Mértola Mosque
Mértola, Beja, Portugal
Hegira last quarter of 6th / AD 12th century
Almohad
A 'church which was once a mosque': the title which identifies the mother church of Mértola in the drawing made by Duarte d'Armasat the beginning of the 16th century leaves no room for doubt. The town's main church was at one time the mosque of the aljama (self-governing Muslim community) of Martulah.
The structure of the mosque, built in the second half of AH 6th century / AD 12th century and consecrated for Christian worship after the Reconquista is still perfectly legible in this record. It shows a church with five aisles, each with its own pitched roof. Still remaining of this structure are the outside walls and four small doors (three opening onto the former courtyard and another to the outside) in which the slightly stilted horseshoe arch is framed by an alfiz (decorative rectangular surround).
The retention of the basic structure of the building, even taking into account the rebuilding of the roof in the middle of the 16th century, gives this church-mosque an undeniable exoticism. The horseshoe arches of the doors which open onto the sahn (interior courtyard of a mosque) were retained as was the mihrab (prayer niche indicating the direction of Mecca), uncovered several decades ago. It was flanked by a narrow room for the minbar (the imam's pulpit). Polygonal in plan, this guiding element of Muslim prayer still displays a stuccoed decoration, today lacking its polychromy, with three multi-lobed blind arches topped by a cyma cornice moulded by two cordons expressing the idea of infinity, a theme which is repeated at the top of the moulding. Surprisingly, this piece, unique in Portugal, escaped the purging attacks of the Reconquista and of the Counter-Reformation, and has come down to us in a reasonable state of preservation.
Part of a cornice in granite with two lines of inscription is preserved in the National Museum of Archaeology in Lisbon. According to Nykl, this would be the one that Estácio da Veiga refers to in his Memórias das Antiguidades de Mértola. Amador de los Ríos read in the lower line the first part of verse 28 of sura XXXVI of the Qur'an: 'We did not send down upon his people, after him, soldiers from the sky'. The content of the text and the fact of its having been carved on a cornice lead us to suppose that it may have belonged to the Mértola Mosque.
The economic decline of the town led to the structure being brought back into use following the Reconquista, its functions barely changing from those of a mosque to those of a church. The minbar itself still remained at the beginning of the 16th century, being used at that time as an altar. The building work carried out shortly after 1530 led to the loss of all these vestiges, as well as to the introduction of structural alterations, but they did not altogether erase the traces of the former aljama mosque.
Preservation of the basic structure of the building, which dates to the last quarter of the AH 6th / AD 12th century, although the roof was rebuilt in the mid-16th century, afford this church-mosque an irresistible exoticism. The horseshoe arches leading to the sahn (courtyard of the place of worship) and the mihrab, discovered some decades ago, have all survived.
The original building had five naves, each with a gabled roof and four small doors (three leading to the courtyard and one to the outside) with slightly stilted horseshoe arches framed with alfiz panels.
Dating of the Mértola Mosque was established on the basis of comparisons with the Tinmel Mosque (Morocco), which may have served as its model. In addition, the plant decoration of the stuccoes has parallels with that of other monuments of the same period (namely the mosques of Tinmel and Almería, Spain), which enables the period of construction of this place of worship to be dated with reasonable confidence.
Amador de los Ríos, R., Memoria Acerca de Algunas Inscripciones Arábigas de España y Portugal, Madrid, 1883.
Ewert, Ch., “La Mezquita de Mértola”, Cuadernos de la Alhambra, no. 9, Granada, 1973.
Macias, S. et al., Mértola – Mesquita / Igreja Matriz, Mértola, 2002.
Nykl, A. R., “Arabic Inscriptions in Portugal”, Ars Islamica, XI–XII, 1946, pp.167–83.
Veiga, S. E., Memória das Antiguidades de Mértola, Lisbon, 1880.
Santiago Macias "Mértola Mosque" in Discover Islamic Art, Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. 2024. https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=monument;ISL;pt;Mon01;10;en
MWNF Working Number: PT M
RELATED CONTENT
Islamic Dynasties / Period
On display in
See also
Virtual Visit Exhibition Trail
In the Lands of the Enchanted Moorish Maiden. Islamic Art in Portugal
Download
As PDF (including images) As Word (text only)