A citywide midsummer festival celebrated John the Baptist.īut over centuries, under the stresses of internal political fracture and external war, Córdoba’s multiculturalism broke down.
Founding ruler Abdel Rahman I, who had fled the dominant Abbasid caliphate, wrote wistful poetry about being a refugee. The wealthy city, centerpiece of a breakaway Umayyad emirate, attracted and nurtured Christian, Jewish, and Islamic scholars and cosmopolitans. The lessons of an ancient city, the New York imam thought, could help resolve the post-9/ 11 crisis afflicting both America and Islam.įounded in the eighth century, Córdoba was the intellectual center of Europe, a haven of tolerance, education, and achievement. Faisal Abdul Rauf considered it a place America would embrace.
In the old Spanish city of Córdoba, Islam had built a European pluralism that anticipated cherished American values.
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