Author: mara.ahmed

was standing in front of picasso’s guernica today at the museo reina sofía (here in madrid) and tearing up as i thought about palestine when i got a message from my beautiful friend ashwaq, still besieged in gaza, sending prayers for my family and pakistan’s safety. what incredible generosity and thoughtfulness. i am constantly reminded of the beauty, strength and humanity of palestinian culture and what an asset it is to our world. i dream of visiting my friend one day soon, of having tea together and talking about our lives, of meeting her family and perhaps going for a walk, of hugging her for a long time. nothing major. just little moments that mark the passage of time, the shape of our lives, the connections that nourish us. yet a bunch of small, unimaginative, power-hungry men can make such ordinary dreams impossible. it shouldn’t be so…

may 6: more cordoba (mezquita-catedral) and an evening in sevilla where we had fancy italian at san marco santa cruz 🙂

may 6th: as we approached cordoba and i caught sight of it in the distance, across the roman bridge, i felt immense emotion. if i could have chosen a time to have lived on this planet, it would have been during the convivencia in al-andalus (islamic spain) sometime between the 8th and 15th centuries. if u want to learn more, i strongly recommend ‘culture in the time of tolerance: al-andalus as a model for our time’ by the brilliant scholar maria rosa menocal. i loved her work so much that i invited her to come to rochester and speak but she was already ill by then and couldn’t travel anymore

from mohamed al-gafequi (trained in cordoba and baghdad who performed the first cataract surgery in the 12th century), to the incomparable moses maimonides (jewish philosopher, jurist and physician), to the cordoba mosque (which could accommodate 30,000 people) with its double arches, alternating brick and limestone (for added stability), unique columns made of recycled materials, and beautiful mihrab (the mezquita was converted into a cathedral after the reconquista), cordoba is mesmerizing

ok, so one of my pet peeves about how white people talk about al-andalus (and a great example of deleting context in order to create a bit of propaganda) is the reservation about religious coexistence when religious minorities (jews and christians) had to pay a tax known as the jizya. what is never mentioned is that muslims had to pay zakat (a heavier tax it seems). since zakat is an islamic tax, it could not be levied on non-muslims. hence the jizya, which also exempted non-muslim citizens from serving in the military. so yes, religious minorities had to pay some kind of tax as citizens of the state. as non-christian minorities of the US we are also required to pay federal, state and local taxes and no one uses that to disparage ‘religious coexistence’

on may 6th, i went to cordoba. but first we made a quick stop in #carmona. we came face to face with the puerta de sevilla (in carmona) which maria (our wonderful guide) called a history book. it was built originally by the phoenicians around 230–220 BC. later the romans too depended on this fortification. carmona became an important crossroads on the via augusta that connected directly to rome. the gate continued to be used by muslim rulers

it’s a pretty town with lime washed houses and cobblestone streets. every entrance in every building is unique with gorgeous metalwork and tiles. what a beautiful islamic civilization al andalusia must have been, probably quite a change from the visigoths

didn’t have much time but grabbed some hot chocolate and a slice of toasted bread with butter at casa paco. the most memorable food is often the simplest
more about cordoba next

more sevilla. so the city was a major center in al-andalus under muslim rule from 711 to 1248 CE. hence the gorgeous tiles and mosaics, arches and minarets, courtyards and fountains. the excessive catholic presence in every bit of the old city seems to be pushback against this history. some of it is quite literal, e. g. the almohad mosque was converted into the seville cathedral – its bell tower (the giralda) used to be the minaret of the old mosque. i felt this pushback in portugal too, where i was told by a well-read guide that the arab history portugal claims has nothing to do with present day arabs (they are the descendants of the same arabs he so admires of course) and where a younger guide who took me to sintra and cascais couldn’t stop fawning over the knights templar because they saved portugal (by massacring muslims). feels like a bizarre fragmentation of collective identity

didn’t sleep a wink last night (not an exaggeration) so was up nice and early and ready for our train trip. got to madrid-puerta de atocha-almudena grandes about an hour before our departure and was horrified to see the entrance to the station jam-packed with throngs and throngs of people waiting, like 10,000 of them. apparently signaling cables were stolen over the weekend which led to massive delays on high speed trains. we had to stand outside the building for an hour or more as countless journalists and their crews interviewed frustrated travelers. finally made it to our destination although two hours later.

hola sevilla, u flamboyant one. the tiles u see are all located within 1-2 meters, just around the threshold of our room

we hadn’t set an alarm and were shocked to wake up at 1pm today (jet lag and all that). late start to the day so dashed off to the prado museum – the met of madrid. too huge to see their entire collection/ exhibitions in detail but was completely floored by goya’s black paintings. these were painted between 1820-23 on the walls of goya’s two-storey house (quinta del sordo) on the outskirts of madrid when he was already in his 70s. the paintings reflect goya’s despair and cynicism and were never meant for public consumption. ‘saturn devouring his son’ is disturbingly violent but tbh the images and stories coming out of gaza are no less terrible and seem to be within the scope of human barbarity. ‘asmodea’ with the two figures floating over a landscape is so modern in its proportions and composition that it took my breath away. ‘the fates’ has some of the same energy. ‘the dog’ is equally incredible in how it’s composed and the layers of dark burnished gold that form its background. this series of 14 murals/ paintings is irresistible, magnetic, mysterious. also love el greco. the symbolism and elongated figures with the endlessly long fingers and lean muscles remind me of sadequain. another thing that jumped out at me was the use of a beautiful green one doesn’t find in too many other paintings from the same period. while i reveled in art, my daughter explored vintage stores and was not disappointed. we had lunch/ dinner on the rooftop of a restaurant covered in ivy (el viajero) and some dessert at be beirut which is owned by a palestinian family

even though we got here today and took a small nap before going out, we walked a lot – around the royal palace, along the gran via (known as the spanish broadway), in the atocha neighborhood where we are based, and finally in el retiro park which belonged to the spanish monarchy until 1868 and where everything is blooming. stunning architecture everywhere, tons of greenery and open community spaces, perfect weather and good food, but what i loved most were the peacocks at el retiro. i’ve seen gorgeous peacocks before (most memorably in choa saidan shah in pakistan and at jardim da estrela in lisbon), but this was something else. a full-on soap opera with screeching matches between male peacocks vying for the same female and some surprisingly aggressive shaking of feathers and hot pursuit. nature is bizarre and remarkable at the same time. found these secondhand booksellers close to el retiro and one of them talked at length with my daughter in spanish (so proud!). for dinner went to KA restaurant 6 min’s walk from our hotel for some reliable thai – the food was next level delish. it was a good day 🙂