Córdoba Mezquita -- The Original Building

Let's now visit the 11 aisles with 12 bays of the original worship hall constructed near the end of the reign of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān I who had escaped his family's massacre in Damascus and started the 300 year Umayyad dynasty in Spain. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān I ruled roughly about the time as did Charlemagne on the other side of the Pyrenees. But al-Raḥmān’s restructuring of society lasted many centuries whereas Charlemagne’s barely outlived his grandsons.

The Great Mosque is not quite aligned with Mecca and scholars disagree as to why.  Some say that it reflects the orientation of the great Umayyad mosque far to the east in Damascus. But someone looking at the aerial view would likely conclude that the architect aligned the back wall with the river and thus allowed a rectangular space for later expansion to the rear.

Most modern scholars feel the Moors adapted the existing town layout of the Romans. If the terrain allowed, the Romans who would have laid out the town as a rectangle parallel to the river to the south (It would be at the bottom of the aerial picture at the top of this page and at the top of the diagram at upper right.)

The hypostyle haram

Sheer repetition can sometimes be as impressive as the soaring vaults of Gothic cathedrals which succeeded this very simple building. Visitors are at first taken by the overwhelming repetition of the columns and arches of the prayer hall (technically called a "haram.") 

The purpose of this building was to align worshippers elbow-to-elbow facing Mecca; this was accomplished by building a hypostyle hall: a simple structure where many columns hold up a flat roof. If you’re thinking warehouse, you’re not far off.  A warehouse that originally could hold 5,000 elbow-to-elbow worshipers and eventually, after 3 expansions, 20,000.

But what a warehouse! Rapidly growing Muslim populations – with huge numbers of worshippers required to attend the Friday mid-day sermon – demanded wide spaces which could be expanded without impacting the aesthetics or structural integrity of the building. (Try adding a nave to a Gothic cathedral whose foundationless walls are kept in place by flying buttresses!) A hypostyle (the word literally means “under pillars”) meets this need structurally. With a little artistic license on the columns, it can provide some of the spiritual inspiration of a soaring Gothic vault. Here the decorative need is addressed by alternating red bricks with stone to create the repetitive patterns we find in Moorish decorative art – but on a grand scale -- 250,000 square feet – nearly the size of St. Peter’s in Rome started 7 centuries later.

Unnoticed by most tourists, the original 11 naves flow into the first extension.  Join us there by clicking here.

Please join us in the following slide show to give Córdoba the viewing it deserves by clicking here.

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