Adnan Rashid – Splendours of Cordoba July 2024
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Assalamu alaikum. Right here, I am in front
of the walls of the city of Kartaba.
Medieval Kartaba, this was the Muslim capital
for nearly 300
years throughout the Umayyad period. In 755,
756,
Abdulrahman the first the first Umayyad
Amir of Kartaba or for or Islamic Spain,
he made this city his capital. And you
can see the walls going very far,
very much in the original state,
very well preserved. We're gonna keep walking inshallah
so that we can talk more about it.
Kartaba
was the capital of Islam
in Al Andalus, in Islamic Spain. This is
where
some of the greatest scholars walked. This is
where some of the greatest thinkers,
theologians, poets,
scientists,
they were born in this very city.
I can mention names. Ibn Hazm, for example.
The street you can see right now in
front of me,
could have been a street where Muslims lived.
Of course, it was a street where Muslims
lived. The entire city was a Muslim city.
Right? And the streets are still very much
the same size.
Houses are resurrected on top of the old
houses.
And these are the streets
I can imagine where Imam Qurtabi, Imam Ibn
Hazam,
Ibnurusht, Imam Ibnurusht,
okay. Baqib ibn Maklad, Ibnu Abdul Bar, all
of these great scholars would have walked in
these streets. Now we're gonna be getting to
Masjid Karth
very, very soon,
the great Cordoba mosque.
Some people think that if there was
the 4th
holiest site of Islam, it would have been
Kartava.
Okay.
Because of this,
because of the people who walked through the
streets and because of the people who prayed
in Masjid Kartava. So this is a very,
very important
city in the history of Islam. It is
now in Spain,
of course.
So
Cordoba remained the capital of Islam and Muslims
in Spain
until
the until the Moravids,
Al Murabitoun
and Al Muwaidoun came in and they chose
Seville to be their capital. So if you
look inside these houses, some of them that
are now,
tourist spots or hotels or something like that,
you still see
patios and
we can come back.
Yeah. So,
Casa
Casa de Safa,
there is this place in front of me.
Safa was,
the Jewish term for Al Andalus, basically.
Andalusian Jews, Spanish Jews who lived under the
rule of Islam, they flourished here. Cordoba had
a good population of the Jewish people. In
fact, one of the greatest rabbis
or
the greatest rabbi in Jewish history
called Musa bin Maimon, also known as Maimonides,
was born in this city. He He was
born here in Kartava. He was educated in
Kartava. And later on, he had to leave
with his family for Egypt where he served
the Ayubids. He was the physician
to the Sultan.
Okay. So we are walking these streets,
because
these streets
have seen
or felt the feet of great
individuals,
great personalities.
Here we have a statue
of Musa bin Maimun, the famous Maimonides
I just talked about. Okay.
So this is a depiction of Musa bin
Maimun, the Jewish rabbi. If you look at
him, he looks like a Muslim scholar with
a turban, with a robe, with a book
in his hand, with a beard, very Muslim
character. He possibly looked like this. We don't
know whether he actually looked like this, but
he probably he probably did because this was
the fashion in Kartaba.
Okay? This is how Muslims dressed in Kartaba
with a turban, Muslim men with a outer
garment.
Okay?
And the streets are still very
traditional
in many ways.
And we are we are making our way
to the masjid right now.
And you will see the walls of the
Masjid,
the compound,
and you will see Islamic calligraphy, Islamic art
on the walls to this day. The masjid
is very much in its original shape inside.
When we walk inside, if we are allowed
to film,
we will see that
the older part that was initiated by Abdul
Rahman the first in the 8th century. Okay?
7 eighties, he started the project,
and then many expansions were done later on
by his descendants.
People like Abdul Rahman the third who declared
himself to be the caliph
in 929
CE.
Okay? And then Hakam the second,
Abdul Rahman the third's son, he also made
an expansion,
to Masjid Kartaba. And then the final
expansion
of the Masjid was done
by
Ibnu Aamer also known as Al Mansoor or
Al Mansoor.
