Chapter 5
Reviving al-Andalus
Commemorating Spain’s Islamic heritage in the
context of democratic transition*
Avi Astor
Throughout Europe, references to heritage have figured centrally in recent polemics surrounding Islam. Right-wing populists and ideologues across the continent
have invoked the urgency of safeguarding European values and preserving national
(Christian) heritage when advocating policies that restrict the admission of Muslim
migrants and refugees, or that limit the liberty of Muslim minorities to express
their religious identities (e.g. via bans on the use of headscarves or face veils). In
countering such positions, progressives and others on the Left have commonly
pointed to the significant historical presence of Muslim civilisations in certain parts
of Europe and to the contributions Muslims have made to European heritage and
culture. As highlighted by the contributions included in this volume, these debates
have unfolded differently in distinct parts of Europe. Their discursive, performative
and spatial dimensions and ramifications must therefore be analysed in light of
context-specific entanglements of national identity, religion and politics.
This chapter examines the legal and spatio-material recognition of Islam as part of
Spanish cultural heritage in the aftermath of Spain’s transition to democracy. As an
‘edge’ territory located at Europe’s southern frontier (Whitehead et al., 2019), Spain’s
geographic proximity to North Africa and historical engagements with Islam have
played a formative role in its development as a nation. Over the course of Spanish
history, these engagements have been a source of both pride and stigma. On the one
hand, Spain’s Islamic patrimony is one of its most distinctive and defining features.
Granada’s Alhambra and Cordoba’s Mosque-Cathedral (Mezquita-Catedral) attract
millions of visitors each year, and are recognised as core sites of national heritage not
only in Andalusia but also across the country. On the other hand, the legacy of alAndalus (711 C.E.- 1492 C.E.) and Spain’s Moorish heritage have made it susceptible to orientalising discourses that locate it beyond Europe’s frontiers (Rogozen-Soltar,
2007;Tofiño-Quesada, 2003).The deep ambivalence and multivocality characteristic
of Spain’s relationship with its Moorish heritage make it an especially illuminating
site for studying how complex and variegated historical entanglements with Islam
may influence contemporary dynamics surrounding Muslim incorporation.
* This chapter is an adaptation of a chapter entitled ‘Reviving al-Andalus’ published in
Rebuilding Islam in Contemporary Spain: The Politics of Mosque Establishment (1976–2013
(Sussex Academic Press, 2017).
106 Avi Astor
As in other European contexts, debates regarding Islam have become more
prominent in the Spanish public sphere over the past several decades due to rising
levels of Muslim migration, as well as fears regarding Islamic extremism. Since the
late 1990s, a substantial Muslim population has emerged in Spain, primarily due to
migration from North Africa and South Asia. There are currently about two million Muslims (roughly 4.3% of the total population) and 1,600 mosques dispersed
throughout the country, most of which are small oratories or prayer rooms located
in nondescript apartments or warehouses. The regions with the largest Muslim
populations in Spain are Catalonia (~564,000), Andalusia (~341,000), Madrid
(~299,000) and Valencia (~221,000), though sizeable populations may also be
found elsewhere in the country (Observatorio Andalusí, 2020; Observatorio del
Pluralismo Religioso en España, 2019).
Islam’s renewed presence in Spain has coincided with a series of major political
and social transformations, including the transition from dictatorship to democracy,
the disestablishment of the Catholic Church and progressive secularisation of the
populace, and the shift from a religiously homogeneous to a religiously diverse
national community. Grappling with the legacy of al-Andalus and its place in
Spanish history, and addressing the challenges of social integration and religious
accommodation, have significant implications for Spain’s development as a modern, democratic and plural society.
The legal and material infrastructure for accommodating the religious needs of
Muslim minorities in Spain has been shaped by a series of developments that
occurred in the decades following its transition to democracy in the late 1970s.
During this period, municipal governments and business entrepreneurs in several
Spanish regions supported the construction of large and ornate mosques financed
by wealthy Arab donors. In 1992, the Spanish government signed a generous cooperative agreement with the Islamic Commission of Spain (CIE) that entitled
Muslims to a series of special rights and privileges. These developments were not
the outcome of Muslim minorities’ prolonged struggle for acceptance and accommodation. Indeed, it was not until the onset of the 21st century that Muslim immigrants began to have a sizeable numeric presence in Spain.
The erection of several major mosques and the establishment of an official
accord with the CIE led to a curious situation in which Islam achieved a relatively
high degree of visibility and recognition at a time when the actual presence of
Muslims in Spain was still quite limited. In this chapter, I show how the commemoration of Spain’s Islamic heritage and the support given to large-scale
mosque projects during the 1980s and 1990s were driven by the interplay of: 1)
symbolic projects of national redefinition that sought to fashion a new Spain liberated from Franco’s National Catholicism and the country’s long history of religious
intolerance; and 2) economic undertakings promoting foreign investment, tourism,
and urban revitalisation. I argue that initiatives seeking to render Spain’s Islamic
legacy visible during the 1980s and 1990s could be pursued without major social
obstacles or political risk as a result of the relative invisibility of the country’s modest Muslim population at the time. When Muslims did begin to have a more substantial presence in Spain, the legal and spatio-material recognition granted to
Reviving al-Andalus
107
Islam during the post-transition period did little to shield them from the effects of
escalating prejudice and discrimination. Since such recognition was primarily the
result of top-down initiatives rather than grassroots struggle, it had limited efficacy
for promoting generalised reflexivity regarding Spain’s approach to dealing with its
Islamic past or its increasingly multicultural present.
The political antecedents to Spain’s first modern
mosques
Prior to Spain’s democratic transition, the country was ruled by Francisco Franco's
dictatorial regime (1939–1975), which was highly repressive of ethnic and religious diversity. Despite Franco’s repressive domestic policies, he placed great effort
in developing diplomatic ties with the Arab world in the context of Spain’s international isolation and economic stagnation following World War II. Spain’s rich
Islamic heritage proved a valuable resource for cultivating relations with Middle
Eastern elites, which later contributed to Arab interest and investment in Spain.
When the United Nations (UN) was formed in 1945, its leadership voted to
exclude Spain and passed a resolution the following year recommending an international boycott of Franco’s dictatorship. Shunned by the major Western powers,
Franco sought to strengthen ties with the Middle East and Latin America through
forging a series of economic and cultural agreements. By cultivating close relations
with Middle Eastern and Latin American leaders, Franco hoped to obtain the necessary votes to lift the UN’s diplomatic ban. He was also eager to develop new
forms of economic cooperation that might give a boost to Spain’s distressed economy. Moreover, he perhaps naively believed that an alliance with powerful Arab
leaders would help Spain deflect criticisms of its ongoing colonial presence in
North Africa (Algora Weber, 1995; Rein, 1998).
