The highlight of our visit to Córdoba was wandering in revery in the Mezquita mosque-cathedral. (We’ll explain why this is a mosque-cathedral in a bit.) It was like walking in a quiet forest. Orange and white arches extend in all directions, seemingly infinitely. Many Andalusian stories live right here.
Very soon after the first Muslims had arrived on the Iberian peninsula in 711, they selected this place as the administrative capital of the new Muslim province of al-Andalus. Called Corduba in Roman and Visigothic times, the Arab arrivals kept the name. A Roman religious complex had existed on this site, replaced later by a small Visigoth Christian church.
756 is a pivotal date in this story, and it explains why this vast mosque was even built. Abd al-Rahman I arrived from Syria in 756; he became the first Emir of Córdoba. Al-Rahman belonged to the Umayyad Caliphate that had ruled the Islamic empire from 661 to 750. In its heyday, the empire extended from Iberia to India. But in 750, another dynasty, the Abbasid, led a revolution, defeated the Umayyads militarily, and killed most of the Umayyad princes. Abd al-Rahman was a surviving prince, and he fled as far west as he could, to al-Andalus.
Al-Rahman’s goal was to perpetuate the Umayyad legacy via a new independent emirate in Iberia. The physical manifestation of this political goal was this mosque, or Mezquita in Spanish. Such a vast imposing mosque, and community and administrative center expressed the power and stability of the new regime.
While the mosque-cathedral we find today is more than twice the size of the original mosque, originally it was still impressively large. Construction of the first phase took only about three years. Al-Rahman was in a hurry to demonstrate his legitimacy, and the Romans helped him. Not the actual Romans, but Roman buildings. The Muslim builders found Roman stone columns throughout the countryside, as well as masonry and brick arched aqueducts. Look at the sea of columns and striped arches and you can see the Roman parts.
The columns and their capitals are not uniform. They came from all sorts of buildings. They just needed to hold up the roof! In the mosque-cathedral today, a nice exhibit tells the story of these found columns. Workmen were tasked with going out into the countryside to collect old columns. Their pay depended on how many viable columns they provided. Each workman owned a unique mark which he carved into the columns he procured.
Now, what about the striped double arches? Arches were certainly a well-established construction form for supporting walls, aqueducts, and roofs. The stripes may have come from the fact that brick is lighter than stone, so mixing brick and stone, thereby creating stripes, made a lighter and more secure structure.
But the combination of the found Roman columns that weren’t very tall and a single line of arches would have provided an unacceptably low ceiling, especially for a politically significant mosque. Simple answer: add another level of arches. Mission accomplished!
Al-Rahman II — grandson of al-Rahman I — expanded the mosque considerably. Al Rahman III –Emir of Córdoba, great-great-grandson of al Rahman I — had bigger plans. In 929, he declared himself Caliph of Córdoba. You’ll recall that Caliph means political and spiritual leader at the very top of the Islamic hierarchy. He declared himself equal in stature and authority to the two caliphates at the time, one in Baghdad, one in what is today Tunisia. So, a third unique true leader of the world’s Muslims.
Commensurate with his newly self-declared stature, he created the orange-tree-filled forecourt.
He ordered the construction of a new, much larger minaret. The minaret exists still inside the Christian bell tower you see today.
And he spruced up a main entrance to the mosque. Surely to express his devotion. And ambition. You can see the evolution of the Andalusian style from the relatively plain original columns and arches to richer, more elaborate surface patterns and forms. (Keep this in mind when a few posts later we visit the Alhambra in Granada!)
This type of mosque served secular and religious functions, but it was an Islamic place of prayer above all. All mosques have a mihrab, which is the niche in the wall of the mosque that indicates the direction toward the Kaaba in Mecca; worshipers pray in this direction. Here, the mihrab orients to the south, which is not the direction to Mecca. This may be because the mosques back in al-Rahman’s former home in Syria faced south, correctly toward Mecca, and keeping this orientation maintained the dynastic Umayyad link.
Whatever the orientation, the mihrab is notable in that it is a domed chamber, not just a niche. And its decoration is unusual because its gold mosaic materials were provided to the Emir of Córdoba by the Byzantine emperor of the time. The resulting art shimmers, glows, and impresses.
This design choice was most likely political. Using materials and expertise from the emperor in Constantinople conferred even more legitimacy on the Caliph of Cordoba, even parity with both Byzantium and the Abbasids in Baghdad.
In total, there were 12 Caliphs of Córdoba. In 1031, the last one was overthrown amid civil war, palace coups, and military fragmentation. 102 years after al-Rahman declared himself caliph, the Caliphate of Córdoba broke into pieces, into independent taifa kingdoms. Another 200 years passed before Christian forces under King Ferdinand III of Castile and León captured Córdoba.
King Ferdinand immediately stated that the mosque was now a cathedral, and that was that. That’s why it’s called the mosque-cathedral to this day.
The former mosque may have officially been a cathedral from this moment, but it didn’t look any different from the original mosque. Christian worshipers lived their faith in the sea of Roman columns and Muslim arches.
We wondered why the Christians didn’t tear the old mosque down. It seems that the vast gathering space was perfect as a center for Christian practices. It had been purified and consecrated to the Virgin Mary. And it was really pretty! This is another example of this period’s mindset of tolerance and inclusion, which was wonderful while it lasted.
In 1523, almost 300 years after the reconquista of Córdoba, construction began on a new cathedral — right in the middle of the existing building. The Christians didn’t tear down the older structures; they plowed out a few bays at the center for a new, tall, light-filled Gothic-Renaissance church. It’s a stunning experience to wander amid the dimly-lit columns and bays of the mosque and suddenly step into the dazzling alien space.
Christopher Columbus shows up here (not the only time we’ll find him on our travels in Spain). Columbus spent time in Córdoba in the mid 1480s, trailing the itinerant court of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, working the process to gain support and permission to embark on his voyages. It took him many years and the help of many allies. During his time in Córdoba, he formed a relationship with the Cordoban woman Beatriz Enríquez de Arana, who bore him his son Hernando in 1488.
Our guide in the Mezquita stopped at this alcove.
He said that Isabella, who was fiercely religious, frequently came to this spot to pray. Our guide said that probably Columbus followed her into the cathedral often in the hopes of being able to speak with her about his project. A bit of research convinces us that, even if he was in the cathedral at the same times as she, he most likely wouldn’t or couldn’t have approached her. More likely is that he at last had an audience with Isabella and Ferdinand in the nearby Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos (Alcázar of the Christian Monarchs), the fortified royal palace on the Guadalquivir River. However, the monarchs made no commitments at that point. They would grant him support only later after the Emir of Granada finally capitulated.
Still, it is fun to imagine determined Columbus stalking Isabella while she prayed in the cathedral that looked like a mosque.
November 2025