{"id":3687,"date":"2011-01-21T23:55:04","date_gmt":"2011-01-21T23:55:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=3687"},"modified":"2011-01-22T00:02:28","modified_gmt":"2011-01-22T00:02:28","slug":"i-think-of-cordoba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=3687","title":{"rendered":"I think of Cordoba"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[ by <strong>Charles Cameron<\/strong> ]<\/p>\n<p>1.<\/p>\n<p>I think of how the <strong>Mezquita<\/strong>, once a mosque, must have looked when its whole floor was a single, arched space of prayer:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?attachment_id=19268\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-19268\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/chicagoboyz.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/mosque-interior-500x392.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"392\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>before Moorish Cordoba was conquered, and the conquerors built a cathedral in the very heart of the place:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?attachment_id=19269\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-19269\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/chicagoboyz.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/Mezquita-Cordoba-sprouting-500x334.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"334\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>like the petals of a flower opening inside the sepals, or a cancer sprouting within the body \u2013 for so much depends on your understanding of prayer.<\/p>\n<p>2.<\/p>\n<p>And I think how lovely it still looks, cathedral nestled within mosque under the snow, to this photographer&#8217;s eye:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?attachment_id=19271\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-19271\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/chicagoboyz.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/Mezquita_de_C\u00f3rdoba_con_nieve_-_BLANCA-500x300.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>3.<\/p>\n<p>And I think of <strong>Seymour Hersh<\/strong>, who has drawn flak for comments in a recent speech about the Bush war in Iraq, and Obama&#8217;s continuation of Bush policies \u2013 and here&#8217;s the part that caught my eye:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p> &#8220;In the Cheney shop, the attitude was, \u2018What&#8217;s this? What are they all worried about, the politicians and the press, they&#8217;re all worried about some looting? &#8230; Don&#8217;t they get it? We&#8217;re gonna change mosques into cathedrals. And when we get all the oil, nobody&#8217;s gonna give a damn.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s the attitude,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;We&#8217;re gonna change mosques into cathedrals. That&#8217;s an attitude that pervades, I&#8217;m here to say, a large percentage of the Joint Special Operations Command.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And I think then of the great cathedral of <strong>Hagia Sophia<\/strong> in Constantinople, that was conquered and became a mosque:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?attachment_id=19272\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-19272\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/chicagoboyz.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/hagia_sophia_interior-500x360.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"360\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>and is now a museum.  So these things go, in times of war.<\/p>\n<p>4.<\/p>\n<p>As for the Mezquita, its history is more complex than I have suggested: it was first a pagan temple, then a Christian church, then shared between Muslims and Christians, then made into a mosque, then a church again \u2013 and the cathedral as we see it today was built during the Renaissance\u2026<\/p>\n<p>And I think at last how much depends on lofty spaces, and on silence, and on prayer:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?attachment_id=19281\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-19281\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/chicagoboyz.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/Interior_de_la_mezquita_de_C\u00f3rdoba-375x500.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"666\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ by Charles Cameron ] 1. I think of how the Mezquita, once a mosque, must have looked when its whole floor was a single, arched space of prayer: before Moorish Cordoba was conquered, and the conquerors built a cathedral in the very heart of the place: like the petals of a flower opening inside [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[498,385,368,497,215,113,51,499,562,436,533,31,523,429,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arab-world","category-art-history","category-byzantium","category-christianity","category-culture","category-framing","category-history","category-islamic-world","category-perception","category-psychology","category-religion","category-synthesis","category-theology","category-turkey","category-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3687\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}