cordoba | Pandaemonium

A CATHEDRAL, A MOSQUE, HISTORIES AND MYTHS

March 9, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the controversies surrounding Córdoba’s mosque-cathedral and Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, was my Observer column this week. It was published 4 March 2023, under the headline “Mezquita and Hagia Sophia: two sacred symbols and the culture wars that belie their complex history”. Córdoba’s mosque-cathedral is one of the most glorious buildings in Europe. I was last there 30 years ago, but the memory is still vividly etched in my mind. I remember walking through the Courtyard of the Orange Trees. Then, […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Culture & Books, History, International • Tags: al-andalus, byzantine, christianity, constantinople, cordoba, cordoba mezquita, cordoba mosque cathedral, erdogan, hagia sophia, islam, istanbul, spain, turkey

THE MEANING OF HERITAGE IN AN AGE OF IDENTITY

March 30, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This is a transcript of my keynote address to the Interpret Europe conference on ‘Heritage and Identity’ held in Kőszeg, Hungary, 23-26 March 2018. The skeleton was discovered in 1903 at Gough’s Cave in Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, in south-west England. He became known as Cheddar Man, and is the oldest almost complete skeleton of Homo sapiens ever found in Britain. In the 1970s, radiocarbon dating suggested that he lived around 10,000 years ago, shortly after the first settlers crossed from continental […]

Categories: Culture & Books, History, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: aya sofia, christianity, clash of civilizations, cordoba, cultural diversity, cultural heritage, culture, diversity, enlightenment, hagia sophia, herder, ibn rushd, identity politics, islam, istanbul, multiculturalism, romanticism, unesco

THE STRUGGLE FOR CULTURAL HERITAGE

November 11, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This is a transcript of the keynote lecture I gave at the annual conference of the Riksantikvarieämbetet (the Swedish National Heritage Board) in Stockholm this week. The theme of the conference was ‘The Struggle for Cultural Heritage’. ‘The ministry of symbols.’ That’s how Mélanie Joly, the new Minister of Canadian Heritage in Justin Trudeau’s recently elected administration in Ottowa, this week described her portfolio. What kind of symbols? Not the ones promoted by the previous conservative government of Stephen Harper, but, in […]

Categories: Culture & Books, History, Multiculturalism • Tags: aya sofia, cordoba, cultural diversity, cultural heritage, culture, diversity, enlightenment, hagia sophia, herder, identity politics, multiculturalism, romanticism, unesco, will kymlicka

A CATHEDRAL, A MOSQUE, A CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS

May 11, 2015 by Kenan Malik

This is a transcript of a talk I gave at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels on 10 May 2015 on ‘The many roots of Christian Europe, the many sources of the Islamic world’. It was part of a series of talks to accompany an exhibition of ‘The Ottoman Orient in Renaissance Art’ entitled ‘L’Empire du Sultan’. I want to begin this talk in two cities at opposite ends of Europe – Córdoba and Istanbul. Córdoba’s Mosque-Cathedral is one of […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, History • Tags: christianity, clash of civilizations, cordoba, enlightenment, europe, greek philosophy, hagia sophia, ibn rushd, islam, istanbul, jonathan israel, monotheism, muslim philosophy, muslim rationalism, ottoman empire, radical enlightenment, religion, socrates