The Final Muslim Expansion of the Mezquita

In the 10th century, Cordoba may have been the largest city in the world with about a half-million inhabitants – at least 10 times the size of primitive London. Depending upon a variety of conflicting resources, it had between 700 to 3000 mosques. But still the vizier felt the need for a single Friday service in the Grand Mosque, and decided to expand once again in 987 AD, a generation after al-Hakam’s elaborate movement of the qiblah wall.

Since there was no more room to the south because of the river, vizier al-Mansur expanded to the east, once again turning the worship hall into a square. The square garden was also increased to accommodate the new width of the prayer hall – turning it back into the half-square shape of its original configuration.

Matters of size

With al-Mansur’s addition of 8 more aisles in 987, the haram (praying space) grew to over 250,000 square feet and more than 500 columns. His addition abutted the 3 previous build efforts and his architects tried their best to match the style of each (but the qiblah wall was no longer doubled here.) Modern restorations have added the hanging Byzantine-style polycandelon lamps. With al Mansur's addition, the Mosque could hold 20,000 worshippers -- a mega-church even by today's standards (but that would only be about 10% of Cordoba's male population at that time.) When built, it was second in size only to the Mosque of Mecca.

A forest of columns

While the earliest part of the mosque used a variety of recycled columns from the Visigoth and Roman days (some from as far as Africa), these capitals were most likely made for this expansion and are much more homogeneous (and simple). Had the original builders started with new materials, they probably would have used long columns and we would not have seen this compelling wave of  red-and-white Mudejar arches.

In order to reuse the shorter columns of the original Visigoth church, the Moors added masonry pillars on top of them -- and then stabilized the column hybrid with the lower set of arches. The Mudejar arches seen in these pictures are commonly thought to be a Moorish invention. In fact, they borrowed the shape (but little else) from their Visigoth predecessors.

Al-Mansur’s expansion was pragmatic – an attempt to accommodate more worshipers. Only al-Hakam’s remodeling was meant to rewrite and reinforce Umayyad and Muslim history. In fact, as we will see, al-Mansur would have every reason to de-emphasize the importance of the Umayyad dynasty.

Therefore this particular addition added little more iconography – just space. This expansion was also budget-challenged although funds permitted some elaborate doorways to be added to the external walls. By this part of the tour, most tourists are a bit fatigued by the sheer size of the haram.

 The long calm after the storm

In the picture at above right are some of the remaining 850+ columns and 365 horseshoe arches after the Christians' many remodeling efforts.

Al-Mansur was not the Caliph, but his first minister, called a “vizier.”  Hisham II (son of al Hakam II) became the 3rd caliph in 976 at age 10 but never really ruled.

A few years ago, the computer-dependent western world thought they had a Year 2K problem. But this was nothing like Cordoba’s Year 1K. In 997 AD, (year 387 on the Hijri calendar), a decade after this expansion, Hisham II was forced to hand over all political power to Al-Mansur.

Al-Mansur in turn expanded Cordoba’s realm to its largest size. His sons became caliph, temporarily suspending the Umayyad dynasty. 

Predictably, succession wars broke out with Hisham II  and the Umayyads returning to power in 1010. But the civil wars continued and Cordoba was sacked and Hisham was likely killed in 1013. All this in what was then the largest and most civilized city in the world. But all is peaceful today in this forest of marble pillars and horseshoe arches. Do harsh times breed soothing architecture?

Next we visit the Christian modifications made after their 1236 AD conquest. Please join us by clicking here.

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