Its ceilings were ornamented with vivid colors—
like a master weaver finishing a striped mantle.
And its façade was overlaid with Roman gold;
blessed, then, is the builder who raised a mosque for the Lord of the Throne.
The mosque first comprised seven aisles. After the Founder came his grandson al-Ḥakam al-Rabaḍī, who added two; then ʿAbd al-Raḥmān son of al-Ḥakam added another two, bringing the total to eleven. Later al-Manṣūr ibn Abī ʿĀmir added eight aisles, and after 200 AH he built, as well, the Congregational Mosque of Seville together with its surrounding wall.
Ibn Bashkuwāl said: During the time of al-Manṣūr—and earlier—the staff responsible for the Great Mosque of Córdoba numbered three hundred men.
Ibn Muzayyan remarked: its qibla is slightly off-line.
Al-Ḥakam al-Mustanṣir Billah once rode out with his ministers and the qāḍī Mundhir al-Ballūṭī, intending to realign the qibla. They said, “Commander of the Faithful, the foremost imams and the early Successors have prayed toward this qibla. Rank is gained only through following them, and you, Commander of the Faithful, are the most deserving of such adherence.” So he left the qibla unchanged.
Ibn Ḥayyān said: Expenditure on al-Ḥakam’s pulpit reached thirty-five thousand, seven hundred-odd dinars. It was fashioned from thirty-six thousand pieces of ebony, sandalwood, jujube and brazilwood (1) over four years, and the first to preach from it was Mundhir ibn Saʿīd al-Ballūṭī. The mosque’s columns amounted to 1,409. Al-Nāṣir erected a minaret whose height from the ground to the muezzin’s platform is fifty-four cubits and whose width is eighteen cubits. At its summit a long staff bears three pomegranates—one of silver, another of pure gold, and above them a hexagonal lily of gold. This minaret is one of the marvels