Ближний Восток и его соседи

g 66 h Vassilios Christides The Mawāli at the time of the emir Ḥakam I were the largest group in Andalusia, concentrated mainly in Cordoba. Already from the time of the early emirs, the city of Cordoba had acquired a cosmopolitan character. The old Visigoth city was substantially expanded and a labyrinth of alleys, houses and palaces housed a multicultural population of Muslims, Christians and Jews. 23 The Mawāli occupied the southern part of the city, below the river Guadalquivir, in a suburb known as al-Rabaḍ (suburb par excellence). 24 This suburb was con- nected by a reconstructed Roman bridge (see Fig. 1) to the area where the great mosque of Cordoba (la Mezquita), the most magnificent mosque in Western Islam, was begun to be constructed in 785–786 and completed in the next two centuries. 25 A gateway dated from the time of the original mosque has survived 23 M. Hattstein, “History. The Conquest of Spain for Islam and the Early Years (711–756)”, in Islam Art and Architecture , ed. M. Hattstein and P. Delius, English trans. G. Ansell et al., Cam- bridge UK 2004, 208–217. 24 According to modern calculations, the whole city of Cordoba was about 14 miles (22 kilome- ters) in a diameter with a surface area of over 12,350 acres (5,000 hectares); see Natascha Kubisch, “Architecture”, in Islam Art and Architecture , ed. M. Hattstein and P. Delius, English trans. G. An- sell et al., Cambridge UK 2004, 218 (article: 218–237). 25 Teresa Pérez Higuera, “La mezquita de Córdoba”, in María Jesús Viguera Molins and Concepción Castillo Castillo (coord.), El esplendor de los Omeyas cordobeses: la civilización musulmana de Europa occidental, Granada 2001, 372–379; Susana Calvo Capilla, “Primeras Fig. 1 . Aerial view of the River Guadalquivir and the Roman Bridge. (From É. Lévi-Provençal, Histoire de l’Espagne musulmane, vol. I, Paris-Leiden 1950, Pl. V)