Whose edifice is this? Spain peels back the layers of its identity

[gottaB]

CÓRDOBA – Ever since Charles V erected an altar and choir stall in the middle of this city's Great Mosque five centuries ago - clearing out many of the mosque's emblematic red-and-white-striped arches in the process - Córdoba's Mezquita has symbolized Spain's divisive past.

But now, Muslim immigrants and Spanish converts to Islam are requesting the right to pray inside what was once Europe's most spectacular mosque. That right was taken away during the Christian Reconquest in 1236.

In March the Junta Islámica, a Spanish organization, asked the Vatican for permission for Muslims to worship in the Mezquita. The church's 8th-century Moorish heritage still recalls for Muslims a glorious history in the Iberian Peninsula.

But the request has spurred questions over what Spain's religious and cultural underpinnings are and to whom its history belongs.

Whose edifice is this?....

[burrowowl]

1. It would be nice to see a

return to the time when Christians, Muslims and Jews lived in harmony.