Type
Other
Language
Undetermined
Digital
Yes
Manuscript
No
Library
Museum With No Frontiers
Record ID
monument;ISL;pt;Mon01;5;ar
Library Location
Idanha -a- Velha; Castelo Branco, Portugal
Notes
It is a large facility with a basilica plan (similar to the plan of churches - a university). According to the ritual orientations of early Christianity or Islam, which were chronologically interconnected in the Iberian Peninsula, the organization of the ancient church included seven naves. The middle nave is distinguished by its width, decoration, and the height of its axial arches. 12 of the original 13 arches are shaped like a horseshoe in the low-relief style that was characteristic of early Iberian Islamic architecture. The place of the supposed mihrab is located at the end of the central nave, and its place is today occupied by a square chapel, which probably dates back to the Islamic era or was adapted later. The building was long considered a Physigotic cathedral due to the presence of a baptismal place near the southern façade. Also, the transfer of the altar at the beginning of the seventeenth century to the northern side, where it remains until our days, suggested the possibility of the earlier existence of a space dedicated to Christian rituals consisting of three naves. Today, these hypotheses appear to be contested. It is clear that this baptismal place preceded the construction of the building, and it was likely that it was an attached building to a previous church. On the other hand, it is impossible to build a comprehensive church dating back to the early Christian period with its altar facing north. After setting aside these hypotheses, and despite this lack of homogeneity, all that remains is for us to place the construction of this building within the context of the works that included the city during the 3rd and 4th centuries AH / 9th and 10th centuries AD, when Idanha-a-Velha (ancient Aegitania) played an important historical role in the region located between the Andalusian Kingdom. Leon. It is not unlikely that the alliances and disputes that occurred permanently between the local masters of the Ibn Marwan al-Julaiqi family, sometimes with Cordoba and other times with Lyon, were the reason for this religious place to absorb several formal changes and transformations, and therefore it constitutes the summary of the formal agreement that everyone accepted in order to defend their independence. If we ignore the difference in standards, we find that the model that was inspired was the Great Mosque in Damascus with its large central naves and two parallel side naves where The mihrab occupies the center, while the qibla faces towards Mecca. If we finally agree that the south-eastern wall of the ancient church of Idanha is the qibla inside a mosque, then the abnormal dimensions of the building become less ambiguous. Let us mention here that the historian Ibn Hajan considered Marwan al-Julaiqi “an ally of Satan and a source of error.” Therefore, the plan of this building can only be explained by the context in which this Mawlid renegade lived in the 3rd century AH / the end of the 9th century AD. In order to reach a definition of the correct chronology, we can return to some elements that seem significant to us, although the most obvious thing is the similarity in construction techniques between the Idanha Mosque and the Church of Lorosa, which is located more than 70 km away, and in which we find an inscription dating back to the year 299 AH / 912 AD. Although some researchers reject these hypotheses, as is the case of Manuel Real and Antonio Rey, preferring to compare the plan of this building And the plans of some mosques, but they agree with this proposed chronology.
Sample Text
Cristina Garcia “The Mosque - The Mosque with its Idan-a-Filha (Ancient Idan)” in Discover Islamic Art. Museum Without Borders, 2026. 2026. https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=monument;ISL;pt;Mon01;5;ar
