ART response 3

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Dr. Yasmine Al Saleh Art 103, Spring 2021

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RESPONSE PAEPR 3- DUE SUNDAY APRIL 11- 11:59PM- MOODLE AND EMAIL FORM

Choose one object or architectural building and write an in depth analysis based on the exact
article or website I have provided- make sure to understand that particular object or building in
detail.

Option 1- Science manuscript- Lecture 6- CHOOSE ONE MANUSCRIPT EITHER KITAB AL-DIRYAQ
OR AL-SUFI BOOK OF FIXED STARS

Kitab al-Diryaq- read the following article:
Pancaroǧlu, Oya. “Socializing Medicine: Illustrations of the Kitāb Al-Diryāq.” Muqarnas, vol.
18, 2001, pp. 155–172. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1523306. Accessed 31 Mar. 2021.

Key questions:

• Please include the date of the Kitab al-Diryaq and the copy of the manuscript your choose
to write about be it the Paris or Vienna copy. Please include the exact date of the
manuscript.

• What script was Kitab Al-Diryaq written in?
• How many colors of ink were used?
• How many lines of text per folio?
• How does the text relate to the image?
• Choose one folio from Kitab al-Diryaq and describe it in detail?
• What is Oya Pancaroglu’s main points in the article?

Al-Sufi- Book of Fixed Stars dated 400 AH/1009-10 CE. (Oxford)

Wellesz, Emmy. “An Early Al-Ṣūfī Manuscript in the Bodleian Library in Oxford: A Study in
Islamic Constellation Images.” Ars Orientalis, vol. 3, 1959, pp. 1–26. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/4629096. Accessed 31 Mar. 2021.

Key questions:

• Please include the title, date, and the author of al-Sufi’s Kitab al-Kawakib.
• Choose one constellation from the manuscript and describe it in details as they appear on

the celestial globe and as it appear in the sky.
• Make sure to include the name of the script
• Make sure to include the colors use in the manuscript.

Dr. Yasmine Al Saleh Art 103, Spring 2021

Option 2- Literary manuscript- Lecture 7

Maqamat al-Hariri- read the following article
ROXBURGH, DAVID J. “IN PURSUIT OF SHADOWS: AL-HARIRI’S MAQĀMĀT.”
Muqarnas, vol. 30, 2013, pp. 171–212. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/42751920. Accessed 31
Mar. 2021.

• Focus on the Paris Maqamat al-Hariri illustrated by al-Wasiti
• What is the date of the manuscript? What script was it written in?
• What does it mean to have calligrapher and illustrator?
• How does the text relate to the image?
• Describe the main characters of the text?
• Choose one folio that you find interesting and describe it in detail

Option 3- CHOOSE ONLY ONE ARCHITECTURAL MONUMENT EITHER
SULEYMANIYE OR GREAT MOSQUE OF CORDOBA
Please describe in your own words why the article you have chosen (whether it is Nuha Khoury
on the Great Mosque of Cordoba or Gülru Necipoğlu-Kafadar’s article on the Süleymaniye in
Istanbul) is important?

Remember to mention the author’s name, list important facts about the mosque, the
patron, and to describe the inscriptions program. Why are the inscriptions in the
mosque of your choice important? Make sure you list the decorative program of these
inscriptions including the script type.

Nuha Khoury “The Meaning of the Great Mosque of Cordoba in the Tenth Century”
Nuha N. N. Khoury. “The Meaning of the Great Mosque of Cordoba in the Tenth Century.”
Muqarnas, vol. 13, 1996, pp. 80–98. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1523253. Accessed 31 Mar.
2021.

• What kind of a mosque is the Great Mosque of Cordoba, who built it, and in which dynasty?

• What is the relationship between the Great Mosque of Damascus and the Great Mosque of

Cordoba? (the church connection, and the mosaic connection)

• What about the erroneous qibla? Why did they not correct it?

• What about the Uthmanic Quran- why does Khoury mention it?

• Lastly- where are the inscriptions in the mosque? What script was used? What do they look

like? Are they all Quranic? Or are some historical like a foundation text?

Dr. Yasmine Al Saleh Art 103, Spring 2021

Gulru Necipoglu “The Suleymaniye Complex in Istanbul”-
Necı̇poğlu-Kafadar Gülru. “The Süleymaniye Complex in Istanbul: An Interpretation.”
Muqarnas, vol. 3, 1985, pp. 92–117. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1523086. Accessed 31 Mar.
2021.

•What is a socio-religious complex?

• Who is the patron? Who is the architect? Did they reuse material from other buildings?

• What is the relationship between the Hagia Sophia and the Suleymaniye complex?

• What does it mean to have Sultan Suleyman and his wife’s tombs within a mosque complex?

How does it relate to the Dome of the Rock?

• Who wrote the inscriptions for the Suleymaniye? Where are they found? What is the script

used? And what material was used?

The Meaning of the Great Mosque of Cordoba in the Tenth Century

Author(s): Nuha N. N. Khoury

Source: Muqarnas , 1996, Vol. 13 (1996), pp. 80-98

Published by: Brill

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1523253

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NUHA N.N. KHOURY

THE MEANING OF THE GREAT MOSQUE OF CORDOBA
IN THE TENTH CENTURY

The Great Mosque of Cordoba is universally recognized
as one of the most singular monuments of medieval
architecture. Celebrated for its harmony, balance, dra-
matic use of light and decoration, and its overall unity
and aesthetic sensitivity, the monument belongs to an es-
tablished functional type, the hypostyle mosque, but
amounts to more than a mere variant of this type. Its
amalgamation of old, reused, and original architectural
elements in new inventive combinations, its system of
double tiered arcades with superimposed horseshoe
arches supported by slender pilasters on marble
columns, and the originality of its overall compositional
effect are all factors that enhance its value to the history
of western Islamic architecture in particular and Medi-
terranean architecture in general. The mosque’s archi-
tectural importance is matched by its historical signifi-
cance. As the premier monument of al-Andalus, the
Cordoba mosque embodies the history of the Iberian
peninsula from its Islamic takeover in 711 through suc-
cessive stages of Umayyad and post-Umayyad dominion
and beyond. Following the fall of Cordoba in 1236, the
mosque was preserved as the repository of Castillian
Spain’s signs of victory, and became a source of aesthetic
and architectural inspiration that was eventually trans-
ported to the New World. In Islamic medieval writings of
the same era and later, the Great Mosque of Cordoba was
transformed from an Umayyad monument into the pri-
mary cultural and religious relic of al-Andalus, an
Islamic land lost to Islam. While the mosque’s Muslim
historians made it the concrete visual representation of a
distinct creative culture, its geo-political position in the
history of medieval Spain made it the symbol of a
national personality forged out of the interaction of two
at times ideologically opposed worlds.1

A similar plurality of identity informs the Cordoba
mosque’s creative and material culture. As the primary
artifact of an Umayyad dynasty that had fled from Syria
to Spain in 756,2 the monument belongs to at least two
architectural and cultural traditions, and its architectu-
ral vocabulary at once points to local Spanish and Syrian
Umayyad sources.3 The totality of its final composition,

however, is morphologically and aesthetically distinct: a
unique reformulation of preexisting architectural
details (horseshoe arches, double-tiered arcades, alter-
nating stone and brick voussoirs) within a novel arrange-
ment of universal forms (hypostyle halls, axial naves,
domed spaces).4 The Cordoba mosque can therefore be
situated at different junctures within a larger architectu-
ral history. Its connections to the past make it the culmi-
nation of an older Umayyad tradition, while its particu-
lar creative location in al-Andalus makes it the point of
inception for a new tradition with different subsequent
histories in Spain and North Africa.5

Within its specifically Andalusian architectural con-
text, the Cordoba mosque represents a process of synthe-
sis that reached its apogee under al-Hakam II al-Mustan-
sir (961-976). Al-Hakam’s tenth-century expansion is a
visually and morphologically complex configuration of
forms that lies at a crossroad between past and future. It
exhibits an architectural vocabulary developed over a pe-
riod of almost two hundred years of Andalusian Umay-
yad architecture, but reformulates this vocabulary into a
new idiom that, though often cited, will never be repli-
cated in its entirety.

Beyond its aesthetic value, this specific moment in the
Cordoba mosque’s history will be shown to exhibit an
iconographic charge that is born out of a subtle inter-
weaving of historical, cultural, and mythical paradigms.
Arising from the context of the recently reestablished
Umayyad caliphate, this charge aligned the mosque’s
dynastic identity with its new caliphal one by rewriting
the past from the vantage point of the present. The story
of this historical revision, a critical aspect of the
mosque’s tenth-century meaning, culminated in the
Cordoba mosque’s rededication as a monument of
Umayyad victory. The Great Mosque of Cordoba thus
both absorbed and reflected various aspects of the
Umayyad past, transcending association with any individ-
ual monument from this past. At the same time, the
mosque reflected the universality of the Andalusian
Umayyad da’wa through a second level of meaning that
re-created it as an iconographic image of a monument

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THE GREAT MOSQUE OF CORDOBA IN THE TENTH CENTURY

ate by ‘Abd al-Rahman III al-Nasir (912-961), the Cor-
doba mosque’s expansion is historically positioned as a
completion of an integrated program meant to enhance
the image of the Andalusian Umayyad caliphate and ful-
fill caliphal prerogative. CAbd al-Rahman III had in 952 al-
ready refurbished the mosque’s courtyard and endowed
it with its monumental minaret, when, immediately upon
his accession in 961, al-Hakam II ordered the expansion
that transformed the mosque’s interior (fig. 1).6 The
speed with which al-Hakam is reported to have initiated
this expansion, the ceremony in which he publicly
endowed it with a large portion of the private funds he
inherited from CAbd al-Rahman III, and reports that
attribute an extensive enlargement to the earlier caliph
are testaments to the unity of the architectural statement
and its importance to the overall ideological program of
the Andalusian caliphate.7 Echoes of this program are
preserved in the extant portions of the mosque’s tenth-

Fig. 1. Cordoba mosque. Plan in 965. (After C. Nizet, La Mosquie de
Cordoue, p. 3)

whose value transcends temporal boundaries: the Proph-
et’s Mosque at Medina. This ideological construction
aligned the Umayyads with the original source of cali-
phal authority and represented them as the true caliphs
of the Umayyad-Abbasid-Fatimid triumvirate.

Following the 929 restoration of the Umayyad caliph-
Fig. 2. Cordoba mosque. Plan in 1236. (After C. Nizet, La Mosquee de
Cordoue, no. 2)

I -I- -A -. – 1 I ___– – – r/ K I 1, ! I

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NUHA N.N. KHOURY

Fig. . Coroba mosque . Cros ction of msura. (fter – –

Fig. 3. Cordoba mosque. Cross-section of maqsura. (After C. Nizet, La Mosquee de Cordoue, p. 25)

Fig. 4. Cordoba mosque. View down central aisle to al-Hakam’s mihrab.