We will look at that expansion as well
if we are allowed to film. But we
are walking through the streets of Kartava where
these great luminaries, scholars, thinkers, poets,
you know, scientists. This city was the most
learned city in the world.
This city
was,
how can I put it?
The the the Cambridge or Oxford or
Baghdad,
it were of I mean, Baghdad was a
big of course, it was a big, solid,
capital
of learning. Many people were traveling to Baghdad
to take books and knowledge and meet the
scholars. But was
very similar in that respect where some of
the greatest scholars are born and they walk
the streets. This is why Karthava became a
hub of learning. Many European scholars,
thinkers,
traveled to Cartava
from European
countries like Britain,
like France. They came here. They learned the
Arabic language. I can mention names of English
scholars or British scholars
who,
actually came to the city of Kartava.
One of the one of them was Adelard
of Bath. Another man was called Daniel of
Morley.
Okay. These people, they came here. Actually, one
of the popes, Selvet Pope Sylvester the second,
also known as Gerbert of Orillac,
who was pope from 999
to 103.
For 4 years, he was the pope. He
had learned,
Arabic and he had introduced a lot of
Arabic knowledge
to his Christian brethren.
So this city was very important not only
for Muslims but also for Jews and Christians.
And some of the greatest libraries were here.
In fact, Hakim the second,
the Umayyad caliph,
had
4 100,000 books in his library in the
10th century,
in 9 100,
9 fifties onwards.
Right? So we're gonna do a quick introduction
maybe where the tarik wants to talk. No.
Just waiting for Oh, we're waiting for someone.
Okay. So we can walk inshallah.
Okay. So
we'll continue walking.
Now we can see
the tower in front of us.
This
this was this place was a book market.
All the streets around the mosque compound,
Basically,
these shops would have been bookshops
at that time because book culture was
very, very,
very much in fashion here
in Cartava.
Most people would come here come here to
study,
with scholars.
So this is the outer wall of the
compound.
Okay?
And
if you look at the hotel right in
front of the masjid, it's called Hotel Maimonides.
Maimonides again was a Jewish rabbi
called the second Moses. He's also known as
Rambam
among the Jewish people. His name was Musa
Bin Meimoun, an Arabic name.
And he was known later on as Maimonides.
And to the Jewish people, he's known as
Granbam as mentioned. Okay? Now over to brother
Tariq, I think.
You're
talking?
On the spotlight? Yeah.
Anybody left behind?
So welcome to Masjid Cordova.
Okay. When we go inside you'll get an
idea of the place of
Just very, very quickly
to recap.
Abdul Rahman arrived here. When the Muslims first
arrived, there was a church here on this
site. Rafa, our guide, will explain all of
that. The Muslims came.
They purchased
half of the building. They didn't come in
even though they could have taken. They didn't.
They purchased half, and they started, and they
used
half of the structure that was here as
a masjid and half was used as a
church. K. For the next 70 years, this
was the situation. Then 700 and 55, who
arrived here?
755, who arrived? Abdul Rahman. Abdul Rahman the
first. Abdul Rahman the first. He arrived. And
then in 785, once he's established himself, he
dealt with the Abbasids, he dealt with
the, uprisings in the north, he dealt with
the Christians,
etcetera. He now needed to, 1, make a
mark, and 2,
needed to build a masjid because the space
here wasn't enough. So what did he do?
He purchased the other half, the second half,
and he built the construction of the Masjid.
Again, you will hear a lot of detail.
All that information will be repeated inside, but
this is what he started.
The greatest Masjid in its time, the largest
Masjid in its time. And, also, as,
Usadd Adnan mentioned earlier,
at the time, it was considered for Muslims
that if we were to have a 4th
holy site,
this would have been it.
So
most of you probably didn't realize the significance
and importance
of this building before you came. Fine. Maybe
a lot of you probably would have thought,
yes, we're going to visit Masjid Qurdwah.
But it's probably one of the most important
sites that you are ever gonna visit.
Symbolically,
historically, it's one of the most important sites
you will ever visit.
