Partiendo de un nuevo documento que fecha la conversión de la antigua mezquita de Bāb al-Mardūm en capilla en 1183, un siglo después de la conquista de Toledo por Alfonso VI, se ha tratado de indagar en el proceso de cristianización de las mezquitas urbanas y rurales de Toledo entre los siglos XI y XIII: el papel desempeñado en su reparto y el de sus habices por el Rey, la Iglesia y los diferentes grupos de población, el destino de aquellas mezquitas que no se consagraron, o las semejanzas y las particularidades del proceso toledano respecto al llevado a cabo en otras regiones andalusíes. Para acabar, se plantean algunas preguntas e hipótesis sobre la función y el carácter de la propia mezquita, fundada por Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥadīdī en el año 390/999-1000.
This article reflects on what we know today about religious spaces during the so-called «Early Islam». In the context of the latest studies about this period and its cultural and religious reality, there are some basic questions worth asking, though still with no sure answer. Likewise, we must review the paradigms used so far to approach their analysis, assuming what historians have defined as a long phase of transition. Faced with the scarcity and ambiguity of contemporary written sources, the monuments and material remains preserved become the main and most reliable historical documents. The lack of 30 los inicios de la arquitectura religiosa en al-andalus y su contexto islámico susana calvo capilla Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca / Stud. hist., H.ª mediev., 38(1), 2020, pp. 29-57 mentions in the texts does not mean those works do not exist or that we could not make an approximation of the reasons behind their creation. Similarly, the absence of material support for certain information in the stories is highly significant, especially if that absence is generalized, geographically speaking. Therefore, it is worth asking how and where did the first Islamized communities pray both in the Mediterranean and in al-Andalus? Do we know what we are looking for when we speak of the first masāŷid or places of prostration?
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