In courting Arab elites, Franco and other regime officials strategically referenced
romanticised ideas of convivencia (coexistence)1 and cultural interchange between
Muslims and Christians during the period of al-Andalus. Together with the respect
that Franco was able to command due to his charismatic persona, the deep nostalgia for al-Andalus in the Middle East contributed to the resonance of such rhetoric
among influential Arab leaders (Algora Weber, 1995). In addition to employing
symbolic rhetoric, Franco arranged a series of diplomatic encounters during the
1940s and 1950s. Arab leaders were invited to visit Spain’s Islamic patrimony, as
well as the royal palace in Madrid. Spanish ambassadors embarked on several diplomatic ‘missions’ to the Middle East. Franco’s regime also supported the establishment of educational centres such as the Hispano-Arab Institute of Culture and the
Farouk I Institute of Islamic Studies to facilitate exchanges between Spanish and
Arab students and scholars.Through these initiatives, Franco enhanced cultural and
economic ties with several Arab countries, including Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria,
Iran,Yemen, Iraq and Saudi Arabia (Huguet Santos, 2005; Rein, 1998).
The substantial effort that Franco put into fortifying relations with the Arab
world seemingly contradicted the decidedly anti-Arab and anti-Muslim domestic
propaganda that his regime disseminated. ‘National Catholicism’ was the regime’s
108 Avi Astor
ideological lynchpin, and celebrating the Christian defeat of the ‘ruthless’ and ‘barbaric’ moros (Moors) was central to the nationalist narratives advanced in political
speeches, school textbooks, and Spanish media. Although relatively few religious
minorities resided in Spain during Franco’s rule, those that did were highly constrained in their ability to express their religious identities outwardly (Morán,
1995). With regard to foreign diplomacy, however, Franco and his associates were
perfectly content to appropriate romanticised representations of Spain’s Islamic
heritage developed by liberal historians in order to portray Spain as a bridge
between Eastern and Western civilisations. Such representations were mobilised
during the 1950s to promote a Mediterranean pact between Spain and the Arab
Middle East, though this idea never gained sufficient traction among Arab leaders
to come to fruition (Logroño Narbona, 2014).
Franco’s experience as a military officer in North Africa and his familiarity with
Moroccan culture contributed to his personal sense of proximity to the Arab world.
Between 1912 and 1936, he served roughly 14 years in campaigns to establish and
maintain Spain’s colonial presence in parts of present-day Morocco. During the
Spanish Civil War, he recruited 70,000 Moroccan mercenaries, the so-called
Regulares, to assist with the rebellion against the Republican government (Seidman,
2015). A small mosque in Cordoba called the ‘Morabito’, which is still in use today,
was originally built to meet the religious needs of these troops. At the conclusion of
the war, Franco enlisted several Moroccan soldiers to serve as his personal bodyguards. He would later make a point of having these bodyguards accompany him
while engaging in diplomacy with Middle Eastern leaders (Rein, 1998). Such
diplomacy was a key antecedent to the construction of Spain’s first modern mosques.
A major mosque in the Spanish capital
After 39 years in power, Franco’s rule finally came to an end with his death in 1975.
By that time, roughly 20% of Spanish imports came from the Middle East, and the
difficulties resulting from the 1973 energy crisis created new impetus for securing
long-term agreements for the importation of oil and gas (Huguet Santos, 2005). As
Spain transitioned to democracy, Adolfo Suarez’s centre-right administration
(1976–1982) sought to maintain positive relations with the Arab world. State officials also perceived close ties with the Arab world as crucial for improving general
relations and commercial engagements with Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, and for
resolving lingering tensions surrounding the North African enclaves of Ceuta and
Melilla (Segal, 1991).
Relations with the Arab world in the aftermath of Spain’s democratic transition,
however, went beyond the pursuit of strictly diplomatic and commercial objectives.
A central aim of Spain’s first democratic administrations was to repair the tarnished
image that Spain had acquired during Franco’s rule. With the transition, conservatives and progressives alike partook in the construction of a more modern and
cosmopolitan Spain, in part by supporting initiatives that demonstrated a greater
openness to religious plurality. Large-scale mosque projects were welcomed as
symbols of Spain’s new and more inclusive course of societal development.
Reviving al-Andalus
109
Madrid, Spain’s capital city and centre of diplomacy, was a logical destination for
the country’s first modern mosque. In 1976, delegates of 18 Arab countries with
diplomatic representation in Madrid came together and developed a proposal to
jointly fund the construction of a large Islamic centre with the aim of strengthening relations between Spain and the Arab world. Madrid’s municipal government
welcomed the proposal, and the following year it donated a 20,000m2 parcel of
public land to the Muslim World League, which assumed responsibility for managing the project. The practice of ceding public property for the establishment of
religious structures had been quite common in the case of Catholic Churches.The
city’s donation to the Muslim community was thus not viewed as particularly
abnormal or controversial. Other cities including Valencia and Fuengirola
(Andalusia) would later follow Madrid’s example.
When negotiations surrounding the cession of land for the proposed centre
were finalised, an extravagant ceremony celebrating the agreement was held at the
luxurious Zarzuela Palace. A number of illustrious figures attended, including King
Juan Carlos I, Prince Fahd of Saudi Arabia, an array of Arab ambassadors, the heads
of several Spanish ministries, and the mayor of Madrid, Enrique Tierno Galván.
Aureate discourses harking back to the glory of al-Andalus and praising Spain’s
strong relations with the Arab world abounded, reflecting the project’s highly symbolic and diplomatic objectives (‘España regala’, 1977).
In 1978, representatives of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Libya took measures to
obtain a legal permit for the Islamic centre, paving the way for its construction. In
March of the following year, a competition was organised to collect ideas for the
centre’s design. A total of 453 projects proposed by 840 architects from 45 different
countries were presented. Two teams composed of Polish architects won the top
two prizes for the competition, and the winning design served as the basis for the
eventual mosque. Part of what made the design appealing to judges was that it
fused Western and Oriental styles, and incorporated elements typical of the
Hispano-Islamic tradition. The interior of the mosque, for instance, included columns and double arches that closely resembled those of Cordoba’s MosqueCathedral, making it a visual reminder of Islam’s historical presence in Spain.
Due to unforeseen difficulties with funding, the mosque was not built until nearly
a decade later, when Prince Fahd assumed responsibility for financing its construction.
The formal name chosen for the centre was the ‘Islamic Cultural Centre and Omar
ibn al-Jattâb Mosque of Madrid’ (CCIM). Saudi Arabia’s leading role in bringing the
project to fruition resulted, in part, from the strong relations it had developed with
Spain starting in the 1960s. In 1966, Franco had awarded Faisal bin Abdulaziz, the
Saudi king and father of Prince Fahd, the prestigious Order of Civil Merit Collar for
his diplomatic and commercial collaboration with Spain. In celebration of the occasion, King Faisal was invited to Madrid to receive the honour, and a special event in
praise of his presence was held at the iconic Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba. Spain’s
importation of oil from Saudi Arabia had also grown significantly since the 1960s,
further tightening relations between the two countries (Huguet Santos, 2005).
As the CCIM was being completed, an organisation called the Muslim
Association of Spain spearheaded the construction of a second mosque, formally
110 Avi Astor
Figure 5.1 The Islamic Cultural Centre and Omar ibn al-Jattâb Mosque of Madrid
© Luis García.
named the ‘Abu-Bakr Mosque’ in Madrid’s Tetuan neighbourhood. The project
was designed and directed by a prestigious architect from Cordoba named Juan
Mora Urbano. Although it was not as grand as the CCIM, the Abu-Bakr Mosque
gave Islam a visible presence in the Spanish capital. The mosque, which was also
dubbed the ‘Central Mosque of Madrid’, was inaugurated in 1989.
