Representing the unrepresentable: the Mosque of Córdoba and the ideal Islamic temple

Abstract

Influential architects such as Norberg Schultz, Rafael Moneo, and Stan Allen have interpreted the Great Mosque at Córdoba, arguably the most famous example of hypostyle mosque, as the embodiment of an understanding of architecture that is fundamentally different from the one that has prevailed in the West. This paper carries forward said comparison and explores the reasons behind this stark difference. It traces back the origin of the hegemonic view of the ‘Western architectural object’ to Leon Battista Alberti’s description of the ‘ideal temple’ and maps its key traits. The article draws on interdisciplinary sources to outline the new and seemingly impossible aesthetic and architectural requirements of Islam, marked by the radical alterity of an unrepresentable God, and extracts from them a hypothetical and alternative canon of the ‘ideal Islamic temple’ that, unlike Alberti’s, was never explicitly formulated. By systematically comparing both constructs, the article argues that hypostyle mosques reflected said canon better than other mosque types and posits the Córdoba Mosque as, perhaps, its clearest (albeit contingent and imperfect) built expression. Finally, it puts forward the concept of ‘built arabesque’ as a model for these Islamic buildings that, even today, challenge the Western understanding of the architectural object.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988), p. 195, first publ. in Italian in 1485.

2 Alberti mentions the square, the hexagon, the octagon, the decagon, and the dodecagon. Interestingly enough, all of them have even numbers of sides; see ibid., p. 196.

3 Ibid., p. 199.

4 Ibid., p. 156.

5 Rudolf Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism (Chichester: Academy Editions, 1998), p. 16, first publ. in 1948.

6 Ibid., p. 38.

7 Ibid., p. 19.

8 The literature on Islamic art and architecture is vast. For general reference books, see Richard Ettinghausen, Oleg Grabar, and Marilyn Jenkins-Madina, Islamic Art and Architecture, 650–1250 (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press; 2001); Jonathan Bloom, and Sheila Blair, Islamic Arts (London: Phaidon Press, 1997); Architecture of the Islamic World: Its History and Social Meaning, ed. by George Michell (London: Thames and Hudson, 1995); and Ernst J. Grube, The World of Islam (London: Paul Hamyl, 1966).

9 Bloom and Blair, Islamic Arts, p. 5.

10 Ibid.

11 For the impact of Fiqh and, specifically, Fiqh Al-Maliki on the built environment, see Ziad M. M. Shehada, ‘The Islamic Influence on Built Environment in Ancient Islamic Cities’, Journal of Al-Tamaddun, 15.2 (2020), 81–94.

12 Christian Norberg-Schulz, ‘The Architecture of Unity’, in Architectural Education in the Islamic World, ed. by Ahmet Evin (Singapore: Concept Media,1986), pp. 8–14 (p. 9).

13 Stan Allen, ‘From Object to Field’, Architectural Design, ‘AD Profile 127: Architecture After Geometry’, 67.5/6 (May/June 1997), 24–31 (p. 24).

14 In fact, the Mosque was the triggering element of the text: ‘My speculations around the idea of “field conditions” can be traced back to the Mosque at Cordoba, which I first visited with Moneo on the way to a building site.’ See Stan Allen, ‘Learning from Moneo’, Sir John Soane's Museum London, 2017 <https://www.soane.org/soane-medal/2017-rafael-moneo/five-voices-rafael-moneo> [accessed 20 September 2021].

15 Allen, ‘From Object to Field’, p. 24.

16 Rafael Moneo, ‘La vida de los edificios: Las ampliaciones de la mezquita de Córdoba’ [‘The Life of Buildings: The Mosque of Córdoba’s Extensions’], Arquitectura, 256 (September/October 1985), 26–36.

17 Allen, ‘From Object to Field’, pp. 24–5.

18 Ibid.

19 Ibid., p. 28.

20 al-Kaʿba (the Cube), is a shrine that, according to Islamic tradition, was first erected by Adam and later rebuilt by Abraham and Ishmael.

21 James Dickie (Yaqub Zaki), ‘Allah and Eternity: Mosques, Madrasas and Tombs’, in Architecture of the Islamic World, ed. by Michell, pp. 15–48 (p. 16).

22 ‘[…] thus the whole of Islam can be seen as a wheel with the spokes radiating from the Kaʿba. But as well as this horizontal axis there is a vertical one, that of the spirit. At the Kaʿba the two intersect, so that is the only non-directional religious building in the Muslim world.’ See ibid.

