TigerHawk

TigerHawk (ti*ger*hawk): n. 1. The title of this blog and the nom de plume of its founding blogger; 2. A deep bow to the Princeton Tigers and the Iowa Hawkeyes; 3. The nickname for Iowa's Hawkeye logo. Posts include thoughts of the day on international affairs, politics, things that strike us as hilarious and personal observations. The opinions we express are our own, and not those of each other, our employers, our relatives, our dead ancestors, or unrelated people of similar ethnicity.

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Let us pray

By TigerHawk at 10/08/2008 05:23:00 PM

Given the relentless pounding in the financial markets, we could do worse than simply repairing to a great cathedral and praying like a man dispossessed. The cathedral of Seville, this evening:

More here.

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4 Comments:

By Anonymous, at Wed Oct 08, 11:05:00 PM:

Unless I miss my guess, I'll bet those ar minarets on the corners of that church, and not bell towers....

By Anonymous, at Thu Oct 09, 12:57:00 AM:

(I'm a different nonnymouse than the poster above)

Quote: "Unless I miss my guess, I'll bet those ar minarets on the corners of that church, and not bell towers...."

Well yes