Early Religious Architecture in al-Andalus and its Islamic Context: some Reflections

Abstract

This article reflects on what we know today about religious spaces during “Early Islam.” In the context of the latest studies about this period, and its cultural and religious reality, there are some basic questions worth asking, though still with no sure answer. Likewise, we must review the paradigms used so far to approach the subject, assuming what historians have defined as a long phase of transition. Faced with the scarcity and ambiguity of contemporary written sources, the remaining monuments and materials become the main and most reliable historical sources. The lack of references in the texts does not mean those works did not exist, nor that we could not make an approximation of the reasons behind their creation. Similarly, the absence of material support for certain information in the narratives is highly significant, especially if that absence is generalised, geographically speaking. Therefore, it is interesting to ask how and where did the first Islamised communities pray, both in the Mediterranean and in al-Andalus? And do we know what we are looking for when we speak of the first masājid or places of prostration?