Cathedral–Mosque of Córdoba

 The Cathedral and former Great Mosque of Córdoba, in ecclesiastical terms the Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción (English: Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption), and known by the inhabitants of Córdoba as the Mezquita-Catedral   is today a World Heritage Site and the Cathedral of the diocese of Córdoba. The site was primarily a pagan temple, then a Visigothic Christian church, before the Umayyad Moors at first converted the building into a mosque, and then built a new mosque on the site.  It is located in the Andalusian city of Córdoba, Spain. The Mezquita is regarded as perhaps the most accomplished monument of the Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba. After the Spanish Reconquista, it once again became a Roman Catholic church, with a plateresque cathedral later inserted into the centre of the large Moorish building.

The building was begun in approximately AD 600 as the Christian Visigothic church of St. Vincent. After the Islamic conquest of the Visigothic kingdom the Emir Abd ar-Rahman I bought the church.[3] Abd ar-Rahman I and his descendants reworked it over two centuries to refashion it as a mosque, starting in 784. Additionally, Abd ar-Rahman I used the mosque (originally called Aljama Mosque) as an adjunct to his palace and named it to honor his wife. Several explanations have been proposed to explain the mosque's unorthodox orientation. Traditionally, the mihrab of a mosque faces in the direction of Mecca; by facing the mihrab, worshipers pray towards Mecca. Mecca is east-southeast of the mosque, but the mihrab points south. Some have suggested the mihrab faces south because the foundations of the mosque were taken from the old Roman and Visigoth constructions. Others contend that Abd ar-Rahman oriented the mihrab southward as if he were still in the Ummayyad capital of Damascus and not in exile. Another possible explanation is that since the Cordoban emirate adopted the Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence, and according to the authorities of this school and the jurists, the obliged prayers are still regarded as valid even if the prayer direction towards Mecca is tilted from the exact Meccan location by 89 degrees.

The mosque underwent numerous subsequent changes: Abd ar-Rahman III ordered a new minaret, while Al-Hakam II, in 961, enlarged the building and enriched the mihrab. The last of the reforms was carried out by Al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir in 987. It was connected to the Caliph's palace by a raised walk-way, mosques within the palaces being the tradition for the Islamic rulers of all times.