Local people when they couldn't obviously, it doesn't
replace it and they wasn't trying to replace
it. But if they couldn't go and do
Hajj al Umrah, they would come here in
a way. Not trying to, you know, exchange
it for Hajj and Umrah or anything like
that. But this is how important.
Also, as mentioned on the bus,
by Ustad, is just think about the caliber
of the students that came out of this
place.
Just think about the names of the Ibn
Rushd,
Kurtabi, Imam Kurtabi,
ibn Hazem, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. The list is
endless.
These are giants of Islam.
The giants of Islam. Not only in the
Muslim world, in the Jewish world, the giants
of the Jewish world. In particular, this guy,
Maimonides, we passed this statue. We didn't have
time to stop. On the way back, we
will stop quickly.
Maimonides
is the greatest Jewish philosopher ever. You know
the Jews, what title they've given him?
Who's the most important person in Judaism?
Musa. Musa. Musa. Musa. They gave him their
title, the second Moses.
Yes. This is this is the this is
how high a rank. And where did he
prosper? Where did he become what he did?
Was here. Very quickly, an interesting quote that
he made, and then we'll move on because
we need to meet need to meet our
guide. He said something very interesting. So when
we speak about Jews and their history, and
if they say, oh,
the greatest threat to us or their history
what are we associating with when we when
we hear about Jewish history and every time
we learn about it? What do we hear?
Holocaust.
Holocaust and persecution
and pogroms and all of this, like, throughout
the history, this is what's been going on.
So my monadis said,
the greatest
danger for a Jew in Cordoba.
What would you think it is?
Christians. Christians or persecution or their rights being
taken away, you would automatically assume that. But
he said, very, very interesting,
the greatest danger for a Jew in Cordoba
is the attraction of Islam.
Nothing else. No persecution. Their rights are not
being taken away. Maimonides, his name is Ibn
Maimoun.
Ibn Maimoun and his claim to fame for
us is that he fell out with the
emir here, migrated,
went to Egypt, and was the personal physician
of a number of emirs, including
Salahuddin Ayubi.
He was his personal
doctor. Okay. So we'll carry on, meet Rafa,
and then he's gonna run us through. And
then later, we will talk a lot more
about Cordoba and its history. Thank you so
much. And, just to add to that,
why did he say that the the greatest
threat for a Jew in Cordoba would be
the literature of Islam?
Because he spent much of his life trying
to dissuade many Jewish people from converting to
Islam. He was actually sent a letter from
Yemen, Yemeni Jews, who had,
received a lot of dawah from local Muslims,
and local Muslims are presenting biblical verses to
them, showing them the Arabian prophet foretold in
their scripture. So they wrote a letter with
all those quotes and verses to Maimonides who
was in Egypt that what do we say
to these Muslims? How do we respond to
them? That there are verses in the old
testament that clearly foretell the coming of someone
from Arabia, some of the when someone with
prophetic capacity or someone with a lot of
power, and he will come with the law.
And then Maimonides wrote a letter in response,
and he he naturally, he was a Jewish
rabbi. He had to dissuade his followers, and
he put some strange spins on those verses.
And I said, no. No. These verses are
not talking about Muhammad. They're talking about something
else, someone else. And it's a long topic.
But the the the point is
the Jewish people
were very prosperous in this territory so long
as Muslim ruled here. But as soon as
the Muslim rule was gone, there was no
prosperity. They had to leave. Okay? So let
let's move on. We will meet our guide
so that we can go inside.
For Salah? Yeah. Because because when this, city
was taken, the masjid was occupied,
and it, the the mosque was turned into
a cathedral.
So there was a smaller cathedral inside. And
then later on, a bigger cathedral was made
in the 16th century when Charles the 5th,
the the holy Roman emperor, was in power
in the 16th century. So it is said
when Charles entered the building,
when the cathedral was completed,
he said to his priest and clergy
present at the time that you have done
you have destroyed the structure.
