The top ten Moorish sites in Spain

The Moors who ruled Spain in the early Middle Ages left some splendid architecture and townscapes behind them. Here are ten of the best.

One of the great attractions of Spain is its dual past – in the Middle Ages, it was split between the world of Islam and the west.

Although many of the monuments of Moorish Spain have disappeared, those that remain are stunning. Here are the top ten – including a number of sites in the north of the country, as well as in Andalusia.

1. The great mosque of Cordoba is the earliest of the great Arab monuments in Spain, started by Abd er-Rahman I in 784 AD. It was enlarged over two centuries by successive rulers of Al-Andalus (the Arabic name for modern Andalusia), but always in accordance with the original plan and style. With its many aisles and forest of columns, the mosque has a mysterious character perhaps best appreciated in the early morning. The mihrab – the niche denoting the direction of Mecca – is particularly fine; mosaicists were imported from Byzantium to create its fine décor. Later, a Gothic cathedral was built inside the mosque – which gives you some idea of its size.
2. The Aljaferia in Zaragoza is another fine palace complex, which owes its preservation to the fact that the kings of Aragon adopted it as their own palace after the Reconquest. It looks like a Christian castle from the outside, but the fine multi-lobed arcades of the interior courtyard leave you in doubt of its Moorish origins.
3. Madinat al-Zahra, near Cordoba, was built as a palace city by the caliphs of Cordoba. Lost for nearly a millennium, it’s now been excavated and some parts impressively restored, with the same typical red-and-white arches you’ll see in the great mosque.
4. The Reales Alcazares, Seville, retains a kernel of original early Arab work. Most of what you’ll see today, though, dates from the 1360s when Pedro the Cruel made it into his palace. Though a Christian king, he used Muslim craftsmen from Granada to create a palace that’s clearly in the tradition of the Alhambra. The plaster decoration, mosaic, and woodwork are exquisite.
5. Seville’s Giralda – originally the minaret of the main mosque, now the cathedral tower – is a beautiful work of Almohad times, modelled on the minaret of the Koutoubia mosque in Marrakesh, Morocco. Its beautiful sebka brickwork decoration gives it a grace and elegance many early minarets lack. Amazingly, it contains not a staircase, but a ramp wide enough to ride a horse up.
6. Toledo contains two lovely mosques; the Cristo de la Luz, turned into a church later on, and the recently restored Tornerias mosque, both from about 1000 AD. Where the great mosque of Cordoba gives you a feel for the splendours of Arab civilisation in Spain, these two tiny, square mosques convey elegance and intimacy instead. Toledo’s two fine synagogues also show the influences of Arab style.
7. The castle of Gormaz, in the province of Soria, is an impressive hilltop fortress dating from 956, built by Caliph Al-Hakan al-Mustansir as a base for military campaigns further to the north. Its double horseshoe arched entrance clearly shows its Arab origins, but it’s the site and the extensive views from the fort - rather than the architecture - that make it unforgettable.
8. The Cuarto Real de Santo Domingo, Granada, gets few visitors – it’s in a grubby little park in the modern part of town. But go through the unpromising steel doors, and you’ll find yourself in a lovely Moorish qubba, a cubic room ornamented with latticed windows, fine tiles and delicate plasterwork.
9. The Albaicin of Granada is one of the best examples of a Moorish town, with its wandering alleys and steep staircases on the side of the hill. Particularly noteworthy are the many aljibes, brick-built cisterns for collecting rainwater, most of which served mosques.
10. And last, but very definitely not least, the Alhambra in Granada – like Madinat al-Zahra, a separate palace-city. Granada was the last Moorish city to hold out against Christian Reconquest, and this is the latest true Arab work in Spain. The blockish, fortress-like external walls belie the delicate, elegant work inside. The Alhambra was the last flowering of Islamic culture in the Iberian peninsula; here, in 1492, Boabdil ceded the keys of the city to Ferdinand and Isabella, and seven hundred years of Moorish rule came to an end.

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