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  In the year 711, the history of Cordoba, Spain, was about to witness a dramatic change. The Muslims who were conquering Spain, were about to receive the most precious of the Iberian Jewels, Cordoba.  However, surrender of the city was based on an agreement, which allowed Jews, Christians, and Muslims to live peacefully. 

  The Great Mosque, the oldest building still in use (now as a Cathedral) has an interesting history that illustrates some toleration.  It was built on land that had been part of a monastery.  The Muslims paid for the land.  The Mosque was built in the 8th c., and Cordoba remained Muslim until Christians from the north took over in 1236.  The Christians built a cathedral inside the mosque.  Interestingly, the Mosque was not destroyed except for those portions of the interior where the altar, choir and other parts of the Cathedral were placed.   There are no walls to the Cathedral.  It simply was placed inside the much larger mosque.

  Over the centuries, families paid for small chapels, which line one wall of the former Mosque.  A Christian bell tower was also added.  The Mosque/Cathedral is in the heart of the historic district surrounded by narrow streets of the former Jewish Quarter.  Today the former Mosque functions only as a Cathedral.   A nearby Jewish synagogue has been preserved for its historic value, but is not used. 

  That tolerant city under the Muslims was the birthplace of a very liberal poetess, Wallada Bint Al Mustakfi. There is no question that Wallada and many other Poets and artists would not have been able to write or create what they have done in any other place. Until this day the city has several monuments and statues dedicated to “los enamorados”, the lovers, of whom Wallada gained a very wide-spread fame.0

  The love story of the poet Ibn Zaydun and his beautiful, courageous Princess is still alive in the hearts of the people of Cordoba, the capital of Arab Spain and of the Umayyad Caliphs.

  Who really was the passionate and daring Umayyad princess?

  When Cordoba was the greatest and most sophisticated city, not only of the Moorish civilization but also the entire known world, the Princess Wallada (born in 1011 and died in 1091) achieved fame for her court of learning, many centuries before France's legendary Madame de Rambouillet held sway over her literary salon. Wallada gathered around her the finest poets and musicians of al-Andalus, who would sit around her on cushions and rugs, improvising ballads and epic sagas to the sound of the lute and zither.

  Wallada, was the daughter of the Caliph al-Mustakfi Billah, Mohammed the Third, who reigned for only two years, 1923-1025. She was greatly admired for her fair skin and blue eyes, which gave her a very special, exotic appeal for the Aristocats of Cordoba. She had a unique reputation for wit, eloquence and intelligence. Famed for beauty as well as independence, Walladah inspired verses from other poets and wrote her own, becoming poet and author as well as singer. Her poetry was noted for its boldness. In fact, she was so proud of her beauty that she refused to wear the veil when she went out in the streets of the city, thus enraging the local religious people. It was the time of the great fitna, (rebellion) when the Berbers were rising up against the Umayyad Caliphate, and religious tension was high.

  But Cordoba was in many ways very liberal indeed. This was because the Andalucian society of the time was a multi-cultural one, a mixture of the Islamic, Christian and Jewish cultures, which made up medieval Spain.

  Wallada not only refused to cover her face, she also was very outspoken and free in her personal behaviour, thus becoming a symbol of liberation for the women of her time. She resisted all efforts to keep her in her traditional place, and to prevent her from choosing the lovers she preferred.

  When the great Moorish philosopher and supreme judge of the city, Ibn Rushd, known to Europeans as Averroes, accused her of being a harlot, she responded with an act of defiance. She had one of her own poems embroidered on the gown she wore in the street, for everyone to read. It said:

On the left side:

I am fit for high positions by God
And am going my way with pride.
And on the left:
I allow my lover to touch my cheek
And bestow my kiss on him who craves it.

  Her most famous relation, a true and passionate love story, was with Ibn Zaydun, one of the greatest Arab poets of the time, born in 1003 and died in 1071.

  Although Ibn Zaydun was a leading figure in the courts of Cordoba and Seville, he was most famous among the people of his day because of his scandalous love affair with Princess Wallada. They did nothing to hide their passion, and at her literary circle, when the poets began improvising, as was their custom, they would allude to it quite openly. On one famous occasion, Wallada uttered this impromptu verse, as she gazed upon her lover's face:

  I fear for you, my beloved so much, that even my own sight even the ground you tread even the hours that pass threaten to snatch you away from me. Even if I were able to conceal you within the pupils of my eyes and hide you there until the Day of Judgment my fear would still not be allayed.

  And he, returning her glance just as ardently, responded:

  Your passion has made me famous among high and low your face devours my feelings and thoughts. When you are absent, I cannot be consoled, but when you appear, my all my cares and troubles fly away. When she offers me jasmine in the palm of her hand I collect bright stars from the hand of the moon.

  Ibn Zaydun's prestige, as the leading poet and the lover of the most beautiful woman of Cordoba, awakened much jealousy among his rivals, such as Ibn Abdus, the Caliph's Vizir. He created a venemous intrigue aimed at destroying his enemy's friendship with the Caliph and also his romance with Wallada.

  At first he failed, but then succeeded in catching Ibn Zaydun making love to Wallada's favourite slave, an African girl. The proud Princess was so hurt that she wrote him a poem of rebuke:

  If you had been truly sincere in the love, which joined us, you would not have preferred, to me, one of my own slaves. In so doing, you scorned the bough, which blossoms with beauty and chose a branch, which bears only hard and bitter fruit. You know that I am the clear, shining moon of the heavens but, to my sorrow, you chose, instead, a dark and shadowy planet.

  Ibn Abdus then made his rival jealous by letting it be known that Wallada had taken him as her lover, and by walking beside her in the streets of Cordoba. The arrow hit its mark, and the wounded Ibn Zaydun bitterly wrote these lines to the woman he thought had spurned him:

  You were for me nothing but a sweetmeat that I took a bite of and then tossed away the crust, leaving it to be gnawed on by a rat.

  Although the Caliph was fond of Ibn Zaydun, the scandal reached such proportions that he had him thrown into prison, and later exiled him to Seville. The hapless poet languished there, far from the gardens of the great palace, Medina Zahara, and he passionately missed his beloved Princess. Fortunately for him, the Caliph died soon afterwards and Ibn Zaydun was able to return. The lovers forgave one another and for a while their affair continued, just as passionate and stormy as before. But Wallada now lived in the home of powerful Vizir, who gave her protection, and Ibn Zaydun, disenchanted, eventually decided to return to Seville, where he spent the rest of his life as the favourite poet of the Sultan.

  Only nine of Wallada poems have been preserved, of which five are satirical, daring, risqué and caustic. Some of her most impressive love lined she wrote to Ibn Zaidun, and some of her harshest satires were also addressed to him!

   

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