Mosque Name: Cordoba Mosque
Country: Spain
City: Cordoba
Year of construction (AH): 168 AH
Year of construction (AD): 784 AD
GPS: 37°52’45.23"N 4°46’46.46"W
ArchNet: http://archnet.org/sites/2715
Original Qibla: Parallel
Rebuilt facing Mecca: never
Description:
The Great Mosque of Cordoba was considered a wonder of the medieval world by both Muslims and Christians. Built on a Visigothic site, which was probably the site of an earlier Roman temple, the Great Mosque of Cordoba was begun between 784 and 786 during the reign of ‘Abd al-Rahman I, who escaped from Syria to the Iberian Peninsula after his family was massacred by a rival political dynasty.
The qibla of this mosque has puzzled researchers for many years as, like the Susa mosque, it points to neither Mecca nor Petra. Some suspect that since the Umayyad rulers were at odds with the Abbasid rulers, they refused to use the same qibla (Mecca), and yet felt that they could not point to the original Holy City as the Black Stone was no longer there. In the end, they pointed the mosque south (60 degrees south of east) which was more towards South Africa, just as the Susa mosque was oriented. The last major renovation of this mosque was in 987 AD. For many years this mosque was the second largest in the world.
As you can see, the qibla of this mosque points parallel to a line drawn between Petra and Mecca
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