Córdoba’s Mosque-Cathedral in name-change row

Ashifa Kassam

Inscriptions from the Qur’an share space with a baroque altarpiece in Córdoba’s Mosque-Cathedral, hinting at the building’s storied past.

But in recent years the word mosque has been removed from the monument’s website, leaflets and tickets; a move that might make it more difficult for visitors to appreciate the site’s history as a place of worship for Muslims and Christians, the regional government of Andalusia said.

Built on the site of a Visigothic church in the 8th century, the mosque was a focal point in Córdoba, whose intellectual and cultural life made it one of the great cities in the world at the time. When the Christians reconquered it in the 13th century, they built a cathedral in the centre of the mosque.

The site is now under the control of the diocese of Córdoba, which has begun referring to the site as the cathedral rather than the city council-approved name of the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba, Andalusia’s minister for tourism Rafael Rodríguez told El País. “Hiding its past as a mosque is like calling the Alhambra the palace of Charles V – it’s absurd.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/05/cordoba-mosque-cathedral-name-change-row-andalusia