November 11-

The trip to Granada and Cordoba surpassed my expectations.  When we took the ferry from Tangier to Spain, we passed by the Rock of Gibraltar, which is actually owned by the British.  Unfortunately, we did not go there this trip.  After the ferry docked in Spain, we headed by bus to Granada to check into the hotel.  There was nothing planned for that night, just to relax since we traveled for the entire day.  The next morning after eating breakfast, we traveled for a day trip to Medinat Al-Zahra and Cordoba.  Our first stop was Medinat Al-Zahra.  Medinat Al-Zahra was an Arab Muslim medieval town and the de-facto capital of al-Andalus, or Muslim Spain.  It was the heart of the administration and government at the time.  According to the guide, this city took forty years to build.  After touring the ancient city, we headed to Cordoba, Spain.  This region of Cordoba was conquered by the invading Islamic armies in the 8^th century.  While in Cordoba we visited a mosque that had been transformed to a cathedral after the Catholics and defeated the Muslims.  This mosque/cathedral is known as the Great Mosque of Cordoba, or the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption.  It was originally a Catholic church, but when the invading Muslim forces conquered southern Spain in 711, the church was split into Christian and Muslim sections.  It was like this until 784 when the Christian part was removed; but once the Catholics took over southern Spain again, the remaining Great Mosque was converted into a Catholic church.

The next day we went to Alhambra, which is in Granada.  Alhambra is a palace and fortress complex.  It was originally constructed as a small fortress in the year 889 and then was of little use until it was refurbished and rebuilt around the 13^th century by the Moorish emir, Mohammed ben Al-Ahman of the Emirate of Granada.  Then Yusuf I, the Sultan of Granada, transformed this into a royal palace in 1333.

I was indeed surprised of how much of an impact Islam and the culture had in southern Spain since it was a part of Islamic empires.  As I mentioned in my previous blog post, there are noticeable European influences in Morocco, but Islam influence in Europe are rarely brought up.  Observing southern Spain certainly showed how much of an impact the Islamic culture had on the region as a whole.