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THE GREAT MOSQUE OF CORDOBA IN THE TENTH CENTURY

century epigraphic program, in related historiographi-
cal accounts, and in allusions to the Umayyad past real-
ized in special myths and ceremonies that were primary
tools in the process of transforming the mosque into an
eloquent expression of the caliphs’ pretensions and
intentions.

Occupying the southwest rectangle of the present
mosque, al-Hakam’s twelve-bay expansion constitutes an
autonomous functional space, but one that is emphati-
cally linked to the mosque’s larger architectural and his-
torical fabric (fig. 2). The expansion continues the
mosque’s preestablished architectural vocabulary, but
carries this vocabulary to new levels of elaboration;
horseshoe arches are broken up into complex intersect-
ing and polylobed designs, and constituent elements are
rearranged into a discrete, hierarchically ordered com-
position (fig. 3).8 This composition provides the mosque
with its southern boundary; a domed space at the north-
ern end of a wide central aisle attaches it to the older sec-

tion and provides it with an entrance. The aisle itself,
with its painted and gilded ceiling, defines an axial
approach to the mosque’s new maqsura enclosure where
a series of three domes announces the qibla (fig. 4). The
domes correspond in size and placement to the deeply
recessed, shell-hooded mihrab niche and its two smaller

flanking openings, one of which leads to a series of
chambers that once constituted the mosque’s treasury
and the other to a passage (sabat) that linked the
mosque with the caliphal palace – most likely by means
of a covered bridge that spanned Cordoba’s main pro-
cessional thoroughfare (al-mashraCa al-kubrd).9 The
expansion, and especially the maqsura-qibla ensemble,
is further distinguished by a rich decorative program
executed in carved marble, stucco, and mosaic that

includes an epigraphic program whose archaizing Kufic
inscriptions comprise both Qur’anic verses and histori-
cal statements. In its totality, al-Hakam’s expansion acts
as an independent “mosque within a mosque” that pro-
vides visual focus for its larger architectural frame while
deriving added significance from the dynastic and histor-
ical content of this frame.

Typologically, the Cordoba mosque’s tenth-century
expansion belongs to the category of urban mosques
built by the Syrian Caliph al-Walid between 705 and 715.
Distributed in major cities of the older Umayyad caliph-
ate, including Damascus, Medina, andJerusalem among
others, these mosques exhibit individual differences but
form a single group that plays an important role in the
dynamics of their Andalusian descendant. This architec-
tural heritage is apparent in the Cordoba mosque’s min-

aret, in the composition of its court facades, the lateral
disposition of its aisles, the hierarchical arrangement of
its architectonic elements, and the use of mosaics as the

primary decorative medium of its most important areas,
features that occur at one or the other, and in some cases

all, of its predecessors, but that are best preserved at the
Great Mosque of Damascus.1′ The cultural heritage of
the Cordoba mosque is equally evident in historical and
mythical accounts that act as reminders of the Umayyad
past and, more specifically, of the mosque’s own past as it
was written in the tenth century. These accounts distin-
guish certain features of the tenth-century mosque as
particularly articulate carriers of meaning. Elaborations
upon the mosque’s (erroneous) due-south qibla orienta-
tion, its site, its mosaics, and the special rituals revolving
around relics of the Caliph CUthman preserved in the
mosque’s treasury- four bloodied leaves of the mushaf
he was reading at the time of his assassination in Medina
in 656 – are intertwined in creating the mosque’s tenth-
century identity.

This identity is defined partly through the Andalusian
capital’s own association with Cilm and with Maliki princi-
ples of ittibac, thereby providing a primary link with
Medinese practices and underlining the Andalusian
Umayyads’ preservation of established Islamic ideals.”
Later compilations of the merits (fada’il) of al-Andalus
make it a desirable location for the acquisition of knowl-
edge (dar hijra li-al-Cilm) and a land whose Islamization
was prophesied by the Prophet.l2 Throughout its various
stages, the mosque is presented as the physical embod-
iment of these qualities and a fulfillment of the proph-
etic message. The character of the mosque’s dynastic
founder, ‘Abd al-Rahman I, was extolled by Imam
Malik.13 The mosque’s second expansion, undertaken by
‘Abd al-Rahman II in 836, is attributed to the patron’s
strict adherence to Malikism and his consequent refusal
to allow more than one congregational Friday assembly
in Cordoba despite a rise in its population.’4 Al-Hakam’s
own expansion is attributed to identical considerations,
and his refusal to correct the mosque’s qibla is articu-
lated succinctly in the words, “we are a people of prece-
dent” (madhhabuna al-ittiba), to express a similar senti-
ment.’5 The debate surrounding this issue positions the
qibla as a major memento of the mosque’s history from
the time of its foundation by Musa ibn Nusayr and
Hanash al-SanCani in 711 through its later adoption by
“the choice members of this people, and by [al-
Hakam’s] ancestors the imams.”16 Unlike CAbd al-Rah-
man III’s new royal mosque at Madinat al-Zahra, the Cor-
doba mosque’s qibla comes to signify historical and

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NUHA N.N. KHOURY

dynastic continuity. In maintaining it, al-Hakam at once
preserves a legacy safeguarded throughout more than
two centuries of Islamic and Umayyad presence in Cor-
doba and reinforces a historical link between the

mosque founded during the original conquest and the
“new” mosque built after the reestablishment of the
Umayyad caliphate of al-Andalus.
A myth that associates the mosque’s site with the

church of Saint Vincent acts as an intermediary step in
the transformation of the mosque into a monument of
dynastic conquest whose history begins with CAbd al-Rah-
man I. On the authority of the tenth-century al-Razi, lat-
er medieval historians assert that the original founders
of the Cordoba mosque shared the church of Saint Vin-
cent with the city’s Christian population, “following the
example of Abu CUbayda and Khalid [ibn al-Walid], and
the judgment of Caliph CUmar in partitioning Christian
churches like that of Damascus and other [cities] that
were taken by peaceful accord.”17 In 785, thirty years af-
ter his arrival in Cordoba as a refugee of the Abbasid
takeover of the caliphate, CAbd al-Rahman I, later
dubbed al-Dakhil, purchased the great church (al-kanzsa
al-Cuzmd) of Saint Vincent, demolished it, and con-
structed Cordoba’s main Friday mosque.18 The account
posits a parallel with two earlier Islamic paradigms, one
established during the first caliphal period and the other
by the Umayyad Caliph al-Walid’s reported purchase and
demolition of the church of Saint John in Damascus.
However, the church of Saint Vincent is neither archae-

ologically attested as the major edifice mentioned by the
historians and designated al-kanzsa al-cuzma nor speci-
fied by name in accounts of the events following CAbd al-
Rahman I’s initial arrival in al-Andalus.19 Rather, the
anonymous tenth-century Akhbar MajmuCa on the history
of al-Andalus mentions a church, “the site of the present-
day Friday mosque,” as the place where seventy Muslims
were killed by the Mudarite al-Sumayl ibn Harith – a
contestant for control of al-Andalus during the clan war
that followed the collapse of the Umayyad caliphate and
culminated in CAbd al-Rahman I’s establishment of the

Umayyad amirate of Cordoba in 756.20 The enhance-
ment of the church’s identity furnishes two interpretive
strands, of which one commemorates CAbd al-Rahman

I’s survival and victory against Muslim opponents and
the other amplifies this victory by translating it into one
against Muslims and non-Muslims alike. The double vic-

tory signals a new conquest that reinitiates the Cordoba
mosque’s history and endows it with a new identity as an
Andalusian Umayyad commemorative monument.

Tenth- and post-tenth-century histories of the Cor-

doba mosque express the symbolic appropriation of the
history of Islam in al-Andalus by constructing a mythical
identity for the monument that parallels that of earlier
Umayyad architectural artifacts. The intent of the myth
of the church of Saint Vincent is most clearly revealed
through its predecessor, that of the church of SaintJohn
of Damascus, and through the image of the Umayyads as
upholders of Islam that is implied by this myth. Contem-
porary Abbasid histories recognize al-Walid’s demolition
of the church of SaintJohn as an expression of power,
and follow with the dialogue between al-Walid and the
Byzantine emperor that culminated in al-Farazdaq’s
famous response to the Byzantine monarch, likening the
wisdom of al-Walid’s actions vis-a-vis those of his prede-
cessors (who had let the church stand) to that of Solo-
mon and David.21 The discovery of a Solomonic tablet on
the site is further recorded as the impetus behind the
inscription in which al-Walid records, in gold characters,
the demolition of the church and the construction of a

mosque dedicated to the worship of one God.22 CAbd al-
Rahman I’s definitive transformation of church into

mosque similarly purifies the Cordoba mosque’s site and
consecrates it as an Islamic sanctuary. Thus, despite the
presence of an earlier mosque, the definite Islamization
of Cordoba, as also of Damascus,23 is realized unequiv-
ocally through Umayyad intervention.

The twelfth-century Ibn Bashkuwal provides yet an-
other symbolic dimension to this act of purification by
interpolating a Solomonic prophecy into the mosque’s
history. The mosque’s site had been the great garbage
(qumama) pit of Cordoba until Solomon ordered his jinn
to clear and level it for, he observed, “here will be con-

structed a house in which God is worshiped” (baytun
yuCbadu allahu fihi).24 Ibn Bashkuwal reflects the
mosque’s identity by placing it squarely within the estab-
lished Umayyad cultural koine through his adaptation of
a mythical account pertinent to the Dome of the Rock.
He also makes it the subject of a prophecy that is fulfilled
by the Umayyad arrival in al-Andalus. The element of
predestination, which is also an important feature of the
Abbasid and Fatimid dacwas, is realized in Umayyad his-
toriography through CAbd al-Rahman I, who is recog-
nized by his grandfather as the one with whom “the mat-
ter is at hand.” CAbd al-Rahman’s special destiny is also
the subject of a Jewish prophecy.25 His escape and con-
quest of al-Andalus are portrayed as part of a larger cos-
mic design that left its imprint on the mosque’s history.
This design was completed in 929 when CAbd al- Rahman
III, in the words of his court poet Ibn CAbd Rabbih (d.
940), “conquered al-Andalus anew as his namesake had

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THE GREAT MOSQUE OF CORDOBA IN THE TENTH CENTURY

conquered it at the beginning,” and caused disbelievers
“to enter the faith in droves.”26 The second victory com-
mands the reconsecration and rededication of the Cor-

doba mosque and its site, needs that are fulfilled by the
appropriation of earlier conquest paradigms into Anda-
lusian Umayyad history.

