The Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba, a symbol of transculturality

The idea of writing this article came to me when I saw on television the terrible images of the fire in the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba last August 8. Those flames made me think about how fragile such a unique heritage can be, which runs the risk of being destroyed by a simple accident.
Cordoba. The Mosque-Cathedral. The Alcazar. The gardens. The Guadalquivir. It all reminded me of when, during my studies at the University of Granada in 2000 (the same year I had studied in Tunisia) and in 2001, in the Department of Arabic Philology, I visited that extraordinary monument several times, a symbol of coexistence between contrasts and differences.

And my mind also returned to the city of García Lorca, to its Moorish style, to the white and blue houses of the Realejo, among whose narrow streets I liked to lose myself at sunset, to the Albaicín, to the Alhambra, to the Sierra Nevada. And above all to something I will never forget: the scent of orange blossoms that flooded my nostrils and that, when I returned to Granada a few years later, almost moved me.
On the history of al-Andalus, and especially of the Sephardic Jews, I had the opportunity to speak in Spanish on the podcast "Etzlil".

Al-Andalus: The Golden Age

There is a date engraved in the historical memory of Spain: 711, when the Arab and Berber armies led by Tariq ibn Ziyad crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, which took its name from Tariq (Jabal Tariq, in Arabic: Mount of Tariq), defeating the Visigoths.

From that moment on, a large part of Spain (and not only Andalusia) became al-Andalus, a bridge between East and West, especially between the 9th and 11th centuries: the "golden age", a time when it was a laboratory of coexistence, science and critical thinking: Muslim philosophers and physicians, such as Averroes or Abulcasis, drank from Greek knowledge, with Jews and Christians translating texts that would later be fundamental for medieval and Renaissance Europe.

At the heart of this universe was Cordoba, capital of the Umayyads in exile, which in the 10th century was one of the largest cities in the world: half a million inhabitants, libraries with hundreds of thousands of volumes, doctors, philosophers, poets and merchants animated a cosmopolitan and tolerant society.
But at a certain point this economic, cultural and social prosperity began to falter, for two main reasons.

The first was the so-called "closing of the iŷtihād doors." (from the same root as ŷihād), the interpretative effort of the sharia that had allowed Islam in the first centuries to develop philosophy, science, law and the arts, favoring a fruitful dialogue with other cultures as well. Precisely between the eleventh and twelfth centuries, on the other hand, the idea prevailed that there was nothing more to elaborate: Muslim jurists declared the "gates of iŷtihād" closed and the great philosophical syntheses of Avicenna and Averroes gave way to a more rigid religiosity, based on "taqlīd," imitation and repetition of previous interpretations, with no further possibility of innovation.

The fragmentation of the Taifa kingdoms and the Almoravid and Almohad invasions further accelerated the decline.

In this context of crisis, minorities (Christians and Jews) also found themselves in increasingly difficult conditions.

The second major reason, favored by the first, was obviously the Spanish Reconquest, which culminated with the capture of Granada in 1492, the same year of Columbus' departure for the Americas and the Edict of the Alhambra.

A mosaic of cultures and traditions

The society of al-Andalus was a true mosaic. Muslims were the majority, but not all were Arabs; in fact, the latter were but a tiny elite. The Islamic masses, mostly peasants and soldiers, were Berbers and "muwalladun", Iberian Christians converted to Islam. Then there were the Mozarabs, who remained Christian but assimilated to the Arabs in customs and rite (which still survives) and spoke a Romance language rich in Arabisms, and finally the Jews.

Christians and Jews were considered "dhimmi", protected subjects who, in exchange for a special tax ("ŷizya"), could continue to practice their religion and organize themselves autonomously, although without enjoying full rights.

The languages that resounded in the streets of al-Andalus were the classical Arabic of administration and culture, the Mozarabic of the assimilated Christians, the Hebrew of the synagogues and poetry, and Judeo-Spanish (Ladino).

With the Reconquest, the Mozarabs dispersed throughout the rest of Spain, influencing the architecture and language, while many Muslims and Jews were forced to convert: they were the so-called "mudéjares" (converted Muslims) and "marranos" or "conversos" (Jews), who often continued to practice their ancient faith in secret, becoming privileged targets of the feared Spanish Inquisition.

The Jews

Among the most prominent communities of al-Andalus was the Sephardic Jewish community (from Sepharad, Spain in Hebrew). Although they were less than 10 % of the population, Jews contributed decisively, as physicians, merchants, poets and civil servants, to cultural and scientific life.

From this community emerged figures such as Moses Maimonides (1135-1204), great philosopher and physician, and Rabbi Yehuda Halevi (1075-1141), physician and poet, who sang in Hebrew and Arabic the nostalgia of Zion with verses of moving beauty.

In 1492, the year of the fall of Granada and the Catholic Monarchs' Edict of Expulsion, the Jewish presence in Spain came to an end: hundreds of thousands of Jews were forced into exile, taking with them, in their diaspora throughout the Mediterranean, few material goods but an immense spiritual and cultural heritage. The rest converted to Christianity.

The red thread that held the dispersed communities together was the Judeo-Spanish language (Ladino), an archaic Castilian that accompanied daily life in lullabies, prayers and family stories.

The Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba

The Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba was built from 785, by will of the emir Abd al-Rahman I, fled from Syria after the fall of the Umayyads in Damascus. It was built on the site of an ancient Visigothic basilica. The emir bought the land and began a work that in the following centuries his successors would enlarge until it became the largest mosque in the Islamic West.

Roman columns and Visigothic capitals were reused to create a "forest" of overlapping arches, white and red, which still amazes visitors today. With al-Hakam II (10th century), at the height of the caliphate, a new mihrab richly decorated with Byzantine mosaics was built.
In 1236 the city was conquered by Ferdinand III of Castile and the mosque was consecrated as a cathedral. In the following centuries chapels were added and, in the 16th century, the Renaissance nave that cuts in two the forest of Islamic columns. Charles V, upon seeing it, would have commented: "You have destroyed what was unique to build what can be found anywhere".

The attempt to merge Islamic and Christian architecture may seem forced, but it makes the Mosque-Cathedral a unique monument, more a hybrid than a mosque or a cathedral in itself: it represents a monument to transculturality and a symbol of relations, not always easy, between communities, ethnic groups and religions, which shows how much they can still coexist today, because they did so in the past.

If I think of Andalusia, of the scent of orange blossom, of the white villages, of the mosque with the forest of columns grafted onto an ancient church and interrupted by the nave of another church, of the synagogues and cathedrals, I think of my identity: an interweaving of Andalusia and Italy, of Greece, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. An identity made of overlapping layers, sometimes harmonious, sometimes in contrast, like the history of the Mediterranean itself. It is as if those songs -Jewish, Muslim, Mozarabic, Byzantine, Roman- still resonate within me, a fragile and precious heritage worth preserving.