Andalusian Arab route
The Arab Route
Andalusian
The wonderful Arabic remains have left a deep mark on Andalusia, which allows us to go back in time and enjoy the wonderful architecture, its sculptures, its reliefs and a particular and beautiful art that tells us of a time of splendor and grandeur .
We propose a route that will surely make you discover the most exuberant of Andalusian Arab history
Get to know the wonderful archaeological remains of the Andalusí culture
It is a complete experience that fills the senses, with art, music, architecture and history that you cannot miss.
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Seville
Learn more →We start the Route in the emblematic city.
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Cordova
Learn more →Cordoba the great
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Pomegranate
Learn more →The Andalusian kingdom
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Prepare your camera
The places to visit in Muslim Seville
Aside from seeing the wonderful City, I will focus on the most iconic Arab places in the city. Although to be honest in all of Seville, there is a mixture of Arabic, Andalusian, Jewish, Roman and Catholic, which give this place its particularity.
La Giralda, Seville Cathedral.
In the Almohad era a new major mosque was built, which is currently the cathedral, replacing an existing one in the Plaza del Salvador in the year 1172 ten years later the first sermon on Friday was given "jutba" in the mosque.
The exterior elevation of the mosque had influences from the Cordoba mosque, while the structure of its plant came from the model of the Moroccan mosques in Marrakech and Tinmal.
Currently, the lower two thirds of the tower correspond to the minaret of the old mosque of the city, while the upper third is a construction superimposed in the Christian era to house the bells. At its peak is a ball called a jar on which stands the bronze statue that represents the Triumph of the Faith and which has the function of a weather vane, certainly beautiful, the Giraldillo, initially called Giralda, until the entire tower the town gave this name.
The Giralda is 104.1 meters tall, including the Giraldillo, which is 7.69 meters tall. It was for centuries the tallest tower in Spain, as well as one of the tallest and most famous buildings in all of Europe (by comparison; the Tower from Pisa it measures 55.8 m and Big Ben 96.3 m). On December 29, 1928 it was declared a National Heritage and in 1987 it was added to the World Heritage list.
The Alcazar of Seville.
It is a walled palatial complex, built in different historical stages. Although the original palace was built in the High Middle Ages, vestiges of Islamic art are still well preserved, as well as those from the post-Spanish conquest stage. It has a Mudejar style along with another in the Gothic style, to which later Renaissance, Mannerist and Baroque elements were added.
The outer wallIt is the residence of the members of the Spanish Royal Family when they visit Seville, making it the oldest royal palace in use in Europe.
Unesco declared it a World Heritage Site, along with the Seville Cathedral and the Archive of the Indies, in 1987.
- I will focus on Mudejar art since we look for everything related to Arab and Andalusian art, although you have to visit the entire Alcázar of Seville and not miss out on the great opportunity to contemplate that place.
- The Mudéjar Palace of Pedro I. Built next to the Gothic palace of Alfonso X on the initiative of King Pedro I, between 1356 and 1366, craftsmen from Toledo, Granada and Seville itself collaborated in its construction. Arabic epigraphy was used, since, from the 14th century, the Castilian monarchs stopped copying European trends to be inspired by Andalusian models. The interior of its structure has two nuclei, one dedicated to official life located around the courtyard of the Doncellas, and another to the private one around the courtyard of the Dolls.
The House of Pilate.
A palace from 1483, built on land confiscated by inquisition. At the initiative of Pedro Enríquez de Quiñones and his wife Catalina de Ribera who finished the work after her husband died. Fadrique Enriquez de Rivera son of both, his grandson Per Afán de Ribera and Portocarrero expanded and decorated the palace.
The name is said to have been given by Fadrique on a trip he made to Jerusalem in 1519, where he realized that the distance between the house of Pontius Pilate and Golgotha was the same as that between the palace and the Cross of the Field in Seville, so he traced a way of the cross with the 12 stations in the palace and the temple. At first it began to be celebrated inside the chapel of the house, but since 1529 they decided to start it by the door due to the large number of people who gathered, so La Casa Pilatos was considered the first station. This custom was recovered in 1971 by Joaquín González Moreno, archivist of the Casa de Pilatos and curator of the Palace, establishing the Way of the Cross in Cruz del Campo.