The two stages of the Umayyad conquest and Islamiza-
tion of al-Andalus are represented by the adaptation of
the myth of the church of Saint Vincent/Saint John to
two phases of the Cordoba mosque’s history. At the con-
clusion of al-Walid’s transformation of the church into

the Damascus mosque, he “commands” the Byzantine
emperor to supply the mosaics and mosaicists required
for the decoration of this mosque. Al-Hakam is said to
have issued a similar order described by the fourteenth-
century Ibn CIdhari as “in emulation of what al-Walid
had done when constructing the mosque of Damas-
cus.”27 The application of this second power paradigm to
the Cordoba mosque’s caliphal phase signals a thematic
continuity between two moments in the monument’s his-
tory.28 As reflections of the tenth-century form and iden-
tity of the Cordoba mosque, the adapted power para-
digms – whether absorbed as myths or transformed into
reality29 – commemorate the Umayyad role in establish-
ing and reestablishing Islam in the Iberian peninsula by
framing the Andalusian Umayyad daCwa in the familiar
mythical and architectural language of the older Umay-
yad caliphate. Accordingly, the tenth-century expansion
of the Cordoba mosque is the physical embodiment of
the continuation of Umayyad history, an act of reconse-
cration that echoes CAbd al-Rahman III’s reinstatement

of caliphal status as the reappropriation of an “immuta-
ble designation” and a divinely ordained heritage.30

Although the Cordoba mosque’s mythical identity sig-
nals specific meanings that are derived from Syrian
Umayyad history, in the Akhbar Majmuca, the mosque’s
site is identified as the location where seventy Muslims
were martyred before CAbd al-Rahman I took control of
Cordoba, and his battle is compared to the 657 battle of
Siffin between Mucawiya and cAli.31 This comparison
takes Andalusian Umayyad historical associations fur-
ther back in time by recalling an earlier civil war of major
importance to Umayyad history. Siffin is famed as the
battle in which Mucawiya’s troops raised copies of the
Qur’an on their spears demanding justice for Caliph
cUthman’s murder; it resulted in arbitration (tahkim)
and eventually in the establishment of the Umayyad ca-
liphate in 661.32 The comparison evokes an earlier injus-
tice and an earlier victory that began the cycle of Umay-
yad caliphal history. The Abbasid massacre of the

Umayyad Caliph Marwan and of eighty-two members of
the Umayyad family, reported in detail in Ibn CAbd Rab-
bih’s al-‘Iqd, provides the theme and impetus for CAbd al-
Rahman I’s escape to al-Andalus, beginning a second
cycle of injustices against the Umayyads that had begun
with CUthman’s murder.33 Consequently, the symbol of
CUthman’s murder – the mushaf he was reading at the
time of his assassination in Medina and through which
he sought protection against his would-be murder-
ers34 – reappears at the Cordoba mosque in the tenth
century, where it acts as a reminder of a series of wrongs
visited upon the Umayyads while at the same time under-
lining the justice of their daCwa.

References to the four leaves from CUthman’s mushaf,

which were carried out of the treasury in a candle-lit cer-
emonial procession, project these relics as physical
objects that are essential to the mosque’s consecration to
the Umayyad cause.35 Their symbolic value operates on
two distinct but related levels of meaning. CUthman’s
religious authority, embodied in his collecting of the
Qur’an, is manipulated as an Umayyad legacy that allows
his heirs to act as guides for the Muslim community. Ca-
liph CAbd al-Malik (685-705) provides an early illustra-
tion of the Marwanid Umayyad exploitation of CUth-
man’s act in a khutba to the Medinese in which he rejects
the “ahadzth that have trickled to us from [your]
region,” recognizes the Qur’an as sole source of author-
ity, and exhorts the Medinese to “keep fast to your
mushaf, which the unjustly slain (mazlum) Imam [CUth-
man] gathered for you, and follow the rules [fara’id]
that the unjustly slain Imam ordained for you.”36 CUth-
man’s memory, embodied in the blood-stained leaves of
his mushaf, also provides the Umayyads with certain
divinely sanctioned rights. As CUthman’s heir, Mucawiya
rallied Syrian support by quoting from the Revelations,
“If anyone is slain wrongfully, we have given his heirs au-
thority” (wa man qutila mazlumanfa qadjacalna liwaliyyihi
sultanan), a statement emphasizing the haqq (justice/
truth) of Mucawiya’s cause and one which Ibn CAbd Rab-
bih attributes to Ibn CAbbas, who was thus able to foretell

Mucawiya’s success against cAli.37 This cause is also sanc-
tioned by the Prophet who predicted that CUthman, well
guided (cala al-hudd) during the future schisms,38 will be
killed while reading surat al-baqara, so that his blood
would drip on the words, fasaykfikuhumu alldhu, wa huwa
al-samiCu al-calim (“God will suffice thee as against them,
and he is the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing”).39 Subse-
quently, the caliph’s cause will be taken up in both the
east and the west, and he will become an intercessor on

Judgment Day.40 CUthman’s historic act, the collecting of

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NUHA N.N. KHOURY

the Qur’an, transfers authority to his family; the justice
of their cause and their “well-guided” caliphate are sanc-
tioned by the Prophet and sanctified by the leaves
washed in their forefather’s blood. The Prophetic mes-
sage thus asserts Umayyad rights and authority, whether
at the battle of Siffin, the comparable 756 battle of Cor-
doba, or the 929 competition for the caliphate. Accom-
panied by CAbd al-Rahman III’s revival of an old practice,
cursing the cAlids,41 CUthman’s mushaf is once again
raised as the instrument of tahkim in the blood feud

against the Abbasids who had usurped the caliphate and
the Fatimids who had declared their own in 910, both

unjustly.
As the architectural reliquary of CUthman’s mushaf, the

Cordoba mosque reflects concepts of the doctrinal
debates that arose after his murder. The schisms within

the community that divided support between two com-
peting caliphs were paralleled in the tenth century by the
unprecedented reign of three caliphs. Accordingly, the
mosque’s extant tenth-century inscriptions issue a call for
a unified caliphate through a combination of an unusual
series of Qur’anic verses and an unusually large number
of historical texts that result in a meaningful icono-
graphic program.42 This program incorporates state-
ments that appear to be significantly related to ideolog-
ical formulations developed by al-Hasan ibn Muhammad
ibn al-Hanafiyya late in the seventh century and originally
espoused by Caliph CAbd al-Malik as a means of unifying
the community.43 The inscriptions reflect the earlier dog-
mas by defining believer status through a minimum of
requirements while continuously emphasizing God’s
choice (tawfiq) in supplying the huda (divine guidance)
required for the righteous and truthful (haqq) founda-
tions of the expansion and its accompanying mulk (power,
dominion), thus providing the necessary ideological basis
for the mosque’s historical and mythical associations.44

Inscriptions above al-Hakam’s entrance (al-mashrac ila
musalldh) begin with verses that enumerate spiritual obli-
gations, promising paradise to those who profess belief,
accept the Prophetic message and reject trinitarian shirk,
and are steady in their faith. Verses 41:30-32 in the fram-
ing arch of the composition state, “Those who say ‘our
Lord is God’, and further stand straight and steadfast,
the angels descend on them, ‘fear ye not nor grieve, but
receive glad tidings of the garden which you were prom-
ised. We are your protectors (awliyadukum) in this life
and the hereafter, therein shall you have all that your
souls desire, therein shall you have what you ask for; a
gift from One Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful’.”45 The
inscriptions surrounding the grilled window within the

arch quote verses 6:101-102, “To Him is due the primal
origins of the heavens and the earth, how can He have a
son when He has no consort? He created all things and
He has full knowledge of all things. That is God your
Lord, there is no God but He, the Creator of all things;
then worship Him, He has power to dispose of all
affairs.” These quotations are followed by invocations
(duCad) for divine mercy spoken by the believers in part
of 2:286, inscribed in the mosaic band framing the
horseshoe arch, “Our Lord condemn us not if we forget
or fall into error; our Lord lay not on us a burden like
that which You laid on those before us; our Lord lay not
on us a burden greater than we have strength to bear,
blot out our sins and grant us forgiveness, have mercy on
us, You are our Protector, help us against those against
faith.” The quotations emphasize faith (as opposed to
actions, acmal) as the primary definition of belief (zman)
and God’s mercy as the predicate of salvation while liter-
ally extracting the element of human choice (in commit-
ting good or evil acts, the essence of the subtracted part
of the verse) as a factor in judgment.46 They are followed
by additional statements on predestination that stress
the Umayyads’ own predilection for success in verse 3:8,
“Our Lord, let not our hearts deviate now that You have

guided us (idh hadaytand), but grant us mercy from Your
presence for You are the Grantor (of bounties without
measure).”47 In asking for constancy in guidance the
verse defines a preexisting and consistent condition
whose applicability to the Umayyad caliphate is emphat-
ically underscored in the final, non-Qur’anic formula,
“The Dominion is God’s upon guidance (al-mulku lillahi
Cala al-hudd), God’s praises upon Muhammad the seal of
Prophets.” This formula introduces two historical texts
that commemorate the construction of the mashrac and
the mosaic decoration of “this venerable house.”

The emphasis on predestination that appears around
al-Hakam’s entrance is reiterated in the inscriptions in
the maqsura area, which include statements on God’s
omnipotence and omniscience and list a minimum of
obligations, primarily prayer, as the means for fulfilling
religious requirements. In the dome (fig. 5), verse 22:77
and part of 7848 issue a universal call, “O you who
believe, bow down and prostrate yourselves, and adore
your Lord, and do good, that you may prosper. And
strive in His cause as you ought to strive, He has chosen
you and has imposed no difficulties on you in religion, it
is the cult of your father Abraham; it is He who has
named you Muslims, both before and in this (Revela-
tion), that the Apostle may be a witness for you.”49 In the
mihrab niche (fig. 6), verse 2:238 exhorts believers to

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THE GREAT MOSQUE OF CORDOBA IN THE TENTH CENTURY

Fig. 5. Cordoba mosque. Central dome.

