La Mezquita de Cordoba - Mosque at Cordoba

The mosque in Córdoba is the most important cultural and religious symbol of the city. It is also the most significant monument of al Ándalus – the name of the Iberian territory under Muslim rule from 711 to 1492 AD. Construction started between 780 and 785 when the independent emirate of omeya Abderramán was established, but the mosque did not reach the peak of its splendor until the 10th century under the caliphate of Córdoba, when it took on the basic architectural body we can still see today.

It was situated strategically near the river of Guadalquivir, which since time immemorial had been the access to Córdoba. There were already some Roman and Visigoth building remains on the site, and the Mosque itself was built directly on top of the basilica of St Vincent, the remains of which can still be seen in one of the museum areas.

The surface of the whole monument measures 22,000 square metres, 174 metres long by 128.4 wide.
An integral part of the Mosque is el ‘Patio de los Naranjos’, which has retained a great deal of its original appearance. It is accessed through the ‘Puerta del Perdón’, and you can see the rows of orange and palm trees and the foundains and arches that surround the gardens.
The Puerta de las Palmas lead into the Mosque: a forest of eight hundred and fifty columns of marble, jasper and granite on top of which there are three hundred and seventy five bi-coloured horseshoe arches.

Inside the Mosque we find the sacred mihrab, a precious, brightly coloured niche made from marble, stucco and Byzantine mosaics on a base of gold. It does not face Mecca as is usual, but South. It was formerly believed that Abderramán had it constructed like this for the mihrab to face the river which would carry him to his native Damascus, but today it is considered more likely that the principal nave of the construction simply followed the existing street.

After the Christians had re-conquered Córdoba they used the Mosque to celebrate Mass and other religious acts, but in the 16th cnetury when the Moors had been definitively thrown out of the peninsula, the Christians wanted to adapt it to their own faith so they constucted a renaissance cathedral inside the Mosque, thus altering its appearance forever.