In the 10th century, the Spanish city of Cordoba was the largest in the world with about one million residents. As a comparison, London’s population was probably around 25,000 at the time.

Cordoba had an advanced civilisation with over 1,000 mosques, 600 public baths, a central water supply, paved streets, street lighting, schools, a library with 500,000 volumes, and an extensive bureaucracy, and was advanced in art, science, and law.

Under the rule of Abd al-Rahman III, Cordoba broke away from the Damascus-based Umayyad dynasty and established an independent caliphate of Cordoba.

The greatest of these mosques was the Umayyad Mosque of the West, now known as the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba. Construction began in 786 during the rule of Abd al-Rahman I, modelled on mosques in Damascus and Jerusalem, and using some Roman-era materials in its build.

It was later enlarged by Abd al-Rahman II, Al Hakam II, and finally Almanzor, more or less doubling in size with each expansion, making it the largest mosque in the world by the year 994.

With the knobbly column tops and spreading arches, early Arab architects might have been reminded of their date-palm groves back home.

The mihrab, the niche indicating the direction of prayer, is much larger than usual and is highly ornate with a scallop shell dome and ornamental mosaics. But the most extraordinary feature of this mosque is that it has a huge Christian cathedral embedded right in the middle of it!

Fascinatingly, a large section of the mosque had to be demolished to make way for the cathedral which was built from 1523 to 1606.

It is said that when King Charles V saw what his architects had done, he was horrified and declared: “You have built here what might have been built anywhere else, but you have destroyed what was unique in the world.”

This may well be true but, had the mosque not been converted into a Christian place of worship, it would probably not have survived until today. In all likelihood, it would have been demolished or remodelled beyond recognition like the rest of Cordoba’s mosques.

In the distance, the Roman bridge of Cordoba crossing the Guadalquivir River dates back to the 1st century BC, although it has been reconstructed at various points since.

And thus concludes the grand tour of the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba, which followed Thrifty Traveller’s two-day trip to Seville. Next stop: Granada!

This story first appeared in Thrifty Traveller.