The nine domes
Intersecting rib patterns, no two alike.
Fernando — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Ángel M. Felicísimo from Mérida, España — CC BY 2.0 · Bernardo Baggio — CC BY 2.0 · Ángel M. Felicísimo from Mérida, España — CC BY 2.0
**The oldest Islamic building standing in Toledo — a small mosque of the year 999 that was never demolished** — by the Bab al-Mardum gate in the north of the old city. ⚠ **It is very small**: about **eight metres by eight** — **a neighbourhood mosque rather than a Friday mosque**, built to serve its quarter. ✅ **Its design is exceptional for its size**: **nine domes, every one different from the others**, over nine square bays, **carried on four reused Visigothic columns**; **and interlacing horseshoe arches** on the front. **The model is the mosque of Córdoba.** ⚠ **A Kufic inscription in brick** on its façade carries the date of building, the patron's name and the architect's — **which is what makes its dating certain**. ✅ **It was converted to a church after 1085**, ⚠ **and a Mudéjar apse added** — but the original building survives.
Intersecting rib patterns, no two alike.
Shaped brick on the front dating the building precisely.
Visigothic shafts with mismatched capitals.
Calle Cristo de la Luz 22, 45002 Toledo, Spain
**Because it became a small church and stood in nobody's way — and its size saved it.** ✅ **The general rule after 1085**: **a city's Friday mosque is demolished or converted into the cathedral** — **because it symbolises the previous religious authority and occupies the centre**. ⚠ **In Toledo the Friday mosque was indeed pulled down** and the cathedral built on it. ✅ **Small neighbourhood mosques met a different fate**: **some were demolished**, **some remained mosques** for the Muslims who stayed (the Mudéjares) for a time, ⚠ **and some were converted into small parish churches** — **which is what happened here**. ✅ **Why conversion saves**: **a church is not demolished**, **it is maintained because it is in use**, **and its stone is not looted**. ⚠ **The price**: **an apse** was added to the east and the use changed — **but the original body survives as it was**. ✅ **Size helped too**: **a building eight metres square blocks no project and is not worth the cost of demolishing**, ⚠ **whereas a great mosque occupies valuable ground at the centre**. ✅ **The same lesson as the Temple of Minerva in Assisi and the Pantheon in Rome**: **what finds a new use survives**.
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