[muawiyah]

You know, of course, that Spanish religious architecture, over the many hundreds of years of the Reconquista, adapted to the "shifts". A city might be Christian for many years, then become Moslem, and then back to Christian.

The same places of worship continued in use and few sound structures were ever knocked down.

What I wonder is why, if their practice was to knock down Christian churches and put up mosques on the site, the Moslems left Hagia Sofia alone (for the most part), and even preserved the statuary?

Do you suspect that both the Moslems and the Christians in Spain were a better cut of human being than those in the East?

[Publius6961]

Do you suspect that both the Moslems and the Christians in Spain were a better cut of human being than those in the East?

There is an element of truth here, as the Iberian caliphs were considered renegades by the "true believers" in the Levant, and way too comfortable in the isolation distance provided them. There were many attempted invasions by the "true believers" to set them straight.

Unfortunately, even the "benign" Andalusian masters never ceased reminding the locals who was master and who was servant.