You have made something inside it,
something that could be made anywhere
anywhere else, and you have destroyed something that
cannot be made today or that cannot be
made again. And we will see what he
meant very quickly. I just want to show
the outer walls to our camera and our
online audience,
while you wait for Rafa.
Stay here. I'll walk with my cameraman.
Okay.
Right. So the reason we're walking down,
is to show you
something very interesting, very special.
These walls, they stand from the Muslim period.
Okay? As I said, this is where some
of these greatest scholars would have walked.
Right?
And they would have studied or, actually, unfortunately,
these
the the Islamic art, which is outside, has
been cordoned off
and it's being covered up. But there is
one door we can look at very quickly.
Okay. One gate.
So if we look at this,
this is very much
from the Islamic period.
Okay?
And it still stands to this day.
Okay. This part
is
from the Islamic period. You can see for
the last at least for the last 800
years, this has been
untouched,
preserved,
and
it's a phenomenon that this survives to this
day.
This is what the Muslim scholars and Muslim
students would have looked at. There's clearly Arabic
calligraphy on top there. Okay? This is very
much an Islamic design
and it's still standing, still preserved,
still very much intact. Unfortunately, the other parts
had have been cordoned off because I think
they're doing renovations. So I just wanted to
show this, the outside structure of the masjid.
We know this was a masjid because, look,
this is all,
done for the for the masjid. This would
have been an entrance inside the masjid. Now
it's closed. We're gonna go inside. I hope
we we are allowed to film in there.
And if we are, we're gonna show you
something
inside
the masjid.
So here
I have,
2 dirhams minted in Cordoba.
Okay? They're silver dirhams,
And,
they were minted after the reign of Abdur
Rahman the first, and they were minted by
his descendants.
So it's very clearly written here.
If you read
Bismillah
Duribaha dirham bil Andaluz.
In the name of Allah, this dirham was
minted in Al Andaluz
In the year
252 Hijri.
Okay? So this dirham in my hand right
here was minted
in 252
Hijri. Okay? Now we're we're gonna have to
check what Amir was ruling at the time.
It was Amir Mohammed, if I'm not mistaken.
Amir Mohammed, who was one of the descendants
of,
Abdul Rahman
the first. Okay? So this is a very
real dirham. It could have been used in
one of the markets around here. Who knows?
Okay?
And the other one, I have another one,
which is earlier,
relatively earlier.
Okay? This has the same formula written on
it.
So this is 2 35.
235
Hijri. Okay. Just for the online audience.
Okay. So this is a dirham minted made
in Kartava.
Right now, we stand in the courtyard or,
in the out
basically, outer part of the masjid. The masjid
entrance is just there behind us. If you
look,
this is where the the security is. When
we go through that
gate or that door,
We turn left. Immediately, we will see the
older part,
the 8th century part. This that was built
by Abdul Rahman the first.
Okay? Yeah. You can. You wanna take it
outside? We can do it later.
Everyone can touch it later. Okay? And, it's
only about,
$20 to touch it.
Okay. So so we have a good to
see you then.
Thank you so much. Thank you. So we're
gonna go now. And booking. Okay.
Okay.
This is.
This is. You can raise it. You can
raise it.
And this is the oldest part of the
masjid.
This is from Abdul Hamanda
first his time. You can raise it. You
can raise it. You can fill it properly.
No problem. Yeah. Yeah. You can hold it
like that. Yeah.
So this part is the oldest part of
the masjid.
This was
made in the 8th century, 7 eighties,
when Abdul Rahman, the first, he started.
You look at the pillars,
and
you can look. You can see how old
the pillars are.
Okay?
So this is the oldest part.
This part,
this part is the oldest part.
And you can see the columns,
the capitals, they were taken from Roman sites
in Spain, and they were recycled here.
Part of the architecture,
The pillars are from the Roman sites as
well.
And this was done in 7 eighties when
Abdurman the first was ruling.
He came to power in 755,
and he consolidated his power for the next,
30 years. He was busy trying to consolidate
his power. But one of the things he
did was he started this masjid. This part
is the oldest.
And if we move forward, there were many
expansions
done to the masjid.