The styles of the House, a mixture of Italian Renaissance and Spanish Mudejar, resulted from the different restorations carried out from the last third of the 15th century to the 17th century.
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We continue with our journey to Córdoba
We follow the route that Yuzub and Abderramán
The Cordoba's mosque
Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba, "Santa María Madre de Dios" or "Great Mosque of Córdoba", today known as the Cathedral of the Assumption of Our Lady.
Construction began as a mosque in 786, reserved for Muslim worship. During the Emirate of Córdoba and the Caliphate of Córdoba it was expanded. At 23,400 square meters, it is the third largest mosque in the world in area behind the Blue Mosque in Istanbul.
It is accessed through the North Gate, Mudejar or Perdón to the patio of the orange trees, palm trees and fountains along with some horseshoe arches that surround the place. "The Patio de los Naranjos", which in the Caliphate was the "Patio de los Ablutions"
Interior of the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba.
The door of Las Palmas gives access to the mosque: there is a forest of 856 columns of marble, jasper and granite (the maximum number of columns was 1003) on which three hundred and sixty-five two-color horseshoe arches rest. The mihrab is a brilliantly colored Byzantine marble, stucco and mosaic jewel on a gold and bronze background, in addition to copper and silver.
In the skylight the lobed arches of the walls and the dome are preserved. At the head, the arches, the mosaics of the wall and the structure and decoration of the domes based on crossed arches stand out.
After the conquest of Córdoba by the Christians, they used the mosque to celebrate their worship, but in the 16th century, when Islam was definitively expelled from the Iberian peninsula, the victors wanted to adapt it to their beliefs: they built a Renaissance cathedral on their ships central, in charge of Hernán Ruiz, called "the old man", and then, of his son, in the heart of the mosque, altering the original perspective.
Only a trace remained of the old Christian church, destroyed to build the mosque on its site, and only as a result of some work begun in the 1940s, some of its remains were recovered in the basement of the Mosque-Cathedral, mainly mosaics and the pillars.
The Alcazar of Córdoba
ANDs a military building in the city of Córdoba, Spain, located on one of the banks of the Guadalquivir River. The monarch Alfonso XI of Castilla ordered its construction in the year 1328 on the old Andalusi Alcazar, formerly the residence of the Roman governor and customs. The architectural complex has a sober character on the outside and splendid on the inside, with the magnificent gardens and patios that maintain a Mudejar inspiration.
The Alcázar has been declared a Site of Cultural Interest since 1931. It is part of the historic center of Córdoba, declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 1994. In 2019 it received 595,517 visitors, being the second most visited paid monument in Córdoba after from the Mosque.
At night, since 2011, the Magic Nights at the Alcázar have been held, a light, water and sound show that explains the history of the monument through a striking staging.
Medina Azahara
It was a palatial or aulic city that the first caliph of Córdoba, Abderramán III, had to be built, about 8 km on the outskirts of Córdoba, at the foot of Sierra Morena.
The main reasons for its construction are of a political-ideological nature: the dignity of the caliph requires the foundation of a new city, a symbol of its power, in imitation of other eastern caliphates and above all, to show its superiority over its great enemies, the recently established Fatimid Caliphate of Ifriqiya, the northern part of the African continent. In addition to political opponents, they were also religious, since the Fatimis, Shiites, were enemies of the Umayyads, mainly from the Sunni Islamic branch.
The Medina Azahara archaeological site has been declared a Site of Cultural Interest in the Monument category since 1923, in addition to being officially declared a Unesco World Heritage Site on July 1, 2018. In 2019 it received more than 285,672 visitors , being one of the most visited cultural spaces in Andalusia.
Calahorra Museum Tower
Main and compulsory visit of the city.
It is a fortress of Islamic origin conceived as the entrance and protection of the Roman Bridge of Córdoba. Declared a Historic-Artistic Site in 1931, along with the Roman bridge and the bridge gate.
It is part of the historic center of Córdoba that was declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 1994.
