Valpo Voyager

Student Stories from Around the World

Tag: Islam

Great Mosque of Córdoba

Bridge to la mezquita de Córdoba. Muy bonita.

This past weekend, we had a class trip to Córdoba to see their famous Mezquita (mosque), which is now a Catholic cathedral. The history of the building is both impressive and a bit loco. The building was started sometime around the seventh century, and has traded hands between Visigoths, Romans, Muslims, and Spaniards. Thus, in this one building you can see more architectural elements than any other in Spain. I’m no architecture enthusiast, I struggle to pick out differences in Gothic and Baroque art even after taking Spanish Civilization (sorry Professor Miguel-Pueyo), but I still loved seeing it. Just walking through the different sections is like walking through a large museum, but it isn’t a museum!

The cathedral in the very middle of la mezquita

There are four Islamic sections, and then, all of a sudden,  acathedral stands in the middle, overlapping in all but one of the Islamic sections. All around the cathedral are the typical Islamic arches, certainly lending you a very odd feeling when you walk through them into the cathedral.

Oh, and did I mention the Phonecian church that’s buried underneath? That fact wasn’t passed on by word of mouth (I wonder why…) and so not many years back when some flooding occured the marble flooring needed to be replaced. Workers must have been shocked when they found out there was an entirely unexplored church below! You don’t need to hear an essay from me on this, so check out good old wikipedia for better descriptions and some good citations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Mosque_of_Córdoba

Double arches in the Islamic section. The second arches were added when massive additions were made to the building.

In closing I’ll leave you with a 3d digital video of the Mosque, somewhat hilarious, but very well done:

Morocco Exchange, I met my Morrocan self

Of all the things I could write about after my time in Morocco I would have to choose my meeting Zakaria, a Muslim from Tangiers about my age and stage in life. Our first stop was to meet him and Kawtar, an assistant at a Women’s center, to sit down over tea (very, very good mint tea) and have a discussion about our cultures. Our group of 15 began a hold-nothing-back conversation on Islamic/Arabic and American stereotypes, the veil, and politics, and we ended up focusing a lot on marriage.

Things got pretty interesting when Zakaria and Kawtar disagreed on many fronts and weren’t afraid to say so, or even argue heatedly in front of us! That’s one thing about Moroccans, they can disagree about something and still get along great. In this instance, Kawtar wore a veil, but was generally liberal in her view of Islam and in her beliefs on gender roles in marriage. As we continued, Zakaria, a more conservative fellow, but not over the edge, defended his view of husbands, wives and arranged marriage.

Kawtar and Zakaria

Although initially masked by our presuppositions of arranged marriage, I was able to see past stereotypes to see that Zakaria’s desire for arranged marriage was not for the sake of being traditional or controlling, but with the belief in and intent of creating husbands and wives that are committed to loving each other and raising their children well. He could have used the word love a little more in my opinion (it also would have made him sound a little better to our group of mostly girls, I think), but I felt a great agreement come upon me when I began to see what he desired and how much I desired the same for my fellow Christians. Among other things, I had noticed just how similar Zakaria was to me in his personality and in the way he spoke of his faith. It was like I had met a Moroccan John Webster. So later, after our group discussion I went up to him and we ended up in a friendly but intense discussion of Islam, Christianity, and Jesus. Wow! I was really happy we were both so interested and willing to share our beliefs with each other. I was dumbfounded by how similar Islam appears to be to Christianity. Just the way he spoke about his faith was very similar to the way I do, just substitute the Allah for Jesus. One small change that changes everything.

Rather than go down the rabbit hole into this discussion, I only wish to share just how surprised I was to meet someone that should have been more different from me than anyone I had ever met, only to find that he was more similar to me than most of the people in my group of Americans. And I’m not just talking faith, this guy likes skiing (yes, in Morocco) and action movies too.

Morocco in Pictures

Last Friday night our group of 41 (38 girls and 3 guys, but that’s a post for another time) headed out to Algeciras to stay in a hostel in preparation for our morning ferry to Tangiers (here’s a map of our entire trip). We then split into three groups (phew!) and set off with our leaders from Morocco Exchange, a fantastic organization dedicated to changing stereotypes between western society and Arabic, Islamic, societies by means of short visits to Morocco. I thought it best to share the trip with pictures, click a thumbnail to see it in full size.

Bottom line: Morrocan/Islamic/Arabic culture is not what we think it is in The States, even if you have tried to guard yourself from media stereotypes. Every Moroccan I met wants peace, dialogue, and understanding between our cultures despite our differences in religion.

© 2024 Valpo Voyager

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