So when we go higher here,
this part was done by Abdurman the 3rd
in 10th century.
And,
you can see there's a cathedral right in
the middle. This was done as soon as
the Christians,
they took you can am am I visible
in the yeah.
No. You can you can raise it if
you want. It's not a problem now.
This part,
this is the cathedral that was built later
on,
right inside the masjid, right in the middle.
Okay?
We are told this is the place where
Abdul Rahman the third stood,
and he declared himself to be caliph in
9 29 CE,
more than a 1000 years ago.
About 1100
years ago, Abdurrahman the 3rd stood on this
spot because this was part of his expansion.
So it continued to
move. So there's a cathedral
that's tie stands right in the middle
of the masjid. This is all from the
Islamic period.
You can see later on crosses were put
up.
Then this part was done
in the 10th century by Hakam the second,
the very son of Abdur Rahman the third
who became the caliph or who declared his
caliph from Cordoba.
This part is from 10th century. It's
almost a 1000 years old.
The pillars still stand. The columns and sorry.
The capitals
still standing.
And this is the famous mihrab in front
of us. You will see the mihrab
from the time of Hakam the second. This
mihrab is 1,000 years old. You can see
the calligraphy.
If you stand there and film it.
If you see the calligraphy there,
Go back a little bit, please. Yeah.
If you Yeah. One second.
No. Go up.
Just look at the Arabic writing on top
of the mihrab. Yeah.
If you focus on that,
and it reads
it reads
it
reads
Those verses are there. You can go back
to wide.
Yeah.
So this is
a mihrab
from the time of
under Haman the 3rd, and you can see
over a 1000 years old calligraphy.
So the
so the arches
are still very much intact.
It's a beautiful structure.
This part we are walking through
was
expanded
during the period
of
Hakam the second, who was
a successor of
Abd al Rahman the third. Now the part
we are about to enter was the final
expansion
of Masjid Qartawah that was also done in
the 10th century
by Ibnu Amir, also called
also known as
Al Mansoor.
If you look at the columns,
there are names inscribed
on the columns. You don't have to zoom
in. Just just show it.
There are names inscribed on each and every
single column
denoting
the work of a particular
person, a certain person.
Okay?
If we go around,
there's another name, Mim and initials. So this
is from the period of Ibnu Amir.
What we see here is
casts of the names inscribed on the pillars,
and this is like a museum inside
this Masjid Kartava. You can see the names.
Okay. Mas'ud is there, for example. Mas'ud Mas'ud
Mas'ud
Mas'ud was
possibly
an architect, Mubarak
Nasar,
okay, Nasar is there again,
And the Khalf,
so there are many Hakam, there is a
person called Hakam.
Some of them
are inscribed
with lillah,
the word lillah.
People didn't wanna put their name on the
pillar
because they wanted to simply,
show that this is only done for the
sake of Allah. They don't want their name
to be there.
So this is
from
the 10th century CE, which is over a
1000 years old. You can see Arabic calligraphy
there on the wall. Still very much. This
is Masjid Kartaba.
This was one of the largest masjids in
the world
at the time up to the 10th century.
So this expansion
was done by
Hakim Duh sorry.
Ibu Amr al Mansur, this part.
So there were many expansions.
So brothers and sisters,
remember, try to imagine
the people who walked through these arches,
people who prayed here in this part. This
is where Ibn Khazam would have prayed because
this is when the expansion was done. Ibn
Rushd, for example, later on, who must have
prayed in this masjid. It was the Qadi
of this city.
Then we have,
Ibnu Abdul Bar,
Baqib al Mahlad earlier.
Okay? Great scholars. Imam Khortabi, I am very
sure one of the best tafsirs of the
Quran was written here.
When
the tafsir of the Quran is mentioned
anywhere, anytime,
there are 2 tafsirs that come to mind.
One is Tabari, imam Ibra Jareer Tabari, who
was from Tabristan, Persia, and the other one
is Khortobi, who was from Spain, Kortuba.
And I'm sure parts of the tafsir were
taught and written in this very masjid.
