Today I woke up to pouring rain and thick mist. So I dressed, and got ready for our day in Cordoba.
We left at around 9 am and drove the 106 km (66 miles) to Cordoba, arriving at around 10:45 am. The bus left us off at the Roman Bridge over the Guadalquivir, which we crossed to meet our tour guide, Lola from Cordoba, just outside the Mesquite (Mosque in Spanish.)
Of course, even on this rainy Thursday, the Mesquite was heaving with tourists, but Lola did at least explain the expansion of the Mosque over time, starting in 786 under Abd al-Rahman I and ending in 1607 with the completion of the Christian Church.
When I visited it before in 2015, I resented the imposition of a Catholic Church in the middle of this marvelous mosque. For the mosque has a horizontal structure, conveying equality and respect amongst the people. While the Church is tall and vertical, imposing a hierarchy on everyone, meaniing that most are at the bottom of the pile. Apparently, we can blame the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1500-1558) who was also Charles I of Spain. The bishop who was trying to build a church in the mosque was threatened with death. So he appealed to Charles, who told him to go ahead. But Charles was Holy Roman Emperor, which meant that he had to spend a great deal of time in Germany and the Low Countries. By the time he arrived in Cordoba, he saw that a grave mistake had been made, and remarked that he would not have allowed the Cordoba Mosque to be partially destroyed in order to build a church.
But sometimes bad things turn into good things. At one time there were 300 mosques in Cordoba. All of them are now gone, except for the Mesquite. Why? Because the Christians used the building every day to come and worship, and so the mosque was protected from destruction.
Lola told us about those famous horseshoe shaped columns of the Mosque, telling us they were made out of brick and limestone. Because limestone was softer than brick, the whole structure provided some flexibiliy. By contrast, the church was built entirely of white marble. When the 1755 earthquake hit, the church acquired cracks. But the mosque, which was 800 years older, survived with no damage whatsoever.
After that, we went to the Jewish Quarter to see the famous bust and statue of Maimonides, the great Jewish philosopher. Lola pointed out that he was dressed as a Muslim, because he lived amongst those people. After that, we dispersed for lunch and I had a delicious red tuna tartare in creamy galic soup that was delicious!
