle of Muslim rule in Andalusia was none other than Cordoba.

It was here in Cordoba that the Jewish 'Golden Age' flourished. The Umayyads of Cordoba were magnanimous enough to realize the potential of the diversity and used it to their advantage. There was a conducive atmosphere for art and education. Artisans, writers, thinkers and scientists flourished. Jews, and some may claim that the Christians themselves, never had it better under any other rule.  Yes, the Muslims made sure no church tower was higher than the mosque minaar, but the nurturing environment led to the human development space which created the giants like Maimonides and Averroes.

The city is within the curve of the river, al wadi al kabeer,  now known as Guadalquivir River.



We were able to have a full day tour to Cordoba from Seville and back. It was to be on a Wednesday but was cancelled due to an event in the Mosque/Cathedral and we went there on a Friday.

The tour guide was a friendly guy. The tourism industry in general have smelled the roses and mastered the art of providing seemingly objective information to the tourists. They do not hide the atrocities of the Christian rulers and are able to explain and elaborate upon the Moorish rule and culture. In fact this is their main sale item and they do cash it well.

THE THREE NECESSARY STOPS:
Like everywhere in Spain, Cordoba has at least three places to visit. A house of worship which is almost always a  mosque turned into cathedral, a military/royal place in the form of a fort an Alcazar and Juderia, the Jewish quarters repopulated and always a lucrative real estate. It was perhaps their wealth and the lack of a security guarantee through Moors (after the fall of Granada in 1492) which made it very tempting to throw them out and have their property and houses seized.

ALCAZAR:



The Alcazar in Cordoba is now a beautiful garden with long rows of flowers and hedges, and the monuments.

There is perhaps no place in Spain without a mention of Christopher Columbus and the Christian Monarchs, Isabella and Ferdinand. Cordoba is no exception. A monument in the Alcazar reminds us that out of many conversations Columbus held with the monarchs pleading to have a trans Atlantic voyage sponsored,  one was in Cordoba.




Cordoba has another important connection with the New World. It was the money of the expelled Jews of Cordoba, confiscated in 1492 after the fall of Granada the same year, which  made the Columbus voyage sponsorable. As per our guide, the Discovery of America is much more indebted to the loss of coexistence in Spain that we much think of.






SPANISH INQUISITION:

This was the Spain's Catholic Monarch's response to the diversity they inherited from the Muslim. In certain areas the Jews and Muslims were already ordered to convert and there were suspicions that the convertees ie the  conversos  were secretly harboring their original faith. So these summary courts were held, where the confessions were obtained, usually by torture and force, and people were summarily punished. Many ended up in being killed or burned alive. One of the areas of Alczar was allocated for Inquisition. Now it is converted into a church and a museum, where some old Roman relics are displayed.



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PATIOS OF CORDOBA:
The patio rooms and windows of Cordoba are famous for their elaborate decoration. A custom adopted from Moors, who had a habit of having a small garden within the courtyard, as a constant reminder of Paradise, the Cordobans vie with each other to excel in the annual competition they have in spring.









THE SYNAGOGUE  LA SINAGOGA:


Built during the Christian era, this is a unique example of changing time. After the fall of Muslim Cordoba in 1236 and the eventual expulsion of Jews in 1492, their stay in the city was a mixed bag. In the later part of Muslim rule under the Almohads the life of Jewry was difficult and many including Maimonides fled, The Christians rule brought with it some tolerance for Jews and they were welcomed for their financial resources. It was in that time that the synagogue was built. Its work is essentially Moorish, done by the Mudejar (Muslim artisans) and has four walls of work. Later, when the intolerance led to their forced conversion and ultimate expulsion, this was converted to a church and one sees the Cross over the Star of David.



ANDALUSIAN HORSES:

Cordoban horses are also known as Pure Spanish Horse. They are different from the Arabian horses, a bit stocky, compact and thick maned. America was conquered by Spaniards on these horses. The Native American thought of the man mounted on the horse as one big scary creature and were awed by them.



Next, the Sages and Lovers of Cordoba, and then The Masjid-e-Qurtuba


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Reference:
Rick Steve's Spain 2012
http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa011201a.htm
http://www.ghadar.in/gjh_html/index.php?q=node/35
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition
http://imh.org/history-of-the-horse/breeds-of-the-world-by-continent/europe/andalusian.html