And now it's a cathedral.
As you can see, when the Christians took
it
to show their power and strength,
to demonstrate their victory over Islam,
They put this thing in the middle,
this cathedral.
And there's a lot of Sheikh here as
you can see.
A
lot of statues
of angels and human beings
and Jesus and Mary,
imaginary statues.
So all of this
was and is Mashid Al Kartava.
I hope you enjoyed
the footage.
We do tours
of Islamic Spain and Turkey and other places.
You wanna check out some of our future,
trips and tours. Please go to halal getaways.com.
Halal getaways.com.
You'll find the future dates and destinations,
and you must come to Al Andalus. You
must come to Spain. You must bring your
children here for them to see what happened
here
and to see the legacy of Islam
in Al Andalus.
These horseshoe arches are well known in the
world. They inspired so many other places where
people copied these very designs
and did constructions.
Just try to imagine the people who must
have walked through these arches,
underneath these,
pillars
and columns.
We can only imagine.
So brothers and sisters,
share the content
and,
try to join one of these trips and
tours, inshallah. Thank
you. Starting
okay. We are here. Now we're gonna walk
around Masjid Karthaba.
We can see the structure is still very
much in its original condition. You can see
the the the entrance. This is one of
the entrances to the Masjid. This masjid has
multiple entrances.
So this side has obviously, these entrances we're
gonna look at. The other side might have
some entrances and then the other side. But
look at this, this is very much Islamic
architecture.
This is,
over a 1000 years old, and I'm just
surprised and blown away how this has survived.
There were verses of the Quran. They have
kind of faded away with time, of course,
but the design is pretty pretty intact.
Until I keep walking, let's go.
So as I said earlier, that these shops
would have been bookshops. This would have been
a book market
around the Masjid. Masjid was the hub, the
center of learning.
This is where the books were sold on
theological
subjects,
poetry, literature,
science, philosophy, you name it. All of these
books,
would be available
in these bookshops.
So this is, again, absolutely mind blowing. My
words cannot describe
this artwork.
Clearly,
subhanallah, put people put their heart to it.
It's so beautiful.
It's just
amazing.
So
these are entrances to the masjid.
Now they are closed because they have built
many
chapels inside around
the compound. Many many chapels
And the chapels have blocked the entrances,
but this seems to be renovated.
This was done later. I hope they keep
those old older looking parts as they are
because they give the feeling of originality.
This one obviously is definitely renovated.
It looks slightly lighter in color.
I prefer
the older look.
The original look.
So
this is Masjid Kartava.
This is Masjid Kartava. And this is where
great scholars like Ibnu Abdul Bar
and Imam Khortabi, Ibnu Hazam, Ibnu Rushd, Baqib
bin Maklal, all these great names. I just
wanna talk about Baqib bin Maklal,
whose Musnad
was the largest collection hadith ever produced in
the history of Islam.
Currently, the largest book of hadith is Musnad
Ahmed. Musnad of Imam Ahmed. One of his
students who came from Spain
to study with him was called Bakib al
Makladduk went from Spain, from Karthaba to study
with Imam Ahmed. And when he got to
Baghdad,
Imam Ahmed told him, I cannot teach, I'm
not allowed to teach.
So, Baqib bin Muqadd was very
saddened and disturbed by that.
So they both reached an agreement that
would come to his door every day and
take one hadith at a time and go
away. The outcome, the result was the largest
collection of hadith in the history of Islam.
The collection the hadith collection of Baqib ul
Mahlud was larger than the most of the
Imam Ahmed and he was here
in.
Okay? So let's go. It's
a magnificent structure.
We are just walking around so that we
can actually appreciate
what it would've it might have looked like.
You can see a lot of Christian symbolism
out there. Look. Statues were put by Christians
when Christians took this masjid and the city
of Cordoba.
Inside the masjid,
they built a cathedral
and the cathedral
stands to this day. And there is a
lot of Christian imagery,
idols, statues of
Mary, Jesus, angels, saints, all sorts of things.