23 Moneo, ‘La vida de los edificios’, p. 27, quote translated by the author.

24 For a detailed account of how Islam kept the essential cosmological framework of the previous Abrahamic faiths, see S. Gulzar Haider, ‘Islam, Cosmology, and Architecture’, in Theories and Principles of Design in the Architecture of Islamic Societies, ed. by Margaret Bentley Sevcenko (Cambridge, MA: Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, 1988), pp. 73–85; and Antonio Bentué, ‘Concepción del Espacio Sagrado en algunas religiones no cristianas’ [‘The Understanding of Sacred Space in Some Non-Christian Religions’], Teología y Vida, XLIV (2003), 235–49.

25 Manuel Lázaro Pulido, ‘Cristianismo e Islam en el pensamiento medieval. Encuentros y desencuentros’ [‘Christianity and Islam in Medieval Thought: Agreements and Disagreements’], Cauriensia: Revista anual de Ciencias Eclesiásticas, IV (2009), 81–139 (p. 91), quote translated by the author. For the differences between the Bible and Qur'an, see also Fernando Colomer Ferrándiz, ‘Fe cristiana y fe islámica: Contenido, relaciones y diferencias. Un intento de comparación’ [‘Christian and Islamic Faiths: Content, Relations and Differences – A Comparison Attempt’], Scripta Fulgentina: Revista de Teología y Humanidades, 27/28 (2004), 7–20.

26 Juan Aranzadi, ‘Demasiado cerca, demasiado lejos: Levi-Strauss ante el Islam’ [‘Too Close, Too Distant: Levi-Strauss Before Islam’], Claves de Razón Práctica, 31 (April 1993), 2–9 (p. 5), quote translated by the author.

27 Furthermore, the shrine of Yahya (John the Baptist), a small building encapsulated by the mosque, clearly undermines its spatial uniformity. For the early development of hypostyle mosques in Iraq and Syria, see Ettinghausen, Grabar, and Jenkins-Madina, ‘Central Islamic Lands’, in Islamic Art and Architecture, pp. 15–78.

28 From the central to the outermost isles, the widths measure 7.85, 6.86, and 5.35 metres respectively; see Carlos Fernández Casado, ‘La estructura resistente de la mezquita de Córdoba’ [‘The Bearing Structure of The Mosque of Cordoba’], Quaderns d’arquitectura i urbanisme, 149 (1981), 1–20 (p. 8). According to Félix Hernández Jiménez, the original dimensions would have been 16, 14 and 11 cubits (1 cubit is around 49.5 cm); see Félix Hernández Jiménez, ‘El Codo En La Historiografía Árabe De La Mezquita Mayor De Córdoba: Contribución Al Estudio Del Monumento’ [‘The Cubit in the Arab Historiography of the Great Mosque of Cordoba: Contribution to the Monument’s Study ’], Al-Mulk: Anuario de Estudios Arabistas, 2 (1961/1962), 5–52 (p. 8).

29 Christian Ewert and Jens-Peter Wisshak, Forschungen zur Almohadischen Moschee: I. Vorstufen. Madrider Beiträge 9 [Research on the Almohad Mosque: I. Preliminary steps. Madrid Contributions 9] (Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern, 1981), pp. 72–8.

30 While these elements have usually been referred to as ‘ribbed vaults’, ‘crossed-arch domes’ seem more precise since they are organised around a central axis, not along a linear one. For a thorough analysis of these elements, see Paula Fuentes and Santiago Huerta, ‘Geometry, Construction and Structural Analysis of the Crossed-Arch Vault of the Chapel of Villaviciosa’, International Journal of Architectural Heritage, 10.5 (2016), 589–603.

31 ‘Its origin and date of appearance are still uncertain, but it must have involved protection from assassination and separation of the caliph from his subjects.’ See Ettinghausen, Grabar, and Jenkins-Madina, Islamic Art and Architecture, p. 21.

32 Bloom and Blair, Islamic Arts, p. 143.

33 Heba Mostafa, ‘The Early Mosque Revisited: Introduction of the Minbar and Maqṣūra’, Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World, XXXIII (2016), 1–16.

34 ‘This suggests that the maqsura may have operated as a metonym of authority within this context, in light of its pre-Islamic use in the Dār al-Nadwa in Mecca and its association with demarcating seclusion and privilege within large, open-plan hypostyle mosque spaces.’ See ibid., p. 10.

35 Ibid., p. 6.

36 For an account of its role as prototype for later mosques, see Essam S. Ayyad, ‘The “House of the Prophet” or the “Mosque of the Prophet”?’, Journal of Islamic Studies, 24.3 (September 2013), 273–334.