“guard strictly your prayers, especially the middle prayer,
and stand before God in a devout frame of mind.” This

verse is followed by a historical inscription commemorat-
ing al-Hakam’s order to sheathe the mihrab with marble,
“after having constructed it with God’s aid,” and, finally,
by verse 31:22, “Whosoever submits his whole self to
God, and is a doer of good, has grasped indeed the most
trustworthy handhold, and with God rests the end and
decision of all affairs.”50

The mosaic inscription bands that frame the niche
(fig. 7), executed in gold Kufic characters on a blue
ground, begin with statements on God’s omniscience,
and on the believers’ duty of total submission to Him, in
verses 32:6 and 40:65, “Such is He, the Knower of all

things, hidden and open, the Exalted, the Merciful. He
is the Living, there is no God but He; call upon Him, giv-
ing Him sincere devotion, praise be to God the Lord of

Fig. 6. Cordoba mosque. Cross-section of al-Hakam’s mihrab. (Af-
ter C. Nizet, La Mosquee de Cordoue, p. 29)

the worlds.”5′ These quotations are followed by al-
Hakam’s foundation inscription and a text commemo-
rating the mosque’s tashbik, possibly a reference to the
segmented and reticulated vaults. ‘2 The main founda-
tion text makes al-Hakam’s expansion a pious response
to the needs of the Islamic community with the words,53
“Thanks be to God Lord of the worlds who chose

(muwaffiq) the Imam al-Mustansir Billah, ‘abd allah al-
Hakam amir al-mu’minzn, may God preserve him in righ-
teousness (aslaahhu allahu), for this venerable construc-
tion (al-bunya al-mukarrama) and who was his aid (muczn)
in [effecting] his [His?] eternal structure (bunyah al-kha-
lida), for the goal of making it more spacious for his fol-
lowers (al-tawsica li raciyyatihi).. .in fulfillment of his and
their wishes, and as an expression of his grace toward
them.” The horizontal frieze directly within this frame,
inscribed in blue mosaic characters over a gold ground,

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NUHA N.N. KHOURY

Fig. 7. Cordoba mosque. Al-Hakam’s mihrab.

repeats the theme of God’s unity and omniscience with
verse 59:23, “God is He, [other] than whom there is no

other god, who knows (all things), both secret and open;
He, most Gracious, most Merciful.”‘4

The last inscription in this area is located on the
imposts of the niche mihrab’s horeseshoe arch (fig. 8). It
introduces a text commemorating al-Hakam’s order to
“set up these two supports of what he has founded upon
purity and with sanction from God” (nasb hadhayn al-
minkabayn fimd assasahu Cald taqwa min allahi wa
ridwIan),55 with the middle portion of verse 7:43, “Praise
be to God, who has guided us to this (hadana ii hadha),
never could we have found guidance (wa ma kunna linah-
tadi) had it not been for God’s guidance (lawla ‘an
hadadn); indeed it was the truth (al-haqq) that the apos-
tles of our Lord brought to us.”56 The verse accordingly
transforms the minkabayn, usually understood as a refer-
ence to the two pairs of marble columns flanking the

mihrab niche,57 into the metaphorical supports – the
haqq and huda- of an “eternal house” whose founda-
tions are piety and divine sanction (taqwd wa ridwan).
Together, these foundations uphold a single statement,
the universal davwa inscribed as a call to the Abrahamic

milla in the mosque’s central dome, the qubbat al-Islam to
which CAbd al-Rahman III led unbelievers by “adjusting
the course of the faith.”58 The “venerated house”, “ven-
erable” and “eternal” construction facilitated by God’s
aid, thus amounts to more than the physical structure of
the mosque. It implies the caliphate itself, a necessity for
the unification of a Muslim community torn apart by the
schisms instigated by false caliphs.

The metaphorical meaning and iconographic identity
of the caliphal phase of the Cordoba mosque are accen-
tuated by the phraseology and terminology of its epi-
graphic program. Nowhere do the inscriptions refer to a
mosque, but rather to a house of worship that fulfills a
series of prophecies and completes the final cycle of
Umayyad history. Al-Hakam’s historical inscriptions,
which express gratitude for being chosen as the instru-
ment through which the structure was built and com-
pleted, follow a protocol that belongs to the language of
shrines, evident in inscriptions at Mecca and Medina.59
This protocol provides the Umayyad caliphate with an
essential, yet inaccessible, prerogative by presenting the
dynastic mosque as a universal Islamic shrine.6″ The in-
sistence on the detailed historical record for this shrine,

repeatedly listing the names of patron, supervisor,
designers, and scribes, follows from the identification
and serves to sanctify the enterprise while at the same
time providing various constituent elements (the tashbik
of the domes or maqsura, the mihrab and its marble
revetment, the mashrac, the inscriptions and mosaics)
with an additional charge. The totality borrows the phra-
seology of verses 9:108-109 which state in part, “There is
a mosque whose foundation was laid from the first day
upon piety” and “God’s sanction” to transmit a single
message: the reinitiation of true Islam whose fundamen-
tal architectural symbol is the “first house of worship” or,
in Umayyad terms, the Prophet’s Mosque at Medina.6′

The epigraphic program of the Cordoba mosque com-
bines with its mythical and historical dimensions to pro-
ject the monument yet another step back in time, mak-
ing it a counterpart of the mosque-shrine founded by the
Prophet. Like its prototype, the Cordoba mosque is con-
structed after exile and hijra. It is a mosque of conquest
and renewal that abrogates what came before it, and one
that proclaims the ascendancy of a new world order and
the establishment of God’s caliphate on earth. While the

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89 THE GREAT MOSQUE OF CORDOBA IN THE TENTH CENTURY

“,?_r T -??’. A, .4. ,

:iiCI
.,*..?? 😕

?% ?i r*
i

“‘?? ?
??1 d 1,

:s ‘,..,,,

Fig. 8. Cordoba mosque. Al-Hakam’s mihrab. Detail of horseshoe arch.

prophecies pertaining to the orphaned ‘Abd al-Rahman
I, acknowledged as the Falcon of Quraysh by the Abbasid
caliph al-Mansur (754-75), borrow from the established
paradigms of the Prophetic Szra,62 Ibn cAbd Rabbih pro-
vides CAbd al-Rahman III, another orphan, with a por-
trait that makes him “God’s caliph, whom He chose
(i4tafahu) above all others,” and likens his battles against
heretics and schismatics to the Prophet’s battles at Badr
and Hunayn.63 In the continuing discourse that branded
the Umayyads as proselytizers of hell (duCdt al-nar),64 the
Umayyad response was a daCwa to the pure Islam of the
original ahl al-bayt symbolized by a mosque with a puri-
fied site, a sanctifying relic, and an iconographic identity
that reinvented it as the “first” Islamic house of worship.
This identity is imprinted in the tenth-century descrip-
tion of the Prophet’s mosque provided by Ibn CAbd Rab-
bih’s al-CIqd.

Al-cIqd, compiled by CAbd al-Rahman III’s court poet,
includes two sections that are considered original to the

author: an ‘urjuza in praise of the caliph that constituted
the work’s earlier conclusion, and a section on the three

holy shrines.65 Of these three descriptions, that of the
Medinese structure stands out as a highly detailed eye-
witness account of the Prophet’s Mosque as recon-
structed by al-Walid in 707-9. Significantly, though else-
where in al-‘Iqd Ibn CAbd Rabbih mentions the mosques
of Medina and Damascus as representative of al-Walid’s
work, the description itself is devoid of any names or
dates. Al-CIqd then presents a portrait of a shrine that is
unrestricted by temporal boundaries but one with an
unmistakable Umayyad stamp.

This description was instrumental to Sauvaget’s theo-
retical reconstruction of the Umayyad phase of the Pro-
phet’s Mosque, which survived largely intact through the
thirteenth and fourteenth century and into the fifteenth,
and which resembled al-Walid’s other urban mosques but
accommodated an important hallowed site. However, the
description exhibits inconsistencies with its subject and
correspondences with the caliphal expansion of the Cor-

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NUHA N.N. KHOURY

E D

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i \ i r -S-*-*–*–i– – -i- -*- – i BBm a

0 . o 0 0 H A!

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Fig. 9. Prophet’s Mosque, Medina. Sauvaget’s reconstruction of
707-9 plan. (After Jean Sauvaget, La Mosquee omeyyade de Medine,
fig. 5)

doba mosque that question its documentary value and
raise doubts about its authorship and the significance of
its larger narrative section to the work as a whole. These
correspondences and inconsistencies indicate that the
description was a critical instrument of iconographic
transfer that conflated two monuments in order to re-cre-

ate one as an image of the other. Unlike the descriptions
of the Meccan andJerusalemite harams, Medina’s begins
with the interior, specifically with an account of the sanc-
tuary area that in more than one way corresponds to al-
Hakam’s own expansion at Cordoba. It begins:

On the qibla side, the [mosque’s] aisles (baldtdt) run
across from east to west.66 Each row of its aisles has seven-

teen columns, the space between the columns being large
and wide. The columns of the southern [qibla] aisle are
plastered white and very lofty. The remaining columns are
of marble. The plastered columns have large square bases
and gilded capitals. Above these are [wood] beams that are
also painted and gilded, with the ceiling above these
beams painted and gilded as well. Opposite the mihrab, in
the middle of the [transverse] aisles [emphasis added], is an
aisle (baldt) that is gilded all over. [This aisle] cuts through

the [transverse] aisles [all the way] from the courtyard as
far as the [niche] mihrab’s aisle (al-balit al-ladhi bi[hi] al-
mihrab), which it does not cross.67 And in the aisle adjacent
to the [niche] mihrab (al-baldt al-ladhzyali al-mihrab) there
is much gilding.68 In its center is a dome (sama’) that is
round like a large shield (ka al-tirs al-muqaddar), concave
like a mother of pearl shell (mujawwaf ka al-mahar), and
gilded.

The description presents a T-plan arrangement, with a
central aisle cutting through transverse ones as far as the
one opposite the niche mihrab. Both arms of the T are
marked by heavy gilding; their crossing is accented by a
dome that is both like a “shield” or “disk” and like a

“mother of pearl shell.” This fundamental design of the
sanctuary area is distinctly at odds with the mosque’s re-
constructions, where the niche mihrab (which marks the

final point of the central aisle in the description) is
shifted to the west so as to maintain alignment with the
Prophet’s original place of prayer (muSalla/mihrab), a
critical aspect of the mosque’s dual identity and com-
memorative functions (fig. 9).69 Sauvaget resolved the
discrepancy by interpreting the gilded baldt perpendic-
ular to the niche mihrab as a reference to the arrange-
ment of the wooden beams beneath the flat ceiling. The
absence of arcades in the sanctuary indicated that these
beams are arranged transversally elsewhere in the
mosque (in conformity with the east to west specifica-
tion), but those in the aisle facing the niche (located off
the mosque’s central axis) are arranged longitudinally
“following a line perpendicular to the qibla wall.”70
Accordingly, the aisle facing the niche mihrab marks a
direct path from the Prophet’s original muyalla/mihrdb to
the niche at ceiling level, but it is neither expressed in
the ground plan nor positioned along the mosque’s cen-
tral axis.

