GRANADA, Spain (dpa) – Elaborate stucco decoration, pillared halls and fantastic fountains are the adornments of Spain’s mediaeval monuments that bear the signature of Moorish artists.
This legacy has its origins in the period when the Moors ruled over most of the Iberian peninsula. Today, the Moslem sultans’ magnificent buildings are among the most frequently visited tourist attractions in Spain.The fortress at Granada is regarded as the best fortified of all Islamic buildings of the period in Europe. It became a magnet for visitors after American writer Washington Irving kindled curiosity with his 1832 novel “The Alhambra”.Swarms of tourists come to the Meziquita – the Mosque – of Cordoba, too. The place of worship, which was reconsecrated as a cathedral, is regarded as the second-most important monument built by the interlopers from the Occident.Andalusia has many stone monuments. Here were the centres of Moorish Spain that gave rise to the cities of Granada, Cordoba, Seville and Almeria. Other areas and cities in Spain offer the visitor the remains of the Islamic period, even if these are confined to traditional Arabic baths.In early 711, an army from North Africa crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and landed on the south coast of the Iberian peninsula. Rivals of the Visigoth King Roderick (Rodrigo) invited them over to take power.The ruler fell in the first large battle and the rest of his empire quickly capitulated, allowing the Moslems to march through to the Pyrenees and France’s Mediterranean coast. They were stopped at Poitiers, while Spain was for several centuries a province of the caliphs of Damascus, until several independent emirates arose.Only seven years later, the Christians rose up in fierce resistance and began what is known as the Reconquista. This reconquest lasted until the fall of the last Moorish stronghold at Granada in 1492.In the intervening years, the Moslems had plenty of time to leave their architectural mark on the peninsular, raising cities of world importance which became the meeting place of scholars from East and West and the site of libraries and universities.Cordoba experienced a renaissance as the capital, briefly, of al- Andalus, as the Arabs called Spain. It possessed an infrastructure which compared to desperately filthy conditions elsewhere in European cities was sensational: a running-water system supplied the houses, which also had access to baths. The centre of the city even had its own street lighting.In 1236 Christian troops stormed the city and transformed Europe’s largest mosque with its gigantic prayer hall into a cathedral which still draws in huge numbers of tourists.Seville was the Moorish capital 12 years longer than Cordoba, and the new rulers constructed the mighty Gothic cathedral on its mosque’s foundations too.The bell tower was provided by a late 12th- century minaret; the Giralda soon became a symbol for the Christian city. The orange grove with its spring for ritual Moslem ablutions has been retained. Moorish architects also designed the 12-storey tower which guarded Sevilla’s harbour from the bank of the River Guadalquivir (“Torre de Oro”).Jaen, Malaga, Ronda, Jerez de la Frontera, Almeria, Valencia – the Moors left their mark on all these cities. Their architecture influenced building styles long after Arab rule ended. Many Moslems stayed on in Spain, just as Christians had been allowed full freedom under the sign of the crescent. The expulsion of the “infidels” only got under way in 1609.Many North Africans, in particular from Morocco, are again long- established in Andalusia – as students and wage earners. One example is Granada, where Iberia’s biggest Moslem community has its centre, and includes many Spaniards.From the Alhambra, which the last Moorish king tuned over to the Roman Catholic Monarchs Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon without a fight, there is a view of the Albaicin, the old Muslim quarter with its whitewashed houses and narrow alleys. The district also housed the sultans before the first king of the Nazrid dynasty rebuilt an old fortress on the opposite bank into one of Europe’s most splendid palaces in 1238 – the Alhambra.Since UNESCO declared the Albaicin as a World Heritage site in the mid-1990s, things are looking better for the quarter, which has changed little over five centuries. Dilapidated houses are being restored, and visitors will hear Arabic spoken on every corner. Teahouses are more common than bars.Spanish Moslems have financed the construction of a new mosque as the old prayer houses were long ago turned into Catholic churches, something that happened throughout what was Moorish Spain.