It houses the headquarters of the Living Museum of al-Ándalus, inaugurated in 1987 and managed by the Fundación Paradigma Córdoba.
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Our third stop is in Granada
Land of the Nasrids
The Alhambra
It is a set of old palaces, gardens and fortress built on the hill of the Sabika to have a strategic and defensive situation. Conceived to house the emir and the court of the Nasrid Kingdom, later as a royal Castilian residence and its representatives.
Its beginnings date from the year 666, later with the arrival of the Catholic kings some of its areas were modified and annexed. As we can see the palace of Carlos V.
Its decoration is one of the highest representations of Andalusian art, integrating a landscape integrated with the nature of the place.
Built as a fortress, it was later abandoned, rebuilt as a fortress as seen in the Torre de la Vela, its Medina a citadel that served to maintain all the services of the Nasrid palaces; El Mexuar, the Palacio de Comares and the Palacio de los Leones, as well as the generalife villa of retirement and rest, with orchards and ornamental gardens,
One of the great works that gave it the power to transcend time were its water resources, a great work of Muslim engineering that was able to bring water from the mountains and supply the entire Alhambra to the Río Darro on the banks of the Albaicín.
The Albaicín and the Sacromonte.
(Main and Mandatory visit of the city.It is located in the old town)
It is a medieval Arab neighborhood (converted into a bohemian center for writers and artists) with cobbled and winding streets that lead to the Mirador de San Nicolás, from where it is possible to enjoy panoramic views of the Alhambra. The Albaicín with its whitewashed houses and narrow streets are full of tapas bars and cafes, where one ends up going down to its most emblematic street Elviria where market stalls and restaurant terraces line the Plaza Larga, recalling an old souk in the middle from the city.
El Sacromonte is known as the gypsy neighborhood where the nights are filled with cante, flamenco dance shows. Caves house on the slopes, they were houses in his time today a museum that preserves a testimony of the lifestyle of the sacromonte in his times. This path leads to the Sacromonte Abbey, a museum with interesting relics that surrounds panoramic views of the city and mountains.
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We finish the stage in Malaga
Port and Arab stronghold
Alcazaba de Málaga and Phoenician port
It is a Muslim palatial fortification, built on a previous one of Phoenician-Punic origin.
Located on the slopes of Mount Gibralfaro, in an elevated position and contiguous to the historical center of the city, which was the old madina of Mālaqa.
The Alcazaba is the result of a period of four stages: the Islamic period, from the 10th to the 15th centuries; then the reconquest until the eighteenth century; hence the abandonment of its military structure and deterioration that would take the entire 19th century and until 1930, when it began to recover as a Historic Artistic Monumenttill the date.
It was a restoration of an old walled enclosure of Phoenician-Punic origin. The Hammudí dynasty, last caliphs of Cordoba and kings of the Taifa of Malaga, who moved the caliphal court to Malaga during the Fitna de al-Andalus, used the Alcazaba enclosure and its rooms as a palatial residence.
The Almoravids broke into it in 1092 and then the Almohads in 1146. Later, in 1279, it was surrendered to Muhammad II Ben al-Ahmar and becomes part of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada.
Muslim Arab remains in Malaga
It is a Muslim palatial fortification, built on a previous one of Phoenician-Punic origin.
Located on the slopes of Mount Gibralfaro, in an elevated position and contiguous to the historical center of the city, which was the old madina of Mālaqa.
The Alcazaba is the result of a period of four stages: the Islamic period, from the 10th to the 15th centuries; then the reconquest until the eighteenth century; hence the abandonment of its military structure and deterioration that would take the entire 19th century and until 1930, when it began to recover as a Historic Artistic Monumenttill the date.
It was a restoration of an old walled enclosure of Phoenician-Punic origin. The Hammudí dynasty, last caliphs of Cordoba and kings of the Taifa of Malaga, who moved the caliphal court to Malaga during the Fitna de al-Andalus, used the Alcazaba enclosure and its rooms as a palatial residence.
The Almoravids burst into it in 1092 and then the Almohads in 1146. Later, in 1279, it was surrendered to Muhammad II Ben al-Ahmar and became part of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada.