Talk:Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba

Edit-warring over the word "mosque"

Tonyk2001, there have been previous discussions about this already on this talk page and the consensus on this issue has been stable for years. As I previously indicated on your user talk page, if you do want to propose a change, you must do so at the talk page here. Needless to say, literally deleting every instance of the word "mosque" in the article (including in file names and in situations that create ungrammatical sentences) is clearly a non-constructive approach. Please also refrain from repeating your changes once they have been reverted by other editors; this is known as edit-warring (see Wikipedia:Edit warring) and it could you blocked from further edits. R Prazeres (talk) 23:08, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Wording in lead

Hi Anupam. As the article itself already explains, the question of what stood here before the current building is a matter of ongoing debate and theorization, of which the traditional story is only one piece of evidence. Even the archeologists who currently support the essential point of that story still do not advocate taking it at face value and have developed alternative hypothesis based on the findings so far.

I have no objection to modifying the wording to reduce any further confusion, but the intention of the current wording is deliberately generic to avoid any attempt to quantify how many or which scholars believe what, and to let the article explain the rest. Adding words like "some", just like adding other words like "all" or "most", looks to me like unnecessary editorializing that doesn't give a more accurate impression of the situation. The current wording has been stable for some time. If there is consensus to change it further, I'm fine with that, but please base it on a review of reliable sources that study this issue.

Other suggestion: a wording like "has been a matter of scholarly debate" might also work just as well, and more clearly imply that the issue is ongoing. R Prazeres (talk) 18:49, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Hello User:R Prazeres, if you change it to the wording you suggested in your last paragraph here, I would be fine with that as a WP:COMPROMISE. Please let me know when you have done so. Thanks, Anupam^Talk 13:04, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Great, it's done. I think I actually prefer this wording over the previous one either way. Let me know if it's still unclear. R Prazeres (talk) 17:00, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Origin of "mosque-cathedral" instead of just "cathedral"

I get that it has been both a mosque and a cathedral, but most cathedrals that were formerly mosques are not termed "mosque-cathedral". It would interesting to know when this term was applied here. Greyspeir (talk) 17:45, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

The name has been discussed in previous talks here, and was chosen by consensus and per the cathedral's own official website ([1]). For context: unlike other cathedrals, this building is substantially still the original mosque building and it's the mosque that makes it famous, it's popularly still called the Mezquita, etc. It would actually be odd and confusing to remove the word "mosque" from the title. R Prazeres (talk) 17:54, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Got it. So when did the cathedral's own official website start using that term? Spain is very progressive, though the Catholic church is not so much. I'd imagine there would be something out there related to when and how it was adopted, and would be an interesting point to make in the article. I'll look myself and see. Greyspeir (talk) 22:35, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Well so much for that idea. The earliest web reference is from 1982 from the mosque-cathedral's own website. UNESCO calls out the historic center of Cordoba as a world heritage site, mentioning the Great Mosque of Cordoba as part of its listing. Greyspeir (talk) 22:48, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

(ec) Apart from Seville Cathedral, are there actually any other cathedrals that were formerly mosques? Well, yes, but looking at Category:Former mosques in Spain, most cathedrals there rebuilt completely on the same site, which had often been a Christian church before the Islamic conquests (those city-centre sites are always in demand). In Seville, only the Giralda tower retains its Islamic style, the rest was pretty thoroughly rebuilt after it became Christian. It's different in Cordoba, where large areas are very little changed since Islamic days. Johnbod (talk) 17:58, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

The Mezquita-Iglesia de El Salvador, Toledo is a similar case. Johnbod (talk) 18:41, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Pictures update

Hello R Prazeres, thanks for your recent edit on the page. I understand we're both assuming good faith here, however I disagree with the comment about arbitrarily changing images, as I believe I was improving at least most of them, and it's not just a vanity issue. I see you reapplied the changes you saw constructive, but I still see that many more of my pictures are an improvement, simply as they're taken in a more professional manner and with a more updated gear and better resolution, such as these:

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  new
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..among others. I see you mention some inaccuracies, but I think I paid special attention to replace those I saw as correct. Could you please point out those mistakes? Otherwise I'd like to revert back to my version, please. Thanks! --Fernando 12:48, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Except perhaps for "Patio with tower" (#4), the new seem better, some much so. Johnbod (talk) 12:58, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi Fernando, thank you for your comment. All your images look great. The only issue here is that the primary purpose of images is informativeness (per MOS:IMAGES). Quality is obviously very relevant for that, but so is the content of the image. This is a particularly complex building with a lot of details to identify, so most of the images were selected (as best as possible) to illustrate specific things that are often difficult to understand from reading text alone.

For those reasons, here are the changes I disagree with, either from the images above or from your earlier edit ([2]):

• The current aerial image in the infobox ([3]) is the only one showing the entire building in one shot, so it is clearly of great value. It should be kept unless we have a similar aerial image of better quality.
• In this section you replaced an image of an inscription with one of a different inscription, not the one discussed in the text and the caption.
• The current image of the Villaviciosa Chapel ([4]) shows its nave and its vaulting, which is more useful to the text, whereas the new one did not ([5]). (I forgot to mention this one earlier, this bullet point was inserted after posting.)
• The current patio image (the "old" one posted above) more clearly shows the alternation between piers and columns that is discussed in the text, a feature that survives from the mosque era. A better-quality image would be great, but I'd really prefer that it shows the structure of the gallery, as we have many general images of the courtyard elsewhere.
• The current image of the cathedral roof ("old" one posted above) is also better, I believe; the quality looks great to me and it more clearly foregrounds the 16th-century nave discussed in the section where it's currently placed.
• Optionally: I think both mihrab images are fine (old and new). Both of them have distortion, but the old one does so for a wider view showing the intersecting arches described in the caption, whereas they're mostly out-of-frame in the new. That said, it's a minor detail and we have other images in the article showing the arches, so the caption could be adjusted instead. I have no objection to doing that.

I don't intend this as a "look at what you did wrong"-type comment, but just a clarification of why otherwise great images don't always serve the context of the article:

The other images you've posted above (the choir and the gate) look great and I support adding them. I re-added the tower images (minus the patio version) already. Likewise there are other images currently in the article that could ideally be improved, so I'd support any higher-quality images showing the same things. As long as we take space into consideration, we can also add an image here and there. Lastly, just a general note that there are still thousands of other pictures in Commons and there may still be some great alternatives already there that we haven't found yet.

I hope that clarifies my objection and I hope it helps with further image improvements. Thanks also to Johnbod for the input. Cheers, R Prazeres (talk) 17:23, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

PS: I've manually re-added the choir and the gate image ([6]), since we all agree those are clearly better. R Prazeres (talk) 19:11, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your detailed reply! Very well, I concede that there are other elements shown in the previous pictures that better show what's described below. Thank you as well for introducing a couple more. I do however wish to keep the new one for the mihrab. Even though the current one shows more of the enclosure and the lateral arches described, the image is tilted and off-centre (not the author's fault, as you may know that the area is gated and off-limits for tourists), while mine is a bit closer to a real-life representation, in spite of the perspective correction. I'd also prefer any of these two for the view from the river, as they're not taken from the classic viewpoint on the opposite bank, but rather from an elevated position from a building. I believe it shows the tower and the elevation of the "cathedral" section in a clearer manner.--Fernando 16:31, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for reading and considering all that. I have no objection to the new mihrab picture; like I said above, the advantage of the old one is negligible. Likewise go ahead and add any photo for the view across the river; no specific detail is being shown there, so any quality photo is appreciated. Cheers, R Prazeres (talk) 17:20, 21 May 2024 (UTC)