[7][2][8] According to traditional accounts a Visigothic church, the Catholic Christian Basilica of Vincent of Saragossa, originally stood on the site of the current Mosque-Cathedral, although this has been a matter of scholarly debate.

[34]: 56  This theory has been opposed by Fernando Arce-Sainz, another archeologist, who states that none of the numerous archeological investigations in modern times have turned up remains of Christian iconography, a cemetery, or other evidence that would support the existence of a church.

Abd ar-Rahman was a fugitive and one of the last remaining members of the Umayyad royal family which had previously ruled the first hereditary caliphate based in Damascus, Syria.

[12]: 44 [15]: 20 [32] The original mosque had a roughly square floor plan measuring 74 or 79 meters per side, equally divided between a hypostyle prayer hall to the south and an open courtyard (sahn) to the north.

The latter was known as Bab al-Wuzara' (the "Viziers' Gate", today known as Puerta de San Esteban) and was most likely the entrance used by the emir and state officials who worked in the palace directly across the street from here.

In this early period, many Muslims in the region preferred a tradition that existed in the western Islamic world (the Maghreb and al-Andalus) according to which the qibla should be oriented towards the south instead of pointing towards the shortest distance to Mecca.

[12]: 45 [55]: 241  One probable example of these capitals is now preserved at the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid and features an Arabic inscription in an archaic Kufic script that offers blessings on Abd ar-Rahman II.

As part of his various construction projects, he reworked and enlarged the courtyard of the Great Mosque and built its first true minaret (a tower from which the call to prayer was issued) starting in 951–952.

[56] Many modern scholars affirm that the courtyard was provided with an enveloping gallery at this time and that its design involved an alternation between piers and columns (similar to its current appearance).

[14] While it is sometimes believed to have been started by Alfonso X, Heather Ecker has argued that documentary evidence proves it wasn't begun before the 14th century when Constance of Portugal, wife of Ferdinand IV, made an endowment for the chapel.

In 1664 Gaspar added a new cupola to the top of the belfry onto which he raised a statue of Saint Raphael made by the sculptors Pedro de la Paz and Bernabé Gómez del Río.

The most substantial and visible additions are the cruciform nave and transept of the Capilla Mayor (the main chapel where Mass is held today) which were begun in the 16th century and inserted into the middle of the former mosque's prayer hall, as well as the remodelling of the former minaret into a Renaissance-style bell tower.

[84] Horseshoe arches were known in the Iberian Peninsula in the Visigothic period (e.g. the 7th-century Church of San Juan de Baños) and to a lesser extent in Byzantine and Umayyad regions of the Middle East.

In the nave or aisle of the hypostyle hall which leads to the mihrab, at the spot which marks the beginning of Al-Hakam's 10th-century extension, is a monumental ribbed dome with ornate decoration.

This maqsura area covers three bays along the southern qibla wall in front of the mihrab, and was marked off from the rest of the mosque by an elaborate screen of intersecting horseshoe and polylobed arches; a feature which would go on to be highly influential in the subsequent development of Moorish architecture.

Those in the voussoirs and the blind arcade form vegetal and floral motifs, while those in the alfiz and in smaller bands at the springs of the arch contain Arabic inscriptions in Kufic script.

[76][75] The dome at the summit is topped by a sculpture of Saint Raphael which was added in 1664 by architect Gaspar de la Peña, who had been hired to perform other repairs and fix structural problems.

Its historical-architectural significance derives from being the earliest surviving example to display the classic ornamental features of Moorish gateways: a door topped by a horseshoe arch with voussoirs of alternating color, which in turn is framed by a rectangular alfiz.

These later gates have even more elaborate decoration, particularly from the 10th century during Al-Hakam II's expansion (starting in 961), visible today on the western exterior façade of the former prayer hall.

Susana Calvo Capilla has noted that many of the inscriptions on the 10th-century gates have eschatological and proselytizing connotations, possibly reflecting a conscious rebuttal of heterodox religious currents that the authorities deemed threats at the time.

[104] The Puerta de las Palmas (Door of the Palms) is the grand ceremonial gate from the Courtyard of the Oranges to the cathedral's interior, built on what was originally a uniform façade of open arches leading to the former mosque's prayer hall.

[110] The diocese never presented a formal title of ownership nor did provide a judicial sentence sanctioning the usurpation on the basis of a long-lasting occupation, with the sole legal argument being that of the building's "consecration" after 1236, as a cross-shaped symbol of ash was reportedly drawn on the floor at the time.

[120][95]: 80 [119]: 101 [12]: 86 [121]: 281–284 [15]: 77  Amira Bennison, for example, goes on to comment: Despite the demise of the Umayyad caliphate and the concomitant decline of Córdoba's political status, its great mosque remained one of the most thoroughly described and lauded Islamic buildings for centuries to come.

Al-Idrisi, writing in the Almohad era, devoted almost his entire entry on Córdoba, several pages in all, to describing the great mosque, giving almost forensic detail about its constituent parts.

The key elements in this respect were its marble columns, its polygonal mihrab chamber, its Qur'an and its minbar, all of which went on to have long histories in the Maghrib, appropriated and adapted by the Almoravids and the Almohads in turn.

[121]: 284 Jonathan Bloom also comments: The prestige of the Córdoba mosque ensured that in subsequent centuries many of its features would be emulated in one way or another, becoming part of the emerging canon of architectural forms and decoration in the western lands of Islam.

[15]: 77 Among other examples of important precedents, the overall form of the 8th or 9th-century Bab al-Wuzara gate (Puerta de San Esteban today), with its horseshoe arch, voussoirs of alternating colours, and rectangular alfiz frame, became one of the most recurring motifs of Islamic architecture in the region.

A posthumous poetical illustration by Letitia Elizabeth Landon to an engraving of a painting by David Roberts, was published in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1840.

[124]The South Asian Muslim philosopher and poet Muhammad Iqbal, who is widely regarded as having inspired the Pakistan Movement, visited the Great Cathedral of Córdoba in 1931–32.

Allama Iqbal saw it as a cultural landmark of Islam and described it as:[125] Sacred for lovers of art, you are the glory of faith, You have made Andalusia pure as a holy land!