Sauvaget’s interpretation of this passage coerces it into
conformity with other information pertinent to the
Prophet’s mosque and especially to the location of the
shifted niche mihrab. However, while the description
imposes the difficulty of leaving the term baldt open to
interpretation, it is clear in its emphasis on the centrality
of both the gilded aisle, which is “in the middle of the
aisles,” and of the niche mihrab before which it ends. A

later passage that concentrates on the niche underscores
the point:

The [niche] mihrab is in the middle of the qibla wall [emphasis
added].71 At [the summit of?] its arch (‘ala qawsihi) is a
thick, protruding gold frame (qusSa) in which is inset
CA’isha’s mirror, may God be pleased with her.72 The vault
(qabu) of the mihrab is of very large size [emphasis added], with
compartments (darat) of which some are gold, some dark

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THE GREAT MOSQUE OF CORDOBA IN THE TENTH CENTURY

red, and some black. Within the vault there is a carved and
gilded band, with [a row of] gilded octagonal plaques
(Safadih) below it, within which is inset an agate like the
skull of a small boy. Below that [row] is a marble revetment
as far as the floor, painted with unguent. In it is inset the
stick (watad) that the Prophet, peace upon him, used to
lean on when getting up from his prostrations in the first
mihrab (al-mihrab al-awwal), as has been said, and God
knows best.’3 On the right of the [niche] mihrab is a door
for the imam to come in and go out. To the left of the
[niche] mihrab is another small door with a grating. Con-
necting these doors and the [niche] mihrab is a fine level
walk.74

In insisting on the centrality of the niche mihrab, the
description presents an odd divergence from a major
identifying feature of the Prophet’s Mosque. This discre-
pancy raises the possibility of a faulty transfer of informa-
tion from observer to redactor or from visual conception
to verbal description, depending on whether or not the
passages from al-CIqd are a true eye-witness account.
Alternatively, it can be understood as a normative fea-
ture of medieval mechanisms of iconographic transfer in
which elements of a shrine are reinterpreted and/or re-
arranged to reproduce the essential value and content of
the original without re-creating its exact architectural
form, a question whose resolution rests in the architec-
ture of the Cordoba mosque itself.75

While the design provided in the description is inconsis-
tent with the Prophet’s Mosque, it corresponds to the
expansion in the Cordoba mosque in which an emphatic
central aisle, distinguished by gilding and by a hierarchical
arrangement of supports, cuts through the arcades to end
at the bay in front of the niche mihrab, where it is marked
by a large central dome (fig. 4). As is the case in the
description, the Cordoba mosque’s niche – whose size
and depth have made “room-like” its most common desig-
nation – is part of a larger ensemble that includes two
doors, one of which is the bab al-imam (al-Hakam’s mash-
rac) and both of which are signaled by subsidiary domes.
The large central dome that marks the crossing, described
in al-cIqd as both shield-like and shell-like, finds its dual for-
mal expression in the Cordoba mosque’s segmented cen-
tral dome and its niche mihrab’s “mother of pearl shell”
hood (figs. 5, 10, 11). Further, a glance at the decorative
scheme of the Cordoba mosque’s mihrab also evinces
resemblances with the specifications in the description,
whether in the red, black, and gold “compartments” of
the horseshoe arch or in the decorative bands and marble

revetment of the niche itself (fig. 8).76 Additional corre-
spondences with Cordoba’s mosque appear in al-CIqds
description of the qibla wall and its decoration:

Fig. 10. Cordoba mosque. Al-Hakam’s mihrab. Detail of mother-of-
pearl shell hood.

The facade of the qibla wall is sheathed with a marble dado
(>izar) from the floor to about a man’s height. This revet-
ment is delineated by a marble frieze (tawq) of the width of
a finger. Above this is a narrower frieze that is anointed
with unguent. Then there is another band like the first
one, in which there are fourteen openings (bab) [ar-
ranged] in a line from east to west, similar in size to the
window openings (kuwa) of the Friday Mosque of Cor-
doba, and all carved and gilded. Above there is another
marble band, then a blue frieze inscribed with five lines of
gold letters as thick as a finger, containing the suras of qiadr
al-mufassal.77 Above this is another marble band like the
first, lowest, one, with round golden shields (tirasa).78 Be-
tween each pair of shields is a green column (camud) with
golden bars (qudbdn) on each of its ends. Above this is an-
other band, as wide [high] as an arm, decorated with
scrolls and leaves.79 Then there is a wide band decorated

with mosaic, with the ceiling above it.

Decorative elements concentrated in and around the

Cordoba mosque’s niche mihrab replicate details of the
decorative scheme of the qibla wall at the Prophet’s Mos-

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NUHA N.N. KHOURY

7~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* ~ ~~~~~ ^l

Fig. 11. Cordoba mosque. Plan of mihrab and maqsura. (After C. Nizet, La Mosquee de Cordoue, p. 24)

que. The fourteen windows mentioned in the description
are represented in two groups at the Cordoba mosque,
with seven blind trefoil arches enclosing mosaic scrolls
and branches arranged in a line above the large horse-
shoe arch and seven more (counting the niche mihrab’s
arched opening) within the niche itself (figs. 6, 7). The
medium and Kufic style of the Cordoban inscriptions, dis-
tinctive in their thickness and considered to be deliber-

ately archaizing, again conform to the account.80 In its
totality, the organization of the Cordoba mosque’s deco-
rative program, with its alternating marble friezes, mosaic
bands, carvings, and inscriptions, is a condensed repre-
sentation of the decoration of the entire qibla wall
described for Medina. This “summary” of the hallowed
sanctuary and its qibla wall sharpens the meaning of al-
Hakam’s expansion and especially of the area around the
niche mihrab, amplifying its iconographic charge and
providing another explanation for the insistence on com-
memorating specific architectural features and decora-

tive techniques – mosaics, inscriptions, mihrab niche,
and marble revetments, the bdb al-imam, and the maqsura
area in general – of the caliphal expansion.

The detailed description in al-cIqd allowed Sauvaget to
reconstruct the qibla wall of the Prophet’s Mosque in a
manner that corresponds to the organization and vocab-
ulary of decorative motifs known from other Umayyad
monuments (fig. 12).81 As is the case with the shifted
niche and aisle, however, this section exhibits another

inconsistency with its subject: the omission of the subject
matter of the mosaic program of the qibla wall, which is
known to have included representations of gardens and
palaces that have counterparts in extant portions of the
mosaic program at Damascus (fig. 13). Sauvaget rational-
ized this incongruity in what is an otherwise highly
detailed account of the qibla wall as a result of the au-
thor’s Cordoban origins, implying a familiarity with
mosaics that led to his blase attitude about those at the

Prophet’s Mosque. Though the author exhibits familiar-

1′ ~ t … . ….. f
i – – I i – i~ I .~ 1 &

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THE GREAT MOSQUE OF CORDOBA IN THE TENTH CENTURY

Fig. 12. Prophet’s Mosque, Medina. Sauvaget’s reconstruction of
decorative scheme of the qibla wall. (After Jean Sauvaget, La Mos-
quee omeyyade de Medine, fig. 3)

ity with Cordoba’s Friday mosque (as evident in the com-
parison with its windows), and though Ibn cAbd Rabbih
may have been familiar with mosaics from Madinat al-
Zahra (which was begun in 936), the Cordoba mosque
itself is not known to have had any mosaic decoration
prior to the expansion initiated by al-Hakam a quarter of
a century after Ibn CAbd Rabbih’s death. Further, the
Cordoba mosque is the only Umayyad monument
known not to have included representational subject
matter in its mosaic program,82 leaving only two possible
explanations for the omission: as an oversight that is irre-

concilable with the spirit and detail of the account yet
repeated further on in the description and followed
faithfully at the Cordoba mosque,83 or as a conflation of
the caliphal phase of Cordoba’s mosque with the
mosque of the Prophet. This conflation suggests that the
description was written after al-Hakam had undertaken
his expansion, but possibly before the last elements, the
wood minbar and maqsura (which are mentioned in the
description as old and simple), were in place.84

The possibility of a later date for the description of the
Prophet’s Mosque is supported by internal evidence
from al-CIqd. Shafic, who believed Ibn CAbd Rabbih to
have been in Medina sometime before 929, also noted

that the descriptions of the holy shrines differ in style
from the remainder of the work, which also includes

information about the Abbasid caliph al-MutiC (946-
974) – indicating that the work was updated by a later
hand.85 Further, Ibn CAbd Rabbih is absent from medie-
val lists of travelers to the east and is not known ever to

have made the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina.86 As an
addition to a work of adab that was much maligned by
medieval readers for not presenting information about
al-Andalus,87 the description of the three holy shrines
heightens the work’s historiographical value by appro-
priating necessary caliphal responsibilities and prerog-
atives into the Umayyad domain.

Whether or not the description of the three holy
shrines was added to al-CIqd, its value to the iconography
of the Cordoba mosque remains undiminished. The
description of the Prophet’s Mosque presents a first, and
so far unique, instance of documented iconographic
transfer that elucidates the means through which a
major monument was invested with meaning. Re-created
as an image of the Medinese shrine, the authority of al-
Hakam’s mosque was enhanced through its prototype,
and particularly through association with the “mosque
within a mosque” that incorporates memories and relics
of the Prophet. As is the case at Medina, al-Hakam’s
expansion acts as a historical and architectural focusing
device and instrument of commemoration. The

emphatic central aisle at the Cordoba mosque inscribes
a direct line from the new, charged, qibla wall and the
niche mihrab supported by haqq and huda to CAbd al-
Rahman II’s mihrab (whose four marble columns pre-
sumably flank al-Hakam II’s niche mihrab), and, in turn,
to CAbd al-Rahman I and to the mosque’s oldest memo-
ries and foundations, the reasons that precluded al-
Hakam’s correction of the mosque’s orientation. This
line is then extended beyond local Umayyad history to
recall and commemorate critical moments and events in

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NUHA N.N. KHOURY

,; ?

I r-
??T?.lr Illr*”lli?Ll*u- ” ‘ 1 ?

”?’????rc

?? . ?k “? . r*r

??* a ?i f
1,PI?I-

Fig. 13. Damascus mosque. Detail of mosaics on sanctuary courtyard facade.

Umayyad and Islamic history, thereby transcending geo-
graphical and temporal boundaries to participate in
inter-Islamic discourses on leadership and caliphal au-
thority. By creating a translucent, multifaceted monu-
ment charged with the symbolism of authority, the Anda-
lusian Umayyads left a legacy whose multiple layers of
meaning were of value to both Spanish and Islamic cul-
tural history. They also left us a legacy of great informa-
tive value; one that defines new issues and directions in

the investigation of medieval Islamic mechanisms of
architectural iconography, of the documentary value of
descriptions of the primary paradigmatic and icono-
graphic model inherent in the Prophet’s Mosque at
Medina, and of the ways in which the Cordoba mosque
itself was transformed into an authoritative source of

architectural iconography.

University of California at Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California

NOTES

1. For a discussion and a collection of texts pertinent to the
mosque’s Islamic identity, see Taha al-Wali, al-Masajid fi al-
Isldm (Beirut, 1988), pp.602-81. A discussion of creative and
cultural identities and of the national identity of forms sug-
gested by the mosque of Cordoba is in Oleg Grabar, “Two Par-
adoxes in the Arts of the Spanish Peninsula,” in The Legacy of
Muslim Spain, ed. Salma Khadra Jayyusi (Leiden, 1992):
583-91; on the mosque’s transformations, Rafael Monco, “The
Mosque and the Cathedral,” FMR: The Magazine of Franco
Maria Ricci (1988): 98-117; analyses of medieval historical and
archaeological information on the mosque in E. Levi-Proven-
cal, “Les Citations du Muqtabis d’Ibn Hayyan relatives aux
agrandissements de la grande-mosquee de Cordoue au IX’ sie-
cle,” Arabica 1 (1954): 89-92; Elie Lambert, “L’histoire de la
grande-mosquee de Cordoue aux VIII et IXe siecle d’apres des
textes inedits,” Annales d’Institut d’Etudes Orientales d’Alger 2
(1936):165-79.