The CCIM opened 3 years later in 1992, a year chosen for its historical marking
of the 500th anniversary of the conquest of Granada, the last bastion of Muslim rule.
The Spanish king and queen, the mayor of Madrid, Prince Salman of Saudi Arabia,
and the prince’s son Mohammad were among those who attended the inaugural
ceremony. The CCIM later became the headquarters for the Spanish Federation of
Islamic Religious Entities (FEERI), an Islamic federation that competes with the
Union of Islamic Communities of Spain (UCIDE) for national representation of
Spain’s Muslim population. UCIDE evolved from the aforementioned Muslim
Association of Spain and has its headquarters at the Abu-Bakr Mosque.
Media coverage of Madrid’s two main mosques was generally positive, framing
them as a symbolic bridge between Spain and the Islamic world, and an additional
attraction in the city. In an interview with the Spanish daily newspaper ABC,
Rafael de la Hoz, the CCIM’s principal architect, compared it to two large mosques
being erected in Paris and Rome, and stated: ‘Ours is going to be the most important; in the end, we are the occidentals most connected to the Muslim world by the
enormity of our common past’ (Borroso, 1988, p. 33). His comments were reflective of how, at the time, having a large and visible mosque that highlighted Spain’s
unique connection to the Islamic world provided a means for Madrid to distinguish itself and elevate its prestige vis-à-vis other major European capitals.
Reviving al-Andalus
111
The symbolic politics of national redefinition and Islam’s
official recognition
As part of the commemorative events of 1992,2 the Spanish state also signed an
historic cooperative agreement with the CIE. The CIE emerged as a consequence
of the Spanish state’s demand for a single national interlocutor that could represent
the country’s Muslim population in conversations with state agencies.3 Its executive board included representatives from FEERI, which was initially led by Spanish
converts to Islam, and UCIDE, whose leaders were mainly professionals of Middle
Eastern origin. Relations between the two federations have always been soured by
rivalry, contributing to the CIE’s general inability to reach consensus on key issues
(e.g. fair and democratic procedures for determining its leadership and representation).The inefficacy of the commission has resulted in a relatively large proportion
(approximately 30%) of Muslim associations electing not to affiliate.
The 1992 agreement with the CIE, which has been considered ‘one of the
most liberal in Europe’ (Zapata Barrero, 2006, p. 150) conferred Muslims a series
of rights and privileges, including the protection and recognition of mosques as
inviolable spaces, the right to religious accommodation in public institutions
(e.g. the military and state prisons), the right to Islamic religious education in
schools receiving public funding, the legal recognition of marriages performed
in accordance with Islamic law, tax exemptions for Islamic associations, the right
to take time off from work to celebrate Muslim holidays and the right of Muslim
associations to participate in the conservation of Islamic historical sites and
artefacts.
Similar agreements were established with Spain’s Jewish and Protestant federations. These agreements were made possible by the state’s prior recognition of
Islam, Judaism, and Protestantism as ‘deeply rooted’ (de notorio arraigo) religions
(Fernández-Coronado, 1995). By formalising relations with Islamic, Jewish and
Protestant federations, Felipe González’s Socialist administration aimed to promote a new image of Spain as a modern, plural society that had transcended its
legacy of religious intolerance. The strategy of reviving memories from Spain’s
distant past, moreover, provided a means for elites to engage in the process of
national redefinition without directly confronting the more recent and still divisive memories of fascism and dictatorship. Since the challenges of Muslim integration and religious diversity were not yet an issue of public concern due to the
limited presence of religious minorities in the country, the agreements posed little
political risk.
Muslim leaders were not passive bystanders to this process, but rather actively
took advantage of the favourable structure of opportunities that existed following
Spain’s democratic transition. The extension of official recognition to Islam was
formally requested by the Muslim Association of Spain the same year that it had
inaugurated the Abu-Bakr Mosque. In soliciting recognition, the association’s president, the Syrian-born doctor Riay Tatary, strategically leveraged Islam’s historical
legacy in the Iberian Peninsula to demonstrate its ‘deep rootedness’ in Spanish society.4 The following excerpt is taken from the request submitted by Tatary in 1989:
112 Avi Astor
The Islamic religion is of the spiritual beliefs that have configured Spain’s
historical character. Our culture and tradition are inseparable from the religious principles which have cultivated the deepest essences of the Spanish
people and being. The Islamic faith, for its scope and number of believers, has
achieved deep rootedness in Spain.
(Tatary, 1995, p. 167)
Although there were just seventeen Muslim associations registered in Spain when
the request was submitted, the bid for official recognition received unanimous support from the state’s Advisory Commission on Religious Liberty. The 1992 cooperative agreement between the state and the CIE was likewise approved by
unanimous vote in both houses of the Spanish Parliament. During parliamentary
discussions on the agreements, elites from across the political spectrum praised
Spain’s diverse religious history, emphasising the importance of correcting for historical injustices and recovering Spain’s lost cultural and religious heritage (Astor,
Burchardt, & Griera, 2017).
The generous set of rights and privileges established by the 1992 agreement
between the state and the CIE thus grew out of the celebratory climate surrounding religious diversity characteristic of the period. Elites from across the political
spectrum saw religious diversity, which was still relatively minimal in Spain at the
time, as a tool they could leverage to support the construction of a more modern
and open society. Their target audience was not just religious minorities, but also
the broader Spanish populace, as well as the international community. This was
especially apparent in the case of the agreements with the Muslim and Jewish federations, which were accompanied by a series of symbolic acts. For example, a large
exhibition celebrating Spain’s Muslim and Arab heritage was organised at Granada’s
Alhambra, and King Juan Carlos gave a speech highlighting the deep connections
between Spain and the Arab world at the ruins of the medieval Medina Al-Zahara
palace in Cordoba. In a similar fashion, an event was organised at Madrid’s central
synagogue during which the king spoke of the need for historical reconciliation
with the Jewish people. The president of Israel, Haïm Herzog, was among those
invited to attend (Astor, Burchardt, & Griera, 2017; Rozenberg, 1996).
Major mosques as instruments for economic
development
Two years after the inauguration of the CCIM and the signing of the 1992 cooperative agreement between the state and the CIE, a major mosque was built in
Valencia. The decision to erect the ‘Great Mosque of Valencia’ – formally named
the ‘Xúquer Mosque’ – did not respond to the needs or demands of Valencia’s
modest Muslim community. It resulted, rather, from a broader strategy of urban and
economic development pursued by Valencia’s city government at the time.
The first Muslims to arrive in Valencia were Middle Eastern students who took
advantage of the educational opportunities offered by the city during the late
1960s and early 1970s. Towards the late 1980s, Valencia’s Muslim population
Reviving al-Andalus
113
underwent modest growth with the arrival of immigrant workers from Morocco,
Algeria and Senegal. A small community of Spanish converts to Islam also emerged
during this period. None of these groups, however, were particularly numerous
prior to the late 1990s, when North African immigration began to increase sharply
(Buades Fuster & Vidal Fernández, 2007).
Although the Xúquer Mosque was over 1,600 m2 in size and had sufficient
capacity for 500 worshipers, very few Muslims attended the mosque when it was
initially opened in 1994. Aside from the fact that Valencia’s Muslim population was
still relatively small, a number of the Muslims who did reside in the city, especially
students or former students of Middle Eastern descent, opposed the mosque project because it was financed with Kuwaiti capital, which they felt might compromise their ideological autonomy.
