Five centuries after the fall of Granada, Al-Andalus remains a symbol of both Muslim intellectual splendour and profound loss. In this piece, Edward Rowe reflects on the rise and collapse of Muslim Spain, by tracing a lesser-known legacy of al-Andalus beyond Iberia, revealing how its spirit endured through Ottoman refuge, living on today in an active mosque in Istanbul.
Today marks the anniversary of the end of Muslim power in Spain over five-hundred years ago, brought about by the fall of Granada to Catholic rule in 1492. Until that fateful day, Muslim rulers had governed parts of the Iberian Peninsula – present-day Spain, Portugal and Gibraltar – for almost eight centuries.
Muslims first arrived in 711, when the Umayyad general Tariq ibn Ziyad crossed over from North Africa, and defeated the Christian Visigothic King Roderick, opening the way to the conquest of major cities including Cordoba, Seville and Toledo.
The period of Islamic rule in Iberia that followed, often referred to as “Al-Andalus” is celebrated by many Muslims today, seen as a time of cultural and intellectual flourishing, punctuated with genuine and peaceful co-existence between the followers of the three major Abrahamic faiths.
Christians, Jews and Muslims certainly made great achievements during this time. In the tenth century for instance, the French monk Gerbert of Aurillac travelled to Al-Andalus where he studied Latin translations of Arabic works of mathematics and science, becoming an influential educator.
In 999, he would be made the Pope of the Catholic Church. Al-Andalus also bore other renowned scholars, such as the rabbi Maimonides (d.1204), admired as the greatest philosopher of Medieval Judaism, while, his contemporary Ibn Rushd (1126–1198) a Muslim jurist and physician, made a significant contribution to medicine, writing al-Kulliyat fi al-Tibb or Generalities on Medicine, a medical encyclopaedia, which would continue to be used in Europe into the eighteenth century under the title Colliget, with the author’s name latinised as “Averroes”.
Despite this splendour, Christian forces gradually chipped away at Muslim rule over several centuries, culminating in total collapse with the fall of Granada. As settlements fell, the Catholic rulers destroyed, converted and appropriated Islamic heritage sites, including places of worship and stately residences.
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Nonetheless, Al-Andalus’ glory is still visible in the last of these exquisite monuments that remain. Among the most famous are the Alhambra Palace in Granada, and the Cordoba Mezquita, once the world’s second largest mosque after Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, but now in use as a Christian cathedral.
For some Muslims however, the joy of visiting these places may be tempered by melancholy, a sense of sorrow at the loss of one of Islamic history’s greatest civilisations.
We may long to pray salah in the majestic forest of red and white horseshoe arches that adorns the Mezquita’s old prayer hall, forbidden by Spanish authorities today, despite lobbying by the country’s Muslim community.
What few may know, however, is that one Andalusi mosque is still active today, holding all five daily prayers. Perhaps more surprising is that this house of prayer is nowhere to be found in Spain, Portugal, or even Gibraltar. Instead, this place of worship – known locally as the Arab Mosque – sits across the Mediterranean, in Istanbul, Türkiye.
But why? And how? As Andalusi power waned in the fifteenth century, another Islamic power, the Ottoman Empire, was on the rise, having made inroads into south eastern Europe, taking cities such as Sofia (1382), Skopje (1392), and Thessaloniki (1430) even prior to Sultan Mehmet II’s conquest of Constaninople (present-day Istanbul) in 1453.
After the fall of Granada, Istanbul became a place of safety for many Andalusi refugees of different faiths. When Spain’s Catholic monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile issued the Alhambra Decree expelling their Jewish subjects in 1492, Sultan Mehmet’s son, Bayezid II now on the Ottoman throne, sent ships to rescue the imperilled community and re-settle them within his domains.
Pleased with his decision and eager to embrace the new arrivals in his already diverse empire, Bayezid mocked the Spanish king, calling Ferdinand “he who has impoverished his own country and enriched mine!”
The sultan welcomed Muslim refugees from Al-Andalus as well, many of whom settled in Istanbul. Bayezid specially allocated a mosque for his Iberian brothers to use in the city’s historic Galata neighbourhood, today just a short walk from the Karaköy tram stop. The mosque came to be known locally as the Arab Mosque, or “Arap Camii” in Turkish, owing to the Andalusi Muslims’ perceived Arab origins.
This place of worship is unique in Istanbul. Previously a church used by Italian friars, the building was initially converted into a mosque during the reign of Sultan Mehmet II after Constantinople fell to the Ottomans. The Arap Camii is not just the only Catholic church to be re-purposed as a mosque in the city, but is also Istanbul’s last remaining example of Gothic religious architecture.
Interestingly, while Gothic architecture may be widely associated with European Christianity, Diana Darke’s 2020 book Stealing from the Saracens has highlighted numerous Islamic and Middle Eastern influences on the style, some of which reached Europe through Al-Andalus.
It is quite possible then, that the Arap Camii’s square minaret for instance, formerly a bell tower, may have looked familiar to the mosques the Andalusi Muslims used back in Spain. Perhaps this mosque helped them see Istanbul as their home away from home? Meanwhile, for Muslims today, it is a living piece of Al-Andalus away from Spain.
The story of this magnificent mosque offers us many valuable reminders. This tale is first and foremost, an Ummatic story. When one group of Muslims were in dire need, their Ummah took them in and gave them support.
Looking at the broader picture, we see that Muslim rulers not only supported their brothers and sisters in faith, but protected others as well with morality and wisdom. Different peoples, both Muslim and non-Muslim flourished under Islamic rule, a message to those who defame our faith as intolerant and incapable of managing diversity – may I suggest they look inward first?
Zooming out further still, the story reminds us that as European Muslims we have a long, illustrious and continuous history on this continent. Islam too, like Judaism and Christianity is a part of Europe’s historical mosaic and has been for over a millennium, no matter what the far-right and so-called “nativists” may claim.