2. Though cAbd al-Rahman disembarked at al-Mankab in Sep-
tember 755, he did not begin to consolidate his position until
the battle of Cordoba in May of 756, an event of importance to
the mosque’s identity. For these events see Akhbar Majmuca fi

l I
94

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THE GREAT MOSQUE OF CORDOBA IN THE TENTH CENTURY

Fat.h al-Andalus wa Dhikri Umara’iha, ed. Emilio Lafuente y
Alcantara (Madrid, 1867), pp. 75 f.

3. The architectural inspirations that have been suggested for
Cordoba also include Byzantine, Hellenistic Syrian, Mesopota-
mian Abbasid, and local Spanish and Visigothic sources: Henri
Terrasse, L’Art Hispano-Mauresque des origines au XIIIe siecle
(Paris, 1932), pp. 126-51; Georges Marcais, L’Architecture Musul-
mane d’Occident (Paris, 1954), 135-82; Jerrilyn Dodds, “The
Great Mosque of Cordoba,” Al-Andalus: The Art ofIslamic Spain,
ed. Jerrilyn D. Dodds (New York, 1992), pp. 11-25.

4. This is not to imply, as has often been stated, that the Cordoba
mosque was the first to transform previously amorphous
mosque spaces into spatially and architecturally ordered ones.
Rather, Cordoba exhibits an individual sense of order that is
somewhat different from, yet still related to, its chronological
predecessors.

5. Marcais, LArchitecture, pp. 183 f.; Christian Ewert andJ.P. Wiss-
hak, Forschungen zur almohadischen Moschee, Madrider Beitrage 10
(Mainz am Rhein, 1984); Robert Hillenbrand, “‘The Orna-
ment of the World’: Medieval Cordoba as a Cultural Center,”

Legacy of Muslim Spain, pp. 112-35, esp. 129-34.
6. All drawings of the Cordoba mosque are from C. Nizet, La

Mosquee de Cordoue (Paris, 1905).
7. Ibn CIdhari al-Marrakushi, al-Bayan al-Mughrib ft Tdn-kh al-

Maghrib, 2 vols. (Beirut, 1950), vol. 2, Akhbar al-Andalus,
pp. 348 f., esp. 348-49, where al-Nasir makes the mosque the
subject of his first caliphal command.

8. Christian Ewert, Spanische-Islamische Systeme (Berlin, 1968).
9. For the sabat and al-mashraCa al-kubra, also called al-mahajja, cf.

Abu CAbdallah al-Himyari, Kitab al-Rawd al-MiCtarfi Khabar al-
Aqtar: Sifat Jazirat al-Andalus, ed. E. Levi-Provencal (Cairo,
1937), p. 156; cf. Ibn CIdhari, al-Bayan, 2: 229, on CAbd al-Rah-
man II’s construction and use of the sabat.

10. For a discussion of the similarities between early Umayyad
structures and the Cordoba mosque, see Hillenbrand, “The
Ornament of the World,” in Legacy of Muslim Spain, pp. 130-31;
K.A.C. Creswell, A Short Account of Early Muslim Architecture, rev.

ed. James W. Allan (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1989), pp.43-88;
300-301; for interpretations of the Cordoba mosque as a
reflection of the mosque of Damascus, see Jonathan M.
Bloom, “The Revival of Early Islamic Architecture by the
Umayyads of Spain,” The Medieval Mediterranean: Cross-Cultural
Contacts, ed. M. Chiat and K. Reyerson (St. Cloud, Minn.,
1988), pp.35-41; Dodds, “Great Mosque of Cordoba,” Al-
Andalus, pp. 22-23.

11. On the nature of Andalusian Malikism, Ibn Hayyan, al-Muqta-
bas, ed. Ahmad Ali al-Makki (Cairo, 1971), esp. the listing of
Andalusian divergences and correspondences to Medinese
Malikism p.340, n.318; Manuela Marin, “Muslim Religious
Practices in al-Andalus,” in Legacy of Muslim Spain, pp. 878-94.

12. Significantly, Imam Malik is the source for the hadith pro-
duced in Ibn Hazm’s treatise on fada’il al-Andalus, see Fada’il
al-Andalus wa Ahliha, (li Ibn Hazm wa Ibn SaCzd wa al-Shiqandi),
ed. Salah al-Din al-Munajjid (Beirut, 1968), pp. 6-7.

13. Ahmad al-Maqarri, Nafhl al-Tib min Ghusn al-Andalus al-Ratzb, 4
vols. (Cairo, A.H. 1302), 3: 230.

14. Ibn Hayyan (997-1076), al-Muqtabasfi7AkhbdrBilad al-Andalus,
ed. ‘Abd al-Rahman CAli al-Hajji (Beirut, 1965), appendix,
p. 245; Levi-Provencal, “Les Citations du Muqtabis,”
p. 91.

15. Al-Maqarri, NafhZ al-Tib, 1: 263; cf. the foundation inscription at

the mosque in E. Levi-Provencal, Inscriptions Arabes d Espagne
(Leiden and Paris, 1931), p. 15.

16. Al-Maqarri, Nafh al-Tzb, 1: 263.
17. Al-Razi’s information is derived from members of his own fam-

ily, ‘Isa and Ahmad. Ibn CIdhari, al-Bayan, 2: 341; al-Maqqari,
Nafh al-Tzb, 1: 262, where the church is mentioned by name.

18. Ibid., Ibn ‘Idhari, al-Bayan, 2: 342.
19. The controversy surrounding the church is discussed in detail

in Alsayyid CAbd al-Aziz Salem, Qurtuba: IHdlirat al-Khilafafial-
Andalus, 2 vols. (Beirut, 1971), 1: 269 f.; cf. OcafiaJimnez, “La
basilica de San Vicente y la Gran Mezquita de Cordoba: Nuevo
Examen de los Textos,” Al-Andalus 4 (1942): 348-66.

20. Akhbar MajmuCa, p.61.
21. For example, Abu al-Hasan CAli ibn al-Husayn ibn ‘Ali al-

Mascudi, Muruj al-Dhahab wa MaCddin al-Jawhar, 4 vols. (Beirut,
n.d.), 3: 166. In al-Andalus, this charged act continued to be a
reality into the days of CAbd al-Rahman III and al-Hakam II;
for example, Ibn ‘Idhari, al-Bayan, 2: 281. This act is also a
topos that appears in the anti-Islamic poem by Nicephorus
Phocas as well as its eastern and western responses; see Salah
al-Din al-Munajjid, QaSzdat Imbertor al-Rum NiqfurFoqasfitHijda
al-Islam wa al-Muslimzm wa Qaszdatd al-Imamayn al-Qaffal al-
Shashi wa Ibn Hazm al-Andalusifi al-Raddi ‘Alayh (Beirut, 1982).

22. Al-MasCudi, Muruj, 3: 158; Repertoire chronologique d’epigraphie
arabe (Cairo, 1933), vol. 1, no. 18.

23. The major difference being that Cordoba’s mosque had in fact
been founded under the Syrian Umayyad caliphate.

24. Quoted in al-Maqarri, Nafh al-Tzb, 1: 263.
25. CAbd al-Rahman’s destiny is recognized after his father’s

death, when he is taken to al-Rusafa and received by his uncle
and grandfather; the latter identifies him with words that
approximate Abbasid expressions of the onset of a messianic
age, tadana al-‘amr, huwa hadha . . . wa allahi qad ‘arafatu al-
‘aldmata wa al-‘amarata bi wajhihi wa Cunqihz (“the matter is
close at hand, it is he … by God, I recognize the signs on his
face and neck”). Later on, CAbd al-Rahman dhz al-zafiratayn (of
the two braids) is recognized as the true “son of kings” by a
Jewish seer, a prophecy that results in saving his life, since he is
to fulfill a manifest destiny, Akhbar Majmuca, pp. 51-52; 54-55.
Cf. the accounts of the future Abbasid caliphs analyzed in
Jacob Lassner, Islamic Revolution and Historical Memory: An
Inquiry into the Arts of Abbasid Apologetics (New Haven, 1986); E.
Kohlberg, “Some Imami Shici Interpretations of Umayyad His-
tory,” Studies on the First Century of Islam, ed. G.H.A. Juynboll
(Carbondale and Edwardsville, Ill., 1982), pp. 145-59, for Shi’i
“books of destiny.”

26. Ibn CAbd Rabbih, al-‘Iqd, 4: 498.
27. Ibn CIdhari, al-Bayan, 2: 354.
28. That this portion of the account is detached from a specific

narrative context is indicated by the existence of a number of
early variants that apply to both the Damascus and the Medina
mosques. A Byzantine variant by Theophanes provides a dif-
ferent perspective on the account and applies it to cAbd al-
Malik and the Meccan haram. Three important variants, al-
Tabari’s in relation to Medina, al-Maqdisi’s in relation to
Damascus, and the one by Theophanes are in Cyril Mango,
The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312-1453: Sources and Documents
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ., 1972), p. 132.

29. For the Byzantine master mosaicist at Cordoba, George Mar-
cais, “Sur les mosaiques de la Grande Mosquee de Cordoue,”
Studies in Islamic Art and Architecture in Honour of KA. C. Creswell

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NUHA N.N. KHOURY

(Cairo, 1965), pp.147-56; Henri Stern, Les mosaiques de la
Grande Mosquee de Cordoue (Berlin, 1976), pp. 6-47.

30. This declaration is reproduced in Ibn CIdhari, al-Bayan 2:
297-98.

31. AkhbarMajmuCa, 59, the comparison is made at two levels, the
bloodiness of the battle and its aftermath, and the fact that it
constituted a war between two Muslim groups.

32. The battle and its aftermath are presented in Ibn CAbd Rab-
bih, al-cIqd, 4: 337 f.; a detailed account from an earlier source
is Nasr ibn Muzahim al-Minqari, WaqCat Siffin, ed. CAbd al-
Salam Muhammad Harun (Cairo, 1365); A.G.R. Hawting, The
FirstDynasty of Islam: The Umayyad CaliphateA.D., 661-750 (Lon-
don and Sydney, 1986), pp. 28 f.

33. Ibn cAbd Rabbih, al-cIqd, 4: 285-310, for Uthman’s murder, 4:
475-87, for the Umayyad massacre. Abbasid historiography,
whose strategy of excluding the Umayyads from the status of
the Prophet’s ahl al-bayt included discrediting the Umayyad
progenitor CAbd Shams, provides material for projecting the
injustices even further back in time; on this subject, see Moshe
Sharon, “The Umayyads as Ahl al-Bayt,” Jerusalem Studies on Ar-
abic and Islam 14 (1991): 115-52.

34. Ibn CAbd Rabbih, al-cIqd, 4: 292, where CUthman forestalls, but
does not avert, his death, by telling Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr,
“God’s Book stands between us.” Al-Walid ibn Yazid replays
this move, seeking protection in the Qur’an and emphasizing
the injustice of his own imminent assassination, by picking up
a muShafand declaring that his death will be “like that of my
cousin CUthman” (ibid., 4: 462).