The impetus for building a major mosque in Valencia grew out of the connections with the Arab world that had been developed by Valencia’s then mayor,
Ricard Pérez Casado. In 1984, Valencia hosted a meeting in which the Kuwaitibased Arab Towns Organization (ATO) and the Spanish Federation of Municipalities
and Provinces signed an agreement promoting economic, cultural and educational
collaboration between Arab and Spanish cities. The meeting resulted in a commitment by several Arab donors to support the restoration of the Almirante Baths, an
iconic Arab monument in the city. The donors also pledged to establish an Arab
cultural centre in the city and to assume the costs of publishing the writings of
Arab poets and scientists from Valencia.
The construction of the Xúquer Mosque was made possible by the city government’s cession of a large plot of land for the initiative in 1988. In ceding land for the
mosque, Pérez Casado sought to enhance Valencia’s image as a global city and to
promote tourism from wealthy Gulf countries. The ties he had forged with the
ATO proved useful, as it was capital from Kuwait that ultimately financed the
mosque’s construction.The capital from Kuwait was channelled through an association called the Islamic Community of Spain, as the Kuwaiti organisation financing
the mosque lacked juridical status in Spain. As a result, the Islamic Community of
Spain was technically the owner of the Xúquer Mosque. However, responsibility for
managing the mosque was delegated to a newly formed association called the
Islamic Cultural Centre of Valencia (CCIV). The Xúquer Mosque remained the
only mosque with visibly Islamic architecture in Valencia until 2014, when a second
major mosque was inaugurated in the region’s southern city of Alicante.
Municipal officials were not the only domestic actors that facilitated the construction of major mosques during the 1980s and 1990s. Business entrepreneurs
helped to create a climate conducive to the erection of major mosques by fostering
Arab tourism and investment in southern Spain. Beginning in the mid-1970s, the
Saudi Royal Family and other Middle Eastern elites began to purchase properties
and initiate large-scale construction projects along Andalusia’s southern Costa del
Sol. Their interest in the region derived, in large part, from their nostalgia for
Islamic Spain. Establishing a presence in Andalusia held great symbolic significance,
as it represented a tangible way of reconnecting with, and in a sense reclaiming, the
splendour that was once al-Andalus.
114 Avi Astor
Marbella was one of the first destinations for Saudi tourism and investment in
southern Spain. Companies like Panorama, Marbella’s longest established real
estate agency, played an important role in encouraging wealthy Saudi elites to
invest in the now posh resort town. Christopher Clover, an American who is currently Panorama’s managing director, provides an account of the emergence of the
‘Saudi and Pan-Arabian market’.5 He relates how a client of Panorama who had
real estate dealings with King Fahd introduced him to the Saudi Royal Family
during the late 1970s.These contacts, along with Clover’s ties to the Saudi Consul
in Málaga, facilitated a close working relationship between Panorama and the
Royal Family. The expansion of Saudi investment in Marbella, in turn, inspired
other royalty and business moguls from the Middle East to invest in municipalities
along the Costa del Sol.
In 1981, the Saudi Royal Family funded the construction of a large, ornate
mosque in Marbella. The Marbella mosque was officially called the Mosque of
King Abdul-Aziz al Saud. It was built on a 10,500m2 parcel of land that the family
had previously purchased in the town. Like the Abu-Bakr Mosque in Madrid, it
was designed by the Cordoban architect, Juan Mora Urbano. The mosque’s façade
was styled in accordance with Hispano-Islamic and North African architectural
traditions. However, the minaret and other core elements of the mosque’s exterior
were of Ottoman inspiration and gave the mosque a distinctly modern appearance
that resembled some of the newer mosques in Saudi Arabia. This fusion of styles
was perhaps meant to signal a connection to local Islamic architectural tradition
while simultaneously gesturing towards a more modern, cosmopolitan, and Saudiinspired future (Moreno Fernández 2001). The Saudis also constructed an extravagant royal palace that they tellingly named al-Nahda (Revival) in the vicinity of the
mosque (Shannon, 2015, pp. 34–35).
A decade later, the Saudis initiated a second major mosque project in the nearby
coastal town of Fuengirola. The project was directed by the Suhail Foundation,
whose president, Mohammed Bashir Kurdi, was the Saudi Consul in Malaga at the
time. The mosque, which was also called the Suhail Islamic Cultural Centre, was
built on land ceded by the local city government. Its construction was completed
in 1992, and it was officially inaugurated in 1993.
In 1996, the Suhail Foundation launched an additional mosque project in the
city of Malaga and once again hired Mora Urbano as chief architect.The municipal
government, then headed by the conservative Popular Party (Partido Popular, PP),
agreed to sell the foundation a plot of land where the mosque would be constructed for 425 million pesetas (about 2.5 million euros).The project encountered
a degree of resistance from representatives of the Socialist Party and the United
Left – Green Party, who argued that the PP had acted with too much urgency and
had not properly consulted residents living in the area designated for the mosque
or the local Muslim community before arranging the deal with the Suhail
Foundation. In defending the project, the urban planning official and future mayor
of Malaga, Francisco de la Torre, argued that the mosque was a ‘positive’ development which, in addition to bringing in significant revenue, gave the city ‘an open
and cosmopolitan image’ (Souviron, 1996).
Reviving al-Andalus
115
Figure 5.2 The Mosque of King Abdul-Aziz al Saud in Marbella. Photograph by
Avi Astor.
After four official hearings in which the project was debated, it was finally
approved in December of 1996. Prince Abdul Aziz bin Fahd, the son of King Fahd,
symbolically laid the first stone a year later. The project ended up costing over 22
million euros, more than double the original budget. The mosque, which was also
called the ‘Andalusian Cultural Centre’ (El Centro Cultural Andalusí), was not
opened for general use until 2007 due to a delay in funding for its construction.
The sources of this delay remain somewhat unclear, though they likely stemmed
from a combination of internal problems within the Saudi Royal Family and the
unexpectedly high cost of the building’s construction.
Hall (1993, p. 279) has argued that general policy ‘paradigms’ specify ‘not only
the goals of policy and the kind of instruments that can be used to attain them, but
also the very nature of the problems they are meant to be addressing’. The ideas,
norms, and values that comprise particular policy paradigms shape the policymaking process by setting the terms of political debate and determining the range of
possible disagreements and solutions (Surel, 2000). At the time of the debates that
took place over the Suhail Foundation’s mosque project in Malaga, it was essentially taken for granted that attracting Arab investment through the promotion of a
major mosque was a positive development for the city.The mayor and other public
officials representing the PP never questioned the threat that the mosque might
pose to Spain’s Catholic identity or the potential dangers of Islamic fundamentalism – two issues that leaders of the PP would later bring up repeatedly amid
debates over matters pertaining to Islam – since these issues had not yet become
part of the political agenda. Moreover, the politicians who were initially reluctant
to approve the sale of the land to the Suhail Foundation never criticised the mosque
116 Avi Astor
project as such. Their criticisms centred exclusively on the transparency of the
process by which city officials had pursued the project. Once all the relevant groups
and associations had been adequately consulted, the project was approved without
significant difficulty.