37 Titus Burckhardt, Moorish Culture in Spain (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1972), p. 11.

38 Ettinghausen, Grabar and Jenkins-Madina, Islamic Art and Architecture, note 5, p. 310.

39 Jo Tonna, ‘The Poetics of Arab-Islamic Architecture’, Muqarnas: An Annual on Islamic Art and Architecture, VII (1990), 182–97 (p. 195).

40 There is a third type of mosque in the original sense of ‘place of prayer’, the‘īdgāh that is ‘a mosque reduced to its essentials — a great open praying area with nothing but a qibla wall and a mihrāb. Here the whole population of a city can assemble for the two major festivals, the Breaking of the Fast and the Sacrifice of Abraham.’ See Dickie (Yaqub Zaki) ‘Allah and Eternity: Mosques, Madrasas and Tombs’, in Architecture of the Islamic World, ed. by Michell, p. 19

41 Tonna, ‘The Poetics’, p. 184.

42 Moneo, ‘La vida de los edificios’, p. 35, quote translated by the author.

43 Burckhardt, Moorish Culture in Spain, p. 10.

44 Tonna, ‘The Poetics’, p. 182.

45 Ernst J. Grube, ‘What is Islamic Architecture?’, in Architecture of the Islamic World, ed. by Michell, p. 10.

46 Norberg-Schulz, ‘The Architecture of Unity’, p. 9.

47 Interestingly enough, its dimensions (110×52 m) are almost identical to those of the Plaza de la Corredera (roughly 113×55 m) built in the seventeenth century following the Castilian tradition of Plaza Mayor squares. While I am not aware of any direct influence (that would not be surprising, considering the importance of the Mosque for the city), this similarity is very telling in terms of the contrasting approaches towards urban public space in the Islamic and Christian cultures.

48 Haider, ‘Islam, Cosmology, and Architecture’, p. 80.

49 See Grube, The World of Islam, pp. 11–12; Thomas W. Arnold, Painting in Islam: A Study of the Place of Pictorial Art in Muslim Culture (New York, NY: Dover Publications, 1965); and Terry Allen, ‘Aniconism and Figural Representation in Islamic Art’, in Five Essays on Islamic Art (Sebastopol, CA: Solipsist Press, 1988), pp. 17–37 (p. 18), where he states: ‘Except for particularly repressive periods and the damage caused by the actions of zealots, figural representation has always been a part of secular art in the Islamic world.’

50 Thomas W. Arnold, Painting in Islam: A Study of the Place of Pictorial Art in Muslim Culture (New York, NY: Dover Publications, 1965), p. 5.

51 For a remarkably deep analysis of the epigraphic content of this area, see Nuha N. N. Khoury, ‘The Meaning of the Great Mosque of Cordoba in the Tenth Century’, Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World, XIII (1996), 80–98.

52 Ibid., p. 80.

53 Ibid., p. 81.

54 Ibid., p. 90.

55 S. Gulzar Haider, ‘Faith is the Architect: Reflections on the Mosque’, Architecture and Comportment/Architecture & Behavior, 11.3/4, (1995), 243–8 (p. 67).

56 Ibid., p. 68.

57 Grube, The World of Islam, p. 11.

58 Norberg-Schulz, ‘The Architecture of Unity’, p. 13

59 This definition appears in the Liber XXIV Philosophorum, attributed to an Helenistic author under the pseudonym of Hermes Trismegistus. It was recovered in the twelfth century by Alain de Lille and, later on, by Nicholas of Cusa and, albeit referred to nature, Pascal.

60 Grube, The World of Islam, p. 11.

61 Tonna, ‘The Poetics’, p. 190.

62 According to Ettinghausen, Grabar, and Jenkins-Madina, the Mosque of Córdoba’s ‘spectacular display of arches and domes on tiny and insignificant columns is, however, characteristically Spanish islamic’; see Ettinghausen, Grabar, and Jenkins-Madina, Islamic Art and Architecture, p. 89.

63 Felix Arnold, ‘Mathematics and the Islamic Architecture of Córdoba’, Arts, ‘Andalusi Architecture: Shapes, Meaning and Influences’, 7.3 (2018), 5–15 (p. 9).

64 Tonna, ‘The Poetics’, p. 196.

65 Burckhardt, Moorish Culture in Spain, p. 206.

66 This recalls Walter Benjamin’s idea that architecture is usually perceived by ‘the masses’ in a state of distraction [Zerstreuung], as opposed to ‘the concentrated attention of a traveler before a famous building’; see Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility and Other Writings on Media (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press, 2008. First published 1935), p. 40.

67 ‘So have they not travelled through the earth and have hearts by which to reason and ears by which to hear? For indeed, it is not eyes that are blinded, but blinded are the hearts which are within the breasts.’ See Qur'an 22:46.