35. Al-Sharif al-Idrisi, al-Maghrib wa al-Sudan wa Misr wa al-Andalus
(extracted from Kitab Nuzhat al-Mushtaq f Ikhtiraq al-Afdq), ed.
R. Dozy and MJ. de Goeje (Leiden, 1968), pp.210-11; al-
Himyari, Sifat al-Maghrib, p. 155; al-Maqarri, Nafh al-Tib, 4: 283
f. on the mushafand its removal to Tlemsen and Fez; A. Dessus-
Lamare, “Le mushaf de la Mosquee de Cordoue et son mobi-
lier mecanique,” JournalAsiatique 23 (1938): 552-75; Oleg Gra-
bar, “Notes sur le mihrab de la Grande Mosquee de Cordoue,”
Le Mihrab, ed. Alexandre Papadopoulo (Leiden, 1990),
pp.115-22.

36. Muhammad Ibn SaCd, al-Tabaqat al-Kubra, ed. Ihsan CAbbas, 9
vols. (Beirut, 1985), 5: 233, “wa qad salat Calayna ahaditha min
qibali hadha al-mashriqi la naCrifuha wa la naCrifu Canha illa
qzradati al-quradn,” follows by mentioning the redaction and
rules collected by CUthman with the help of Zayd ibn Thabit.
This report is to be compared to the Abbasid caliph al-Man-
sur’s reported desire to publish and disseminate Malik’s al-
Muwatta’ in various parts of the empire, similarly using it as
the authoritative collection of Islamic regulations; see Ibn
SaCd, al-Tabaqat al-Kubra, al-qism al-mutammim li tabiCz ahl al-
Madina, ed. Ziad Muhammad Mansur (Medina, 1987), p. 440.

37. The quotation is from verse 17:33, which defines zulm as the
taking of life sanctified by God, a condition of absence of haqq.
For the first instance of use, Ibn Muzahim al-Minqari, Waqcat
Siffin, p.91; the second, Ibn CAbd Rabbih, al-CIqd, 4: 299. The
instrument used for the rallying cry was in fact cUthman’s
bloodied shirt, sent to Damascus by his wife Na’ila along with a
letter urging revenge; Ibn CAbd Rabbih, al-cIqd, 4: 300-301; cf.
al-Tabari, Tdn7kh, 13 vols. (Beirut, 1987), 4: 432, where a Damas-
cene messenger reports to CAli that he had left “sixty thousand
shaykhs crying under CUthman’s shirt, which they have hung
on the minbar of Damascus.”

38. Al-Minqari, Waqcat Siffin, pp. 91-92.

39. The quotation is from verse 2:137, which speaks of schisms and
abrogation of belief, and is commonly seen in Shici writings
and inscriptions.

40. This information, which again originates from Ibn CAbbas, is
also included in pro-Abbasid compilations such as the anony-
mous eleventh-century Akhbar al-KhulafaC, ed. Peter Greyaz-
novich and Michael Piotrovsky (Moscow, 1967), pp. 38-39.

41. Ibn CIdhari, al-Bayan, 2: 330. A summary of the historical and
political situation in al-Andalus, in terms both of internal
affairs and of relations with the other two Islamic caliphates, is
Mahmoud Makki, “The Political History of al-Andalus,” Legacy
of Muslim Spain, esp. pp. 34-40.

42. Despite the fragmentary nature of the program, the survival of
inscriptions in the most important areas of the mosque allows
a reconstruction of its message. For a general interpretation,
see Grabar, “Le mihrab,” pp.116-17. The inscriptions are re-
corded in two main sources: Manuel Ocana Jimenez, “Las
inscripciones en mosaicos del mihrab de la Gran Mezquita de
C6rdoba y la inc6gnita de su data,” in Henri Stern, Les
mosaiques de la Grande Mosquie de Cordoue (Berlin, 1976),
pp. 48-52, especially for al-Hakam’s western entrance and for
the later reconstruction of those around the eastern doorway
by Amados de los Rios, considered authentic in E. Levi-Pro-
vencal, Inscriptions Arabes d’Espagne, 2 vols. (Leiden and Paris,
1931).

43. That is, concepts of irja’ and murji’a ideology as developed in
the later part of the seventh century,J. van Ess, “The Early De-
velopment of Kalam,” Studies on the First Century of Islamic
Society, ed. G.H.A.Juynboll (Carbondale and Edwardsville, Ill.,
1982) pp. 109-23; cf. Wilferd Madelung, “Murji’a,” El, 2nd ed.
on the paradox between irjd’ (deferring judgment to God,
particularly in the matter of CUthman and CAli) and the later
Umayyad tradition of cursing CAli. On al-Hasan’s non-partisan
position in the war between CAbd al-Malik and Ibn al-Zubayr,
Ibn SaCd, Tabaqat, 5: 92 f., 107-11. This ideology cannot be
applied wholesale to al-Andalus where the situation is compli-
cated further by the adoption of Maliki law, on the one hand,
and the suppression of the Qadariyya, on the other. In this
context, the mosque’s inscriptions provide important docu-
mentation for further necessary investigation into Andalusian
Umayyad ideologies. Points raised by the inscriptions are dis-
cussed, with varying perspectives, in Ibn Hazm al-Zahiri al-
Andalusi (994-1064), al-FaSl fi al-Milal wa al-Nihal, 5 vols.
(Cairo, 1964), 4:106 f., on fadl and taklzf, pp. 139 f. on huda.

44. On faith versus actions in the Umayyad definition of believer
status, see van Ess, “The Early Development of Kalam,” p. 117;
on mulk, and the opposing argument of predestination toward
tyranny, p. 115.

45. Levi-Provencal, Inscriptions, no. 13; Jimenez, “Las Inscrip-
ciones,” p. 49.

46. While the quoted portion of the verse reproduces the speech
of the new believers, it begins with “on no soul does God place
a burden greater than it can bear, it gets every good that it
earns and it suffers every ill that it earns,” thereby literally
extracting a statement through which the Qadariyya defined
the Umayyads as jababira; cf. Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, al-Tafszr al-
Kabir (aw Mafdtih al-Ghayb), ed. Ibrahim Shams al-Din and
Ahmad Shams al-Din, 32 vols. (Beirut, 1992), 7:148.

47. Jimenez, “Las Inscripciones,” p. 49; Levi-Provencal, Inscrip-
tions, no. 13.

48. Jimenez, “Las Inscripciones,” p.48. Note, however, thatJime-

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THE GREAT MOSQUE OF CORDOBA IN THE TENTH CENTURY

nez gives 22:76-78, and that his verse numbering system
diverges in several cases. The verses have here been checked
against the inscriptions and provided with numbers and trans-
lations in accordance with YusufAli’s The Glorious Koran, whose

numbering corresponds to Levi-Provencal’s in Inscriptions.
49. The verse continues, “and that you may be witnesses to man-

kind, so establish regular prayers, give regular charity, and
hold fast to God, He is your protector, the best to protect and
the best to help.” For interpretations of these verses and the
designation muslimun, see al-Razi, al-Tafszr al-Kabir, 23: 69 f.,
esp. pp. 72 f. for jihad as spiritual strife.

50. Levi-Provencal, Inscriptions, no. 10.
51. Ibid., no. 12.
52. The problematic term tashbik is discussed in Levi-Provencal,

Inscriptions, p. 16, where the author rejects its interpretation as
decoration and argues that it is a reference to the intersecting
arches in the maqsura area. However, in his twelfth-century
description of the Cordoba mosque, al-Idrisi uses the term
tashbik in reference to the niche mihrab’s hood, which he

describes as “a single piece of marble that is mashbuka, carved,
and decorated.” The term may then refer to either the ribbing
or the segmentation and reticulation of the domes; see al-
Idrisi, Nuzhat al-Mushtaq, p.210 (Arabic text), p.260 (French
translation, dentele); al-Himyari, Sifat, pp. 154-55.

53. The pious dimensions of the act are expanded in reports of
the mosque’s funding, as witnessed by Cordoba’s religious es-
tablishment, from al-Hakam’s private inheritance; see Ibn CId-
hari, al-Bayan, 2: 349-50.

54. Jimenez, “Las Inscripciones,” p. 49.
55. Levi-Provencal, Inscriptions, pp.13-14, again discusses this

problematic term and suggests that it refers to the two pairs of
columns flanking the mihrab.

56. Levi-Provencal, Inscriptions, no. 11. The quotation omits the
first and last parts of the verse, removing the speakers, whose
hearts are cleared of ghill and who dwell in paradise, and the
final statement, “and they shall hear thee cry, ‘Behold, the gar-
den before you’.” Al-Razi, Tafszr, 14: 78 f., esp. p.80, records
CAli’s wish that he, CUthman, Talha, and al-Zubayr are meant
by the verse, that is, that they will be among the “people of par-
adise” whose hearts are cleared of all sedition, indicating spe-
cific interpretations of the whole of verse 7:43 in relation to
the Umayyads, CAlids, and Khawarij, and the fitna in general.
Especially important is the balance between qudra and daciya
as the underlying determinants of action, and the subtle dif-
ference in the phraseology of this verse in masahif ahl al-shdm,
though the Cordoban inscriptions follow standard wording,
pp.80-81.

57. While al-Maqarri, Nafz al-Tzb, 1: 243, reports that the Prophet’s
name was miraculously inscribed on a number of objects in
the mosque, he is skeptical of a report about three red
columns, one of which was inscribed with the name “Muham-

mad”, another had a figure of Moses’s staff, and the last a fig-
ure of Noah’s crow, “all created by God, and not by human
hands.” While these columns may not be the same as the four
next to the mihrab (which are green and red) they reflect the
ways in which the mosque was regarded at later times.

58. Ibn CAbd Rabbih, al-‘Iqd, 4: 499, qad awdaha allahu l’il Islami
minhdjan wa al-nasu qad dakhalu fial-dzni afwajan, implying that
CAbd al-Rahman III was the instrument through which God
effected this adjustment.

59. Despite the paucity of comparable inscriptions, this corre-

spondence is evident in Umayyad and Abbasid inscriptions at
Mecca and Medina; compare Abbasid inscriptions at Mecca,
Repertoire chronologique, vol. 1, no. 40 and at Medina, no. 38, and
the Umayyad inscriptions at Medina, nos. 46, 47, usurped by
the Abbasid al-Mahdi. The Cordoba mosque’s denominations
further recall verse 24:36, “in houses (buyut) that God has
allowed to be raised for the celebration of His name therein,”

quoted in CAbd al-Rahman III’s own commemorative inscrip-
tion, Levi-Provencal, Inscriptions, no. 9.

60. Thus the mosque seems to have raised speculations, similar to
those directed to CAbd al-Malik and the Dome of the Rock,
that it was meant to divert pilgrimage; see Taha al-Wali’s objec-
tions, al-Masdjid, pp. 605-8.