So, basically,
once upon a time, the masjid was a
house of Tawhid where only Allah was worshiped.
Soon as the Christians took it, shirk was
introduced
and many statues and idols. Even though the
Bible says, make no images unto God.
Do not make any images of God.
So Jesus is taught to be God in
Catholicism
because Catholics are trinitarians.
The doctrine of the
trinity by
default considers Jesus Christ to be God which
Quran calls blasphemy.
So the idea was
to implant
Christianity right at the heart of
Islam.
This was a
as a not only a military victory, but
symbolically they wanted to make a point that
this was the center of Islam.
Here we're gonna plant a cathedral.
Okay. So we
have pretty much walked around the compound.
Now we can say that we have
seen
in its entirety inside out and outside.
Now
you can see that empty space there
and there's a bridge there. This bridge is
on top of river
river
or
in Arabic,
the great valley. This is the river where
the city was built and you find the
same river in the city of Seville.
Let's go.
So I encourage everyone
to visit Spain with us because we do
these history tours every few months, every few
weeks.
Okay?
Tours of Islamic Spain. We visit
Seville and we visit Cartava or Cordoba
and then we visit Granada. So now this
is the other side of the masjid.
It is a huge compound. This was the
largest masjid in the world
for a few 100 years
until other masajid were built elsewhere.
This was, if not the biggest,
one of the biggest masjids
in the world.
Right. You can see decoration here on this
side as well.
Similar decoration to what we saw on the
other
side. This was another entrance.
This was initially a church. There was a
Visigothic church in this place.
And Abdurrahman
the first,
he decided to build a masjid,
and Christians had some part of it using
it as a church.
The verses of the Quran
can still be read on top.
You can see on the top there's there's
Arabic there.
This was added later on. You can see
the shield there. It was added later on
by Christians.
So brothers and sisters, those of you watching,
I hope you enjoyed
the history tour
of Kartava,
the mosque itself,
and some of the history.
You want to know the details? There are
books written by scholars, historians.
One of them is if you want to
read the political history,
one of them is Muslim,
Spain, and Portugal by Hugh Kennedy.
There is a good book by Anwar Shahana,
Muslim Spain.
There is a good collection of articles
on Islamic Spain,
edited by Salma Khadaraja Youssy.
That's a good collection.
And S. M. Imamuddin was an author writing
in the 60s and the seventies on Islamic
Spain.
There are some books by him.
And there is a popular book, like, you
can easy to read book, Ornament of the
World by Maria Rosa Menocal.
These are some of the books you can
read. And shall I get some inspiration on
the history of Islamic Spain?
So we are getting close to
the end of the walk.
Inshallah.
It seems our group is they haven't arrived
yet.
We can't see in
those guys are with us as well? Okay.
Yeah.
So we have half the group with us.
So you can see that we walked pretty
much
the whole length and width
of Masjid Kartaba in this
short vlog.
And I did it for you guys so
that you can appreciate
what Masjid Kartaba looked like once upon a
time. Again, to emphasize the point, all these
shops around
the compound
were bookshops. Now there are restaurants,
souvenir shops,
all sorts of things.
Okay?
And
I just want to finally show one gate
that is
decorated or that was decorated by Christians. How
are you? You okay?
That was decorated by Christians.
But still in very much
Islamic style.
This was added by the Christians.
The gate,
but still very moodier style
inspired by Islamic art, art. You can see.
Okay. That's the Masjid compound inside.
Now it's a cathedral inside.
And look at the gate. And there are
bells and
on top of the tower added.
So on that note, brothers and sisters, thank
you so much for watching.
Spread the news. Spread the video. Subscribe and
join our tours.
To join, you can go on,
halalgetaways.com.
Halalgetaways.
Com. Join the tour. You'll be absolutely blown
away. This video vlog cannot do justice to
what we see here on the ground with
our own eyes.
You must join these trips. If you want
to inspire your children, your youngsters,
to protect their identity, their pride in Islam,
you must bring them here to show them
all of this so that they can learn
the history. They'll be blown away. On that
note, thank you so much.