Great Mosque of Córdoba

The Great Mosque of Córdoba is one of the most beautiful mosques ever built. It was started in the year 785 by Abd al-Rahman, the first Muslim ruler of Andalusia. He wanted Córdoba to become a city of learning and beauty.

When you walk inside the mosque, your eyes go WIDE. There are 850+ tall columns made of marble, jasper and granite, holding up rows and rows of red-and-white striped arches. It feels like walking through a forest of stone trees!

For over 400 years, this was the main mosque of Andalusia, and thousands of Muslims prayed here every Friday. Around it grew the city of Córdoba, which became one of the largest, cleanest, and most educated cities in all of Europe — it even had street lights and public libraries!

Today the mosque is officially a cathedral, but Muslims still visit it from around the world to walk through the famous arches and remember the time when Córdoba was the shining city of Al-Andalus.