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