Although public officials and local businesses generally welcomed Arab investments in southern Spain, some Spaniards experienced the arrival of ‘petrodollars’
to the Costa del Sol with trepidation. Reflecting on the Marbella mosque project
and other Saudi investments in the region, Pedro Crespo, a distinguished writer,
journalist and lawyer who founded the Association of Editors for Spanish
Newspapers, wrote an alarmist editorial in ABC entitled ‘Moors at the Coast’
(Moros en la costa), a phrase employed during the Middle Ages and early modern
period to warn of Moorish raiders landing in Spanish coastal towns:
This invasion, at the moment profitable for the invaded, and welcomed, could
be considered a form of historical redemption, or the beginning of a new
historical era, now without Florinda la Cava or Don Opas to bungle the landing.6 But it would always be an invasion of caliphs.The evil did not arrive with
the blond-haired and blue-eyed Arabs, with the saga of the Ummayads, but
rather with their African companions… There truly are Moors at the coast,
though not all the Moors nor all the coasts are equal.
(Crespo, 1981, p. 3)
The analogies that Crespo employed in the editorial were illustrative of how negative representations of al-Andalus within the Spanish collective imaginary could be
mobilised to criticise the growing presence and influence of Arab elites in Spain.
He warned that the Marbella mosque was a point of reference that might attract
Muslims to Spain from Morocco and other African contexts, which, as in the past,
threatened the security and values of Spanish society. Crespo’s words were somewhat prophetic insofar as it was the subsequent arrival of working-class North
African migrants to Spain that would later arouse significant public concern. He
added that the contingent of ‘special’ visitors from the Gulf should not lose sight
of the fact that they were visitors in a land that was not their own.
Cordoba: from meeting point of religions to locus of
territorial dispute
Crespo was not alone in voicing concerns about the ventures and dealings of Arab
elites in Spain during the 1980s. Discourses warning of Arab intentions to appropriate
Spanish lands and re-establish al-Andalus surfaced on several occasions in the context
of local disputes surrounding the use and ownership of religious buildings in Cordoba.
The eruption of such disputes represented a rupture from the highly positive atmosphere surrounding inter-faith relations that existed in Cordoba during the 1970s.
Prior to Spain’s democratic transition, Cordoba had re-emerged as a site of
encounter between Muslims and Christians. Beginning in the 1960s, Catholic
activists who drew inspiration from the Catholic ideal of ecumenism – an ideal the
Reviving al-Andalus
117
Church had begun to prioritise with increasing rigour following the Second
Vatican Council (1962–1965) – became increasingly active in reaching out to
other religions. Ecumenism, in the original sense of the term, refers to the promotion of unity among Christian faiths. However, its meaning was extended to
include the promotion of inter-faith dialogue and understanding with non-Christian faiths as well (Aloisi, 1988).
In Spain, the first inter-faith organisations dedicated to relations between
Catholics and Muslims were founded in Madrid.7 In 1968, Salvador Gómez
Nogales, a professor from a private Catholic University in the city, and Dr. Hussein
Munis, an Egyptian writer and scholar, jointly created the Association of IslamoChristian Friendship (AIC). The following year, the AIC supported Father Emilio
Galindo’s founding of Darek-Nyumba, an organisation dedicated to promoting
dialogue between Catholics and Muslims, and to facilitating the integration of
Arab students studying in Madrid. During the 1970s and 1980s, Galindo and the
AIC organised a series of meetings aimed at deepening the connections between
Christianity and Islam, including two international ‘Islamo-Christian Conferences’
held in Cordoba in 1974 and 1977.
Cordoba’s symbolism as a meeting point between different cultures made it a
particularly suitable location for the conferences, which brought Church officials
together with political and spiritual leaders from several Arab countries, including
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Tunisia. The sessions
comprising each conference covered a range of topics, some theological and others
political. As part of the proceedings, Muslims were invited to pray before the mihrab
(prayer niche) of Cordoba’s Mosque-Cathedral, an act that would generate controversy on multiple occasions in subsequent years (Astor, Burchardt, & Griera, 2019;
Monteiro, 2011).
The first such controversy took place in 1982, when Julio Anguita, the charismatic mayor of Cordoba and a leading figure within the Spanish Communist
Party, arranged for a contingent of Muslims to visit the Mosque-Cathedral during the first ‘Hispano-Muslim Friendship Conference’, an event similar to the
Islamo-Christian conferences that had been organised during the 1970s.8 The
contingent prayed before the mihrab without express permission, arousing the ire
of Cordoba’s Catholic leadership. The city’s bishop called the act an ‘outrage
against our religious beliefs’ that is ‘deeply worrying to Catholics because it is a
flagrant invasion of our sentiments’ (‘Nuevos roces’, 1982, p. 33). The MosqueCathedral’s canon and chief archivist lambasted Anguita for instigating the
conflict:
So now a non-believing atheist party causes two religions to begin fighting
with each other, and to begin -- above all the Muslims -- occupying lands that
are not their own. I think it’s an absurd position that, if it hurts anyone, it’s the
Muslim community itself because returning the Muslim religion to Cordoba
at the hands of the Communist Party is the worst thing that can be done to
the Islamic religion.
(‘El canónigo Nieto Cumplido’, 1982, p. 40)
118 Avi Astor
Nieto Cumplido added that the Muslims had once tried to destroy the MosqueCathedral before being driven out of Andalusia. The great structure was still in
existence today, he argued, thanks to King Ferdinand III’s order to kill any Muslim
who dared approach it. Nieto Cumplido’s remarks made waves in conservative
Catholic media such as Tendillas 7, which published an issue in 1982 with a cover
photo of a Muslim pushing a wheelbarrow filled with the remains of a destroyed
Mosque-Cathedral.
Hence, the very same act of prostration before the mihrab that had been celebrated
by Catholic leaders just 5 years earlier was perceived, in this instance, as a form of
‘spatial transgression’ (Collins-Kreiner et al., 2013). A key difference between the two
instances was the fact that the Muslims praying before the mihrab in 1977 had been
expressly authorised to do so by the bishop.There was thus a clear understanding that
the Church had the authority to decide which acts were permitted and which acts
were not. In 1982, by contrast, the Muslims participating in the act were not doing
so on terms laid down by the Mosque-Cathedral’s Catholic administrators. Praying
before the mihrab in this instance was thus interpreted as a performative act intended
to challenge the building’s status as an exclusively Catholic place of worship.
Controversies over Muslims praying in or around the Mosque-Cathedral would later
take place on several occasions during the 2000s and 2010s, in some instances leading
to violent confrontations (Arigita, 2013; Astor, Burchardt, & Griera, 2019).
The anger expressed by Cordoba’s Catholic leadership regarding the incident had
been building since the previous year, when Anguita had taken steps to donate the
Morabito and a vacant convent to the Muslim community.9 The decision to hand over
the keys of the convent to a Saudi dignitary named Ali Kettani was particularly controversial, as the convent had originally been built upon the remains of an old mosque, and
its cession was interpreted by some as a form of symbolic re-conquest. The temporal
proximity of the transfer to the construction of Spain’s first two modern mosques – the
aforementioned mosque in Marbella and a mosque built in 1981 by the Ahmaddiya
community in Pedro Abad, a small town 30 km outside Cordoba – added to the
impression that Muslims were seeking to re-appropriate what was once theirs.
