The Reconquest of Spain

Wednesday of Holy Week 2010.  The sound of shrill trumpets and thunderous drums fill the air as marching bands accompany the Easter processions around the streets of Cordoba.  Rising above it all is the minaret turned belltower of the mosque-cathedral: a potent symbol of Spain’s mixed religious heritage.

At its height, Cordoba was the greatest Islamic city of the Mediterranean, capital of the caliphate of Al-Andalus which extended over most of the Iberian peninsula.  The Great Mosque, built on the ruins of a visigothic church, was the “mecca of the West” until Cordoba fell to the advancing Christian forces in 1236.  That same year the Mosque was rededicated as a Christian cathedral and so it has remained.

On that Wednesday morning, among the thousands of others visiting the cathedral were a group of 120 young people from an Austrian Muslim group.   Suddenly several of them fell to their knees and began praying according to the Muslim rite.  The security guards asked them to desist but a scuffle broke out leading to two arrests.  Afterwards a spokesman said it was a spontaneous response to the spirituality of the place.  

The number of Muslims in Spain has risen from under ten thousand at the end of the 1970s to over a million today.  However, it is difficult to be precise as estimates of the number of “Muslims” almost always use nationality as a measure of religious adherence.  Taking the number of  migrants from Muslim-majority countries (see below) and adding in Moslem migrants from other countries together with converts to Islam (estimated at 2% of Spanish Moslems) gives us a total of around 1,200,000 “Moslems”. The vast majority come from North Africa.

Source: NOVA, Instituto Nacional Estadistica 2010, Pew Research Centre 2000

There have not been so many Muslims in Spain since the days of the last Muslim Kingdom of Granada in 1492. Though there are only a handful of purpose-built mosques, 641 Muslim associations were registered with the Ministry of Justice at the end of 2008. The graphic below shows the concentration of Muslims in certain regions but also their presence in every province of Spain.

Source: http://www.euro-islam.info/2010/03/08/islam-in-spain

This “invasion” has been largely peaceful and government studies argue that the vast majority of Muslim immigrants have successfully adapted to the life and customs of Spain showing themselves to be “tolerant, Westernized and liberal and whose opinions do not differ substantially from that of Spanish citizens”.   But that is not the only view.

Others see the current trends as a “re-Islamization” of Spain which, whether by accident or design, is a serious threat to Spanish culture and society.  They point to the rhetoric of Islamist radicals who see the liberation of the “stolen Islamic land” of Al-Andalus as the first step in the re-establishment of an Islamic Caliphate.

In his first public declaration way back in 1994, Osama bin Laden stated clearly:

“The banner of jihad is raised up high to restore to our umma (the Islamic community) the pride and honor, and in which the banner of God's unity is raised once again over every stolen Islamic land, from Palestine to Al-Andalus”.

Seven years later in 2001, Osama bin Laden´s deputy explicitly linked the destruction of the World Trade Centre with “the tragedy in al-Andalus”.  And one of the most sobering findings from the investigation into the Madrid bombings in 2004 was that the attack was planned in October 2000, one year prior to 9-11 and subsequent invasion of Iraq.

More moderate Muslim leaders such as Mansur Escudero, president of the Islamic Council of Spain, condemn the terrorist attacks perpetrated in the name of Islam.  Escudero recalls the literature, architectural splendour and scientific achievements of Al Andalus, and most of all the social harmony that existed between Jews, Muslims, and Christians — its much celebrated convivencia.  At the same time he has been a prominent advocate of the shared use of the mosque-cathedral in Córdoba, which would see a space within the cathedral dedicated to the use of Muslims.

Meanwhile, others are raising money for the construction of a new great mosque, the second largest in the world on the outskirts of the city.  And just a few hundred miles away across the straits of Gibraltar a new wave of persecution in Morocco has seen the expulsion of over 100 Christian foreigners, American, European and Spanish, for alleged acts of proselytism and breaking the Muslim faith.

Whilst the Spanish government praises the integration of the Muslims into society, tension is building and some fear a new religious conflict in Al Andalus is only just around the corner.  As Escudero himself says: "Al-Andalus will continue being Al-Andalus for Muslims of all ages. It is there. We have created it."     

Jim Memory