61. The entire section that includes verses 9:108-110 contrasts two

masjids, of taqwa and dirar, which have a variety of later inter-
pretations. The most significant sections include 108, “There
is a mosque whose foundation was laid from the first day upon
piety; it is more worthy of your standing forth (for prayer)
therein; in it are men who love to be purified, and God loves
those who make themselves pure”; 109, “Which then is best?
He that lays his foundation upon piety to God and his Good
Pleasure [sanction]? Or he that lays his foundation on an un-
dermined sandcliff ready to crumble to pieces? And it does
crumble to pieces with him, into the fire of hell. And God
guides not (ld yahdi) people that do wrong.” The identity of
the first mosque and the mosque of taqwa was the subject of
much debate, and is often considered to have been the

mosque of Quba, an identification that, however, was not sup-
ported by the Umayyads. For traditions on the mosque, see
MJ. Kister, “You Shall Only Set out for Three Mosques: A
Study of an Early Tradition,” Le Museon 82 (1969): 173-87. On
the Prophet’s foundation of the first mosque, Ibn SaCd, Taba-
qat, 1: 239-41, and on masjid al-taqwa, 1: 244-46.

62. Ibn CAbd Rabbih, al-CIqd, 4: 488; Akhbar MajmuCa, p.51, on
CAbd al-Rahman I as orphan; pp. 54-55, on dhu al-zafiratayn (of
the two braids); and pp. 118-19 on $aqr Quraysh; Ibn CIdhari,
al-Bayan, 2: 182-85, on CAbd al-Rahman III and his father CAb-
dallah.

63. Ibn ‘Abd Rabbih, al-‘Iqd, 4: 500; cf. al-Farazdaq’s verses after
CUthman’s murder, chastising the Medinese for following a
path lacking in huda (ibid., 4: 301-2) and, similarly, Hassan ibn
Thabit’s verses, where the poet applies the Umayyad title khalz-
fatu-allah (ibid., 4: 297). For CUthman’s murder as a consistent
theme of Umayyad poetry, W. CArafat, “The Historical Back-
ground to the Elegies on CUthman b. Affan Attributed to Has-
san b. Thabit,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
33 (1970): 276-82.

64. Memories of earlier Abbasid propaganda against the Umay-
yads are preserved in al-cIqd; the specific designation is from
the verses recited on the eve of the massacre (4:484) begin-
ning “amma al-ducatu ila al-jinanifahashimun wa banu umayyata
min ducati al-nari.”

65. In the edition used throughout this article, the ‘urjuza or nar-
rative poem appears at the end of volume 4. The description
of the three holy shrines, part of kitab al-zabarjada al-thaniya, is
in 6: 255-65, and correctly describes the Abbasid maqsura with
which al-Mahdi (775-85) replaced the Umayyad one. The fol-
lowing analysis of the description of the Prophet’s mosque re-
fers to 6: 260-63, but uses all available editions of al-cIqd
(which show minor differences), as well as translations in
Muhammad Shafic, “A Description of the Two Sanctuaries of

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NUHA N.N. KHOURY

Islam by Ibn ‘Abd Rabbih,” A Volume of Oriental Studies Presented
to Edward G. Browne, ed. T.W. Arnold and A. Nicholson (Cam-
bridge, 1922), 416-38; and various locations in Jean Sauvaget,
La Mosquee omeyyade de Medine (Paris, 1947). On Ibn CAbd Rab-
bih as belle-lettrist and poet, and on al-‘Iqd, C. Brockelmann,
“Ibn ‘Abd Rabbih,” El, 2nd ed.; Pierre Cachia, “Andalusi
Belles Lettres,” Legacy of Muslim Spain, pp. 307-15, esp. p. 310.

66. The description uses the term baldt to refer to aisles, bays, and
arcades. Since the Prophet’s Mosque is not known to have had
arches beyond those facing the courtyard, the term aisle is
used to distinguish transversal or perpendicular disposition in
relation to the qibla wall in accordance with the description.

67. Al-cIqd, 6: 260, ” Qubalat al-mihrab fi musatati al-baldtat, baldtaun
mudhahhabun kullahu shuqqat bihi al-baldtat min al-sahn ila al-
baldt al-ladhi yantahz bi al-mihrab wa Id yashuqqahu.”

68. Ibid.; “Fi al-baldt al-ladh yali al-mihrab” can also be understood
as “in the bay facing the mihrab.”

69. Sauvaget, La Mosquee, fig. 5; G.I. Bisheh, “The Mosque of the
Prophet in Medina,” Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1979,
fig. 9; Saleh Lamic Mustafa, al-Madina al-Munawwara (Beirut,
1981), fig. 52, and the studies accompanying these reconstruc-
tions. It is important to note, however, that while the mosque
survived into the fifteenth century, the shifted niche mihrab is
not mentioned in accounts pre-dating the eleventh.

70. Sauvaget, La Mosquee, p. 81.
71. Al-cIqd, 6: 261, “wa al-miiradbu fl musatati al-suri al-qibli.” Cf.

Sauvaget, La Mosquee, p. 83.
72. This “mirror” is described with much skepticism by IbnJubayr,

who mentions both a polished, reflective, yellow stone named
miradt Khusraw, and a Chosroe’s “goblet” above the arch; trans-
lated in Sauvaget, La Mosquee, p. 84, and understood as a visual
marker for the Prophet’s musalla.

73. Sauvaget, La Mosquee, p.84, n.l, rejects the terms “original
mihrab” as an “erreur d’interpretation de l’auteur”; however,
mihrab here designates the space (musalla) occupied by the
Prophet in prayer, which is why the term has been rendered as
“niche” or “musalla” elsewhere in this analysis. For the etymol-
ogy of the term and its application to spaces, see Nuha N.N.
Khoury, “The Mihrab: From Text to Form,” InternationalJour-
nal of Middle East Studies (forthcoming).

74. Al-cIqd, 6: 261, “bayna hadhayn al-babayn wa al-mihrab mamshan
musattahin latif.” A literal understanding of the sentence is
architecturally impossible, and it must be taken to mean that
there is a walkway or wider space in front of the mihrab and its
flanking doors that acts as a connective.

75. Richard Krautheimer, “Introduction to an ‘Iconography of
Medieval Architecture’,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld
Institutes 5 (1942): 1-33. For a slightly later description of the
Medina mosque, see Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Naj-
jar, al-Durra al-Thamina fi Tdnrkh al-Madzna (Mecca, 1956),
pp. 372-74.

76. For a detailed medieval description of the mosque, al-Idrisi,
Nuzhat al-Mushtdq, pp. 208-12; al-Himyari, Sifat, pp. 153-58.

77. The last five chapters of the Qur’an; cf. Ibn al-Najjar, al-Durra,
p.375, who mentions inscriptions added by al-Mahdi, but
many of which are in fact Umayyad and have fragmentary
counterparts at Cordoba.

78. Tarasa, can be rendered as “disks,” as per Sauvaget, La Mos-
quee, p. 78, which would provide a similar meaning. The trans-
lation “round shield” is used here to maintain consistency
with the description of the dome as also shaped like a disk or
round shield.

79. The description uses qudban again in this location, specifying
“qudbanun wa awraqun min dhahab.” The translation “scroll” is
in line with the floral decoration indicated for this frieze,
resulting in a “golden vine” motif that agrees with Sauvaget,
La Mosquee, p. 79, where this second occurrence of the term is
rendered “tiges.”

80. Antonio Fernandez-Puertas, “Calligraphy in al-Andalus,” Lega-
cy of Muslim Spain, pp. 639-75, esp. pp. 643-47.

81. Sauvaget, La Mosquee, pp. 78-81, fig. 3; cf. the original marble
plaques in the western vestibule of the Damascus mosque,
Creswell, A Short Account, fig. 34.

82. Though no palaces or gardens are portrayed in the surviving
mosaics of the Dome of the Rock, the program includes
crowns and trees. At the Cordoba mosque, the motifs most
closely resembling representational elements are the crolls
and branches in the blind trefoil arches above the niche mih-

rab, reflections of new tastes and ornamental formulations.
83. For the second omission, al-CIqd, 6: 262, wa hitanu al-masjidi

kulluha min ddkhilihi muzakhrafatun bi al-rukhami wa al-dhahabi
wa al-fusayfisa’ awwaluha wa ‘dkhiruha (“the mosque’s inner
walls are decorated with marble, gilding, and mosaics from
beginning to end”). Sauvaget, La Mosquee, p.80, n.3, under-
stands the walls as those of the sanctuary, though the passage
indicates that they comprise the courtyard facades. The
mosaics at Medina are often described; for example, Ibn al-
Najjar, al-Durra, pp. 272-73.

84. Al-‘Iqd, 6: 261, correcty describes the Abbasid maqsura that
replaced al-Walid’s, “the maqsura screen extends from the
western wall, where it abuts the portal, to the vestibule adjoin-
ing the eastern wall. From this vestibule one can ascend to the
mosque’s roof. The [screen] is an old and simple one, with
crenellations and four doors.” This is followed by the mention
of the Prophet’s rawda, minbar, and tomb and further on by
the courtyard and three minarets, ending with the conduct
proper for visiting the Prophet’s mosque-shrine. The descrip-
tion again provides points of correspondance with the Cor-
doba mosque, particularly the upper galleries of the qibla side.

85. Shafic, “A Description of Two Sanctuaries,” pp. 421-22.
86. Al-Maqarri, Nafh al-Tzb, 2: 326 f., and p. 378 for a grandson of

his; cf. Salma Khadra Jayyusi, “Andalusi Poetry: The Golden
Period,” Legacy of Muslim Spain, pp. 317-66, esp. pp.328-30;
and n. 25.

87. This is in fact a primary reason for Ibn Hazm’s and al-Shi-
qandi’s defense of al-Andalus and its scholars, see n. 12 above.

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Contents

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Issue Table of Contents

Muqarnas, Vol. 13, 1996
Front Matter [pp. I – V]
Editor’s Note [pp. VII – VIII]
Michael Meinecke and His Last Book [pp. 1 – 6]
Mashhad Al-Nasr: Monuments of War and Victory in Medieval Islamic Art [pp. 7 – 26]
Marwanid Umayyad Building Activities: Speculations on Patronage [pp. 27 – 44]
Al-Azhar Mosque: An Architectural Chronicle of Cairo’s History [pp. 45 – 67]
The Complex of Sultan Hasan in Cairo: Reading between the Lines [pp. 68 – 79]
The Meaning of the Great Mosque of Cordoba in the Tenth Century [pp. 80 – 98]
Baghdad in Rhetoric and Narrative [pp. 99 – 113]
A Spatial Study of Three Ottoman Capitals: Bursa, Edirne, and Istanbul [pp. 114 – 131]
Remarks on Some Manuscripts from the Topkapi Palace Treasury in the Context of Ottoman-Safavid Relations [pp. 132 – 148]
周攠剥獴潲慴楯渠偲潪散琠潦⁴桥⁍慳橩搠䅬ⵁ煳愠批⁍椃ݭ慲⁋敭慬整瑩̇渠⠱㤲㈭㈶⤠孰瀮†ㄴ㤠ⴠㄶ㑝
A Medieval Center of Learning in India: The Hauz Khas Madrasa in Delhi [pp. 165 – 190]
On Interlocking Similar or Corresponding Figures and Ornamental Patterns of Cubic Equations [pp. 191 – 211]
Back Matter

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