Here’s why you should visit Cordoba during Ramadan, a place like no other in Spain

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In the buzzing coronary heart of Córdoba, it’s straightforward to see why the caliphs of Al-Andalus selected the town because the capital of their Western European empire in AD 711. The labyrinthine streets – the place buildings stand nearly like souks and the aroma of shisha smoke drifts from cosy bars – are extra harking back to the sun-baked medinas of the Middle East than the boulevards of Madrid or Valencia.

These winding pathways whisper tales of Islamic affect that return greater than a millennium, regardless of many believing that Muslim integration in the West is a comparatively current idea. It is a confronting matter of debate, one typically pushed by world occasions fairly than by the true lives of Muslims in Western society.

Islam in Europe isn’t current in any respect. In truth, its affect in Córdoba predates many fashionable European international locations as we all know them immediately. Islam observances like Ramadan – the 30-day interval of fasting that Muslims internationally observe every year – deserve their place in Europe’s historic canon.

For a month, European Muslims wake earlier than dawn for suhoor (the pre-dawn meal), quick during daylight, then break their quick at iftar (the sundown meal). They come collectively for non secular reflection and group actions in mosques throughout Europe as they do elsewhere in the world. But solely Córdoba can moderately declare to be the birthplace of Ramadan in Europe, the town being the primary place it was noticed in an organised approach.

Just a century after the founding of Islam, a military of Arabs and Berbers left Damascus, traversed North Africa, and crossed the Strait of Gibraltar. Their imaginative and prescient was to create a new caliphate that rivalled the centres of Islamic energy throughout Egypt and the Levant.

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They selected Córdoba as their capital and over the subsequent 780 years the Islamic nation of Al-Andalus slowly took form. At its peak, Córdoba was a capital metropolis of greater than 300,000 inhabitants and the centre of a caliphate that spanned a lot of the Iberian Peninsula.

The metropolis is bordered to the north by Spain’s Sierra Morena mountain vary, which bisects this a part of Andalusia. Modern Córdoba’s buildings – which, by legislation, should be lower than seven tales tall to keep away from diminishing its outstanding cathedral spires – now stretch alongside the banks of the Guadalquivir River.

“University students from around the world visit to examine religious history,” my information, Maria Font Merino stated. A proud Córdobes, born and bred, Maria has used her intimate data of the town on excursions for practically three a long time. 

“Córdoba is the place for Islamic history and theology students,” she went on, as we picked our approach by way of the ruins of the caliphs’ misplaced palace-city of Madinat al-Zahra, also called Medina Azahara. Its skeleton now sits on a hillside some 8km west of Córdoba’s centre, and is a focus for Spain’s archaeology group, which is fiercely happy with this comparatively current addition to the Unesco World Heritage record.

Islam’s growth led to an explosion in Córdoba’s inhabitants and, when the town’s rulers had outgrown it, the development of Medina Azahara, the so-called ‘Shining City’. Built in the Tenth century by Caliph Abd al-Rahman III, it spills down a hillside in three tiers. The caliph’s palace sits atop, and the ruins movement right down to Al-Andalus’s as soon as bustling administrative and spiritual centres. A palpable sense of anticipation stays as greater than 90 per cent of the location is but to be excavated.

Medina Azahara’s splendour waned in AD 1010 when it fell to a Berber revolt. This led to its destruction and the dispersal of treasures which discovered their approach to northern Europe, influencing artwork and tradition there.

The ruins I explored have been a world away from Marbella’s sands or Barcelona’s gridded streets. But there was a telltale signal that we have been in Spain: the hundreds of olive timber. Córdoba – and Andalusia extra broadly – have the densest focus of olive groves in the nation.

Olive cultivation gained renewed prominence during Moorish rule, with the fashionable Spanish phrase for oil – aceite – tracing its etymology from the Arabic phrase for olive oil, al-zeit.