It is difficult to know with certainty whether the general public was at all concerned about these events, or whether the dramatic newspaper headlines they elicited were drummed up by journalists looking to sensationalise otherwise unnoticed
local controversies. The little information that does exist suggests that the general
public was not overly anxious about Islam’s growing presence in Cordoba and the
rest of Andalusia. The author of an article published in ABC in 1981 puzzled over
the public’s ‘curious indifference’ regarding Islam’s recent overtures in Andalusia
and attributed this apathy to the general perception of the polemics as ‘more folkloric than anything else’ (López, 1981, p. 30). Moreover, there were no media
reports of public protests or petition campaigns aimed at preventing Muslim collectives from acquiring property and establishing mosques in Andalusia, or elsewhere in Spain, prior to the 1990s.10
For the vast majority of Spaniards, contact with Muslims remained minimal, and
Islam’s presence in Spain – both historical and contemporary – was still too abstract
and distant to arouse serious concern. Although visible mosques were certainly
Reviving al-Andalus
119
viewed as exotic, few perceived them as harbingers of any foreboding future developments. The specific segments of the populace that viewed mosques with apprehension tended to be less concerned with Islam’s presence in Spain per se than with
how it might be leveraged by anti-clerical activists, such as Anguita and the Spanish
Communist Party, to wage subtle attacks against the Catholic Church’s hegemony
at a time when Catholic leaders felt especially vulnerable due to the Church’s recent
disestablishment and the progressive secularisation of Spanish society.
The Catalan exception
By the mid-1990s, several large and visible mosques had been erected in Madrid,
Andalusia and Valencia. In Catalonia, however, major mosques remained conspicuously absent, despite that fact that its capital, Barcelona, was Spain’s second largest
city and had attracted a significant number of Muslim students, business entrepreneurs, and workers (Moreras, 1999). Several factors impeded the establishment of a
major mosque in the region. For one, Catalonia did not have the same diplomatic
importance as Madrid or symbolic connection to al-Andalus as Andalusia, making
it less attractive to wealthy Arab donors motivated by political influence or nostalgia. Secondly, unlike Valencia, whose mayor actively sought to foster ties with
Middle Eastern elites and organisations in order to attract Arab investment during
the 1980s, Barcelona did not have a city official or agency that took a comparable
interest in strengthening relations with elites from wealthy Gulf states. Finally, by
the time serious proposals to build a major mosque in Barcelona emerged during
the late 1990s, there were already nine different Islamic places of worship in the
city that catered to different segments of the local Muslim population (Moreras,
1999). This raised a series of dilemmas related to representativeness and influence
that proved more problematic in Barcelona than in other Spanish municipalities
where major mosques had been constructed.
According to Moreras (1999), efforts to establish a large mosque in Barcelona
were initially undertaken in 1988, when a group of Muslims with ties to a local
Palestinian association formed the ‘Great Mosque Association of Barcelona’. Their
activities, however, never materialised into any concrete proposal and the group
dissolved within a short period. More significant efforts were made in the 1990s,
when Muslim leaders attempted to enlist the city’s support for a major mosque by
strategically linking their proposals to broader projects aimed at enhancing
Barcelona’s international profile. In the aftermath of the 1992 Olympic Games,
which played an important role in putting Barcelona on the map as a major global
city (Kennett & de Moragas, 2006), affiliates of the Islamic Centre of Barcelona
requested that the city government follow the example of Madrid and Valencia in
donating space for the construction of a mosque. In 1994, Joan Gaspart, an influential businessman and president of a large tourist consortium, lent support to the
request of Muslim leaders by declaring that Barcelona needed a large mosque to
attract Arab tourism and to maintain its competitiveness with Madrid.
It was not until 1998, however, that more concrete talks regarding the establishment of a major mosque in the city finally materialised. That year, a contingent of
120 Avi Astor
Middle Eastern diplomats visited Barcelona to view an exhibit on Islam in Catalonia
at the Catalan History Museum. The diplomats took advantage of the occasion to
meet with Jordi Pujol, the president of Catalonia at the time, in order to discuss viable
options for building a large mosque in the city (Moreras, 1999). The following year,
Barcelona’s mayor, Joan Clos, established a special commission to gather and weigh
the feasibility of different proposals for the construction of a mosque in the city. Clos’
interest in expediting the establishment of a mosque was influenced by UNESCO’s
endorsement of Barcelona’s proposal to organise and host a ‘Universal Forum of
Cultures’ in 2004. Several Muslim leaders had highlighted how having a large and
visible mosque would help to demonstrate Barcelona’s plural and cosmopolitan character to the diverse array of nations represented at the forum. At this point, there was
significant momentum for the establishment of a major mosque in the city, and it
seemed all but inevitable that the project would come to fruition.
Somewhat surprisingly, just one proposal was submitted for consideration by the
deadline set by the special committee in March of 2000.The proposal was put forth
by Radi Mahmud Al-Shuaibi, a Palestinian who had been selected to act as spokesman for Saudi interests in Barcelona. Many expected a competing proposal from
Morocco, as Barcelona had become a major destination for Moroccan immigrants,
but Spain’s North African neighbour proved unwilling to furnish the capital necessary for a mosque project that would be competitive with the Saudi proposal.
Although the city government initially supported Al-Shuaibi’s proposal, several
obstacles impeded its implementation. For one, finding a suitable place for the
proposed mosque proved difficult, given the paucity of large spaces available in the
urban core of Barcelona. Nevertheless, this is an obstacle that likely could have
been resolved had there been sufficient political will and support from local Muslim
communities for the project. From the start, however, questions were raised about
the representativeness of the mosque and the type of Islam that would be transmitted should it be funded by Saudi Arabia. Antoni Comas, Catalonia’s Director of
Social Welfare, had voiced concerns about Saudi influence and the danger of the
mosque becoming a centre of Islamic fundamentalism (Guia, 2014). Cardenal
Ricard Maria Carles of Barcelona’s Catholic Diocese criticised the project on various occasions for catering to a select group of Arab elites, rather than the broader
Muslim community, and for being sponsored by a country that was intolerant of
religious diversity. Most troubling from the administration’s point of view were the
criticisms advanced by representatives of several of Barcelona’s local Muslim communities regarding Al-Shuaibi’s legitimacy and the threat of undue Saudi influence
on Muslims in the city, very few of whom were from the Gulf region. Al-Shuaibi
defended the project, stating that it was a private endeavour of the Royal Family
and need not appeal to all of Barcelona’s Muslims. However, this made the project
less enticing to city officials, and it was gradually pushed off the public agenda.
