Cortijo de las Mezquitas: A Former Rural Mosque in Spain
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 3.7
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Spain
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Umayyad
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Mosque
On this page11 sections
History
Cortijo de las Mezquitas is a former rural mosque in Spain, located between the municipalities of Antequera, Campillos, and Sierra de Yeguas in Málaga province. Built under Abd al-Rahman III, the Umayyad ruler of Cordoba who later proclaimed himself caliph, it belongs to the late ninth- and early tenth-century Islamic period and is considered the largest rural mosque in Spain, with an estimated capacity of about 700 people.
Construction under Abd al-Rahman III
Archaeological investigation identifies an initial building phase in the late ninth century, when reused Roman materials were employed. A second phase followed in the early tenth century and used ashlar, or regularly cut stone blocks, supplied by workshops in Cordoba. This dating, established through investigations carried out in 2017 and 2018, placed the mosque about a century earlier than the late tenth- or early eleventh-century date first proposed after its modern identification.
The mosque stood about 13 kilometres from Bobastro, the stronghold of Umar ibn Hafsun, a major rebel leader whose challenge to the Cordoban state made the area politically important. One interpretation connects the building with a planned new city intended to contain the rebellion. After the threat ended sooner than expected, Abd al-Rahman III may have redirected his urban project toward the caliphal palace-city later known as Madinat al-Zahra, leaving the mosque at this location. Virgilio Martinez Enamorado has also identified the site with the “Mosque of Lamaya,” a place mentioned in Islamic texts.
Abandonment and transformation into a farmstead
The mosque was probably abandoned after the Christian conquest of the area around 1241, when Ferdinand III conquered Estepa. From 1552, its remains were progressively incorporated into an Andalusian cortijo, an agricultural farmstead. The name Cortijo de las Mezquitas, recorded by 1854, retained a clear indication of the complex’s Islamic origin.
During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the farmstead expanded through the addition of a courtyard, stables, and dwellings. It was abandoned in 1984. The complex is also valued for its ethnological importance because its changing form illustrates a model of territorial management, control, and agricultural exploitation whose development began before the Christian conquest and continued into modern times.
Rediscovery and protection
In 2006, the historian Carlos Gozalbes Cravioto recognized horseshoe arches embedded in the farmstead and published the first article presenting the building. Later archaeological work by the architect Pedro Gurriarán Daza and the archaeologist Maria de los Angeles Utrero Agudo revised its chronology to the late ninth and early tenth centuries.
The Junta de Andalucia designated the complex a Monument and entered it in the register of cultural-interest property on 30 December 2008, under Decree 535/2008 of 22 December. In October 2018, a storm caused the roof to collapse, and a temporary Uralite roof was subsequently installed.
Remains
The former mosque survives within a substantial enclosed settlement that combined a prayer hall, a courtyard, and a strong perimeter wall. Its stone fabric is now integrated into the later agricultural complex. The principal construction material is squared ashlar, much of it reused from a nearby Roman archaeological site, while newly made blocks were used in the buttresses. The simple pillars and the massive, largely undecorated exterior give the remains their main architectural character.
Prayer hall
Haram and internal divisions
The haram, or enclosed prayer hall, was arranged around three parallel aisles running across the direction of the qibla wall, which marks the direction of prayer toward Mecca. Eight additional aisles ran perpendicular to that wall. Pillars divided the spaces, and several of the horseshoe arches between the aisles remain.
Arches and wall construction
Part of the rectangular alfiz, the frame surrounding an arch or doorway, survives around the opening toward the courtyard. Numerous other horseshoe arches appear in different parts of the complex, particularly near what may have been the entrance to the prayer hall. Their forms have been compared with arches in the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba and Madinat al-Zahra.
The prayer building’s walls retain buttresses about 40 to 50 centimetres wide and 5.10 metres high, finished with corbels. The buttresses contain newly squared blocks bonded with a thin mortar layer. Their courses alternate between lengthwise placement, with the long faces visible, and crosswise placement, with the shorter ends presented, although lengthwise courses predominate.
Courtyard and enclosure
Sahn
The sahn, or mosque courtyard, was almost square, measuring approximately 28.25 metres on each side and described more generally as about 30 metres across. Its masonry perimeter defined the open space. A sabil, a fountain used for ritual ablutions before prayer, may have stood within the courtyard.
Perimeter wall and later farmstead
The mosque formed part of an enclosed settlement protected by a substantial perimeter wall. Later agricultural buildings incorporated the earlier fabric into a courtyard-based complex with stables and dwellings. This layered construction preserves the physical relationship between the Islamic religious building and the Andalusian farmstead that developed around it.