Later, I returned to my resort, Parador de Córdoba, which is nestled in the hills 3km northwest of the town centre, in the Arruzafa district and constructed on the ruins of Abd al-Rahman l’s summer season palace.  The space is house to what are believed to be Europe’s oldest palm timber – legend says they have been planted by the caliph Abd al-Rahman I himself. Today the expansive property exudes a mid-century attraction that’s a welcome distinction to Córdoba’s historic metropolis centre.

Sunset was quick approaching, which meant discovering someplace to interrupt my quick. I made my approach to a vegetarian iftar at Amistad Córdoba, a resort situated throughout two Moorish mansions throughout the metropolis’s previous Jewish quarter. The space was house to Córdoba’s Jewish inhabitants from the Tenth- to Fifteenth-centuries.

The meal, a tasting menu for Córdoban delicacies, mirrored each its Moorish roots and modern Spanish influences. Dishes like salmorejo, an Andalusian chilly tomato soup, echoed Arab delicacies’s tomato rice soup. Roasted greens, together with honey-soaked aubergine, introduced baba ganoush flavours to thoughts, whereas a vegetarian-friendly flamenquín resembled a lighter falafel.

The following day, torrential rain prompted me to take a taxi to Córdoba’s outstanding Mezquita. This mosque-cathedral covers 24,000 sq. metres, dominating the cityscape. The constructing nearly defies description and is as sophisticated inside as its storied historical past.

Construction commenced in AD 785, guided by Abd al-Rahman I’s singular imaginative and prescient to create a mosque much like these in Damascus and Baghdad. After the autumn of Al-Andalus and the Spanish Reconquista in AD 1236, Christians repurposed the mosque, including an altar beneath its skylight and a bell to its minaret. 

What is left immediately typifies the Córdoban expertise: a bodily melding of two cultures and religions that feels all-at-once comfy and uncomfortable; two totally different buildings occupying the identical area on the identical time.

An astonishing 856 pillars of marble and jasper – a few of which have been repurposed from the Roman and early Christian ruins on the identical web site – stretch in rows acquainted to guests of historic mosques. But the Mezquita is totally different: on the construction’s centre, nearly like a transplanted organ, is the cathedral, with its intricate marble statues of saints and outstanding Catholic figures. Completed over greater than two centuries and constructed in a minimum of 4 architectural kinds, the cathedral sits simply metres away from mosque’s former mihrab, which traditionally signalled the route of prayer for the town’s Muslims.

Today, the Mezquita is a advanced flashpoint in Spanish society. As a working cathedral, Muslims will not be allowed to wish inside essentially the most mosque-like elements of the construction, a choice that has lengthy garnered protests from them (and even spurred remoted clashes between the 2 faiths). 

As heavy rain continued to fall, I exited the Mezquita and hurried in direction of the largely Moorish-reconstructed Roman bridge housing the Calahorra Tower. The constructing now has a small museum devoted to life in Al-Andalus. 

A person promoting shawarmas from a cart waved from throughout the road, gesturing in direction of the menu. “Ven a comer shawarma!” he shouted. I managed to convey, in my damaged Spanish, the truth that I used to be fasting. He paused, then nodded an appreciative “Alhamdulillah”.

In that second, Córdoba superbly captured for me the deep-rooted historical past of Islam and Ramadan in Europe, and proved itself a outstanding vacation spot in which to discover the faith’s influences past the Middle East.

Travel necessities

Maria Font Merino is a licensed tour information with over 25 years of expertise. She presents non-public excursions in Cordoba on ToursByLocals.

Getting there

Flights to Malaga can be found by way of a number of airways from all main UK airports, . Seville flights are operated by Ryanair, Vueling, British Airways, and EasyJet from London, Birmingham and Manchester. From both metropolis, Córdoba accessible by way of an hour-long high-speed practice journey, departing each 30–50 minutes.

Where to remain

Parador de Córdoba

Offering beautiful views, full privateness and a wealthy historical past, the resort is conveniently close to a bus cease for a 15-minute drive to the town centre.

Puerta de la Luna

A handy hostel situated one kilometre from the town centre.

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