In March of 2001, the city government officially pulled the plug on the project,
citing its unwillingness to donate public land for the proposed mosque. Specifically,
city officials flagged the potential Pandora’s box that donating property for a mosque
might open, as other confessions might then feel equally entitled to receiving public
donations for their respective places of worship. Here again, timing was critical, as
Reviving al-Andalus
121
Barcelona’s general populace had become much more religiously diverse by the late
1990s and early 2000s. Between 1996 and 2001, the number of foreign nationals
residing in the city rose from roughly 26,800 (1.8% of the population) to 72,800
(4.8% of the city’s total population).This rise was part of a larger wave of immigration
to Spain that began towards the onset of the twenty-first century. From 2000 to 2009,
Spain received an average net inflow of 500,000 foreign-born individuals a year, more
than any other European country during the period (Arango, 2013). The number of
foreign nationals in the country increased from about 542,300 (1.4% of the total
population) in 1996 to nearly 1.37 million by 2001 (3.3% of the total population). By
2010, this number had reached 5.75 million (12.2% of the total population).11
Many of the immigrants arriving to Barcelona and elsewhere in Spain were
Muslims, Evangelical Protestants and Eastern Orthodox from Africa, South Asia,
Latin America and Eastern Europe. Other minorities, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses,
Mormons, Sikhs, and Buddhists, also came to have a more notable presence, especially in large cities. In Barcelona, there are now over 300 non-Catholic places of
worship, many of which were established during the late 1990s and early 2000s.12
As a result of heightened religious diversification, arrangements made with the
Muslim community had potential ramifications for the city’s dealings with other
religious groups that had to be taken into consideration. Since large-scale mosque
projects in other municipalities such as Madrid and Valencia had been undertaken
earlier, when religious minorities in Spain were still few in number, questions of
equity had not yet become a major issue of concern.
Shortly after the Saudi proposal failed to materialise, the attacks of 9/11 took
place in New York City, giving rise to widespread and powerful associations
between Islam and terrorism. Gaining the political and public support necessary to
realise a large-scale mosque project suddenly became immensely more difficult
than it had been prior to the attacks. The window of opportunity for establishing
a major mosque in Barcelona had closed, at least for the foreseeable future.Although
Muslim leaders in Barcelona have continued to hold meetings on the matter and
to lobby for a major mosque in the city, concrete steps towards the establishment
of such a mosque have yet to be taken. A decentralised model of small and dispersed Islamic places of worship, or what Maussen (2009, p. 179) has called ‘vicinity
Islam’, thus remains the status quo. This is not to say that a major mosque will not
be built in the proximate future. If provisions are made to establish a large-scale
mosque in the city, however, they will likely elicit a degree of controversy given the
present climate surrounding Islam.
Conclusion
The analysis advanced over the course of this chapter illustrates how projects of national
redefinition and urban renewal following Spain’s democratic transition engendered a
structure of opportunity conducive to the recognition and revival of Spain’s Islamic
heritage during the 1980s and 1990s. The support given by local governments to
Muslim elites in their efforts to promote the construction of large and visible mosques
was facilitated by the relative invisibility of actual Muslims due to their limited presence
122 Avi Astor
in Spain at the time. The absence of significant political and social concerns regarding
Spain’s modest Muslim population enabled the ‘Muslim question’ to be treated as a
purely symbolic matter, divorced from the problems of integration that were beginning
to intensify in other European countries, such as France, the United Kingdom and
Germany, where the demand for foreign workers had materialised much earlier than in
Spain.The large-scale arrival of working-class Muslim immigrants to Spain during the
1990s and 2000s, and the emergence of notable conflicts between North Africans and
Spaniards in several municipalities, coupled with the terror attacks of 9/11 in NewYork
City and of 11-M in Madrid, generated a climate of fear that came to eclipse the celebratory atmosphere that had existed during the post-transition period.
The developments commemorating Spain’s Islamic heritage following its democratic transition undoubtedly generated tangible benefits for some segments of the
country’s Muslim population. The major mosques constructed during the 1980s
and 1990s provided spacious and comfortable spaces for prayer for certain communities, as well as visible contemporary symbols of Islam in which Muslims could
take pride.The 1992 accord with the CIE facilitated subsequent claims for accommodation and opportunities for Muslim federations and associations to acquire
limited public funding (e.g. from the Foundation for Pluralism and Coexistence)
(Astor, 2017). These developments, however, did not significantly bolster general
awareness of Spain’s Islamic heritage in a sustained or reflexive manner, as one
might argue has been the case with events like Black History Month in the United
States.This is due largely to the fact that the developments commemorating Spain’s
Islamic heritage resulted from top-down initiatives driven mainly by the interests
of political elites, business entrepreneurs, urban planners and wealthy foreigners,
rather than more grassroots struggles and achievements. To be sure, local Muslim
minorities were not passive bystanders to the developments that unfolded during
the post-transition period. However, the efficacy of their actions depended on their
close alignment with the objectives of the state and powerful economic actors.
Perhaps the emergence of a more robust and vocal cohort of second- and thirdgeneration Muslims in Spain will lead to more bottom-up demands for public
initiatives promoting recognition of Spain’s Islamic heritage, as well as more reflexive awareness of the suffering and injustices caused by the Inquisition, Spanish
colonial ventures in North Africa, and current forms of prejudice directed at
Muslim minorities. Such recognition and awareness might be achieved, for instance,
by incorporating more material on Spain’s Islamic heritage within public educational curricula, by creating a cyclical commemorative event akin to Black History
Month that provides regular occasion for national reflection on Islam’s contributions to Spanish society or by developing other initiatives that involve a more
active and expanded engagement with Spain’s past and present relations with Islam.
Notes
1 The term convivencia was coined by Américo Castro in reference to ‘the “coexistence”
of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish communities in medieval Spain and by extension the
cultural interaction and exchange fostered by such proximity’ (Wolf, 2009, p. 72).
Reviving al-Andalus
123
2 In addition to commemorating the conquest of Granada, the events of 1992 commemorated the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ ‘discovery’ of the Americas and the
Spanish Inquisition.
3 For a more detailed discussion of Spain’s cooperative framework for religious governance and its requirements for representation, see Astor (2015).
4 Tatary passed away in 2020 after contracting COVID-19.
5 Panorama’s Marbella office was opened in 1970s. A blog relating its history may be
viewed at http://www.panorama.es/es/blog/marbella-setenta-primeros-panorama/
(accessed March 4, 2020).
6 Florinda de la Cava and Don Opas were folkloric figures said to have been embroiled
in the events that led to the Moorish conquest of Spain in the eighth century.
7 An association promoting relations between Jews and Christians had previously been
founded in 1961 (Rozenberg, 2010).
8 Anguita was nicknamed the ‘Red Caliph’ due to his powerful appeal among Cordoba’s
electorate (Casas, 1990).
9 The convent in question was the Santa Clara Convent.
10 In the early 1990s, the donation of land for the mosque eventually erected in Fuengirola
aroused a certain degree of controversy, as representatives of an opposition party in the
town accused the mayor of fraud and corruption. However, there is no evidence to suggest that ordinary citizens opposed the donation, which was eventually upheld in court.
11 Data on the number of foreign nationals in Spain were obtained from the Spanish
National Institute of Statistics (https://ine.es/). Spain does not collect official data on
religious identity.
12 Non-Catholic places of worship now outnumber Catholic churches (243) in Barcelona.
More detailed information on places of worship in the city and the rest of Catalonia may be
obtained from the websites of the Observatorio del Pluralismo Religioso en España (Observatory
of Religious Pluralism in Spain, http://www.observatorioreligion.es/) and the Mapa
Religiós de Catalunya (Religious Map of Catalonia, http://www.mapareligios.cat/).
References
Algora Weber, M. D. (1995). Las relaciones hispano-árabes durante el régimen de Franco. Madrid:
Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores.
Aloisi, M. F. (1988). Vatican II, ecumenism and a Parsonian analysis of change. Sociological
Analysis, 49(1), 17–28.
Arango, J. (2013). Exceptional in Europe? Spain’s experience with immigration and integration.
Washington, D.C.: Migration Policy Institute.
Arigita, E. (2013). The ‘Cordoba Paradigm’: Memory and silence around Europe’s Islamic
past. In F. Peter, S. Dornhof, & E. Arigita (Eds.), Islam and the politics of culture in Europe:
Memory, aesthetics, art (pp. 21–40). Bielefeld: transcript.
Astor, A. (2015). Governing religious diversity amid national redefinition: Muslim incorporation in Spain. In M. Burchardt & I. Michalowski (Eds.), After integration: Islam, conviviality
and contentious politics in Europe (pp. 247-265). Wiesbaden: Springer.
Astor, A. (2016). Social position and place-protective action in a new immigration context:
Understanding anti-mosque campaigns in Catalonia. International Migration Review, 50(1),
95–132.
Astor, A. (2017). Rebuilding Islam in contemporary Spain: The politics of Mosque establishment,
1976–2013. Eastbourne, UK: Sussex Academic Press.
Astor, A., Burchardt, M., & Griera, M. (2017). The politics of religious heritage: Framing
claims to religion as culture in Spain. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 56(1),
126–142.
124 Avi Astor
Astor, A., Burchardt, M., & Griera, M. (2019). Polarization and the limits of politicization:
Cordoba’s Mosque-Cathedral and the politics of cultural heritage. Qualitative Sociology,
42(3), 337–360.
Borroso, Á. (1988, August 7). Dos grandes mezquitas abrirán. ABC, 33.
Buades Fuster, J., & Vidal Fernández, F. (2007). Minorías de lo mayor: religiones minoritarias en la
Comunidad Valenciana. Barcelona: Icaria.
Casas, J. L. (1990). El último califa. Madrid: Temas de Hoy.
Collins-Kreiner, N., Shmueli, D. F., & Gal, M. Ben. (2013). Spatial transgression of new religious sites in Israel. Applied Geography, 40, 103–114.
Crespo, P. (1981, August 20). Moros en la costa. ABC, 3.
El canónigo Nieto Cumplido comenta sobre la ‘vuelta’ de la religion musulmana a la
Córdoba. (1982, January 16). ABC, 40.
España regala a los árabes un centro de culto de cultura islámica. (1977, June 3). La Vanguardia,
14.
Fernández-Coronado, A. (1995). Estado y confesiones religiosas: un nuevo modelo de relación.
Madrid: Civitas.
Guia, A. (2014). The Muslim struggle for civil rights in Spain, 1985–2010: Promoting democracy
through Islamic engagement. Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press.
Hall, P. A. (1993). Policy paradigms, social learning, and the state:The case of economic policymaking in Britain. Comparative Politics, 25(3), 275–296.
Huguet Santos, M. (2005). España y el Mediterráneo en los años setenta. Historia del Presente,
6, 109–136.
Kennett, C., & de Moragas, M. (2006). Barcelona 1992: Evaluating the Olympic legacy. In
A.Tomlinson & C.Young (Eds.), National identity and global sports events: Culture, politics, and
spectacle in the Olympics and the football World Cup (pp. 177–196). Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press.
Logroño Narbona, M. (2014). ‘Carmencita’ goes East: Francoist cultural discourses about the
Middle East. In A. G. Morcillo (Ed.), Memory and cultural history of the Spanish Civil War:
Realms of oblivion (pp. 533–555). Leiden: Brill.
López, R. (1981, January 1). Los musulmanes españoles buscan en Córdoba su tiempo perdido. ABC, 30.
Maussen, M. (2009). Constructing mosques:The governance of Islam in France and the Netherlands.
Amsterdam: Amsterdam School for Social Science Research.
Monteiro, L. D. (2011). The Mezquita of Córdoba is made of more than bricks: Towards a
broader definition of the ‘Heritage’ protected at UNESCO world heritage sites.
Archaeologies, 7(2), 312–328.
Morán, G. M. (1995). Spanish system of church and state. BYU Law Review, 2, 535–553.
Moreno Fernández, F. J. (2001). Mezquitas contemporáneas en la Costa del Sol. Cilniana:
Revista de la Asociación Cilniana para la Defensa y Difusión del Patrimonio Cultural, 14,
26–38.
Moreras, J. (1999). Musulmanes en Barcelona: espacios y dinámicas comunitarias. Barcelona:
CIDOB Edicions.
Nuevos roces entre los musulmanes y el obispado de Córdoba. (1982, January 5). ABC, 33.
Observatorio Andalusí. (2020). Estudio demográfico de la población musulmana. Madrid: UCIDE.
Observatorio del pluralismo religioso en España. (2019). Explotación de datos: directorio de
lugares de culto. Madrid: Ministerio de Justicia.
Rein, R. (1998). In pursuit of votes and economic treaties: Francoist Spain and the Arab
world, 1945–56. Mediterranean Historical Review, 13(1–2), 195–215.
Reviving al-Andalus
125
Rogozen-Soltar, R. (2007). Al-Andalus in Andalusia: Negotiating Moorish history and
regional identity in southern Spain. Anthropological Quarterly, 80(3), 863–886.
Rozenberg, D. (1996). Minorías religiosas y construcción democrática en España (del
monopolio de la Iglesia a la gestión del pluralismo). Reis, 74, 245–265.
Rozenberg, D. (2010). La España contemporánea y la cuestión judía. Madrid: Casa Sefarad-Israel
Marcial Pons Historia.
Segal, A. (1991). Spain and the Middle East: A 15-year assessment. Middle East Journal, 45(2),
250–264.
Seidman, M. (2015).The Spanish Civil War: A unique conflict? In N.Townson (Ed.), Is Spain
different?: A comparative look at the 19th and 20th centuries (pp. 122–134). Brighton: Sussex
Academic Press.
Shannon, J. H. (2015). Performing al-Andalus: Music and nostalgia across the Mediterranean.
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Souviron,Y. (1996, October 1). La oposición obliga a aplazar la venta de un solar en el que
se proyecta una mezquita. Sur.
Surel, Y. (2000). The role of cognitive and normative frames in policy-making. Journal of
European Public Policy, 7(4), 495–512.
Tatary, R. (1995). Libertad religiosa y acuerdo de cooperación del estado español con la
Comisión Islámica de España. In M. Abumalham (Ed.), Comunidades islámicas en Europa.
Madrid: Trotta.
Tofiño-Quesada, I. (2003). Spanish orientalism: Uses of the past in Spain’s colonization in
Africa. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 23(1–2), 141–148.
Whitehead, C., Daugbjerg, M., & Bozoğlu, G. (2019). Edges and centres: The forcefields of
European heritage. In C. Whitehead, S. Eckersley, M. Daugbjerg, & G. Bozoğlu (Eds.),
Dimensions of heritage and memory: Multiple Europes and the politics of crisis (pp. 96–121).
London: Routledge.
Wolf, K. B. (2009). Convivencia in medieval Spain: A brief history of an idea. Religion
Compass, 3(1), 72–85.
Zapata Barrero, R. (2006). The Muslim community and Spanish tradition. In T. Modood, A.
Triandafyllidou, & R. Zapata Barrero (Eds.), Multiculturalism, Muslims and citizenship: A
European approach (pp. 143–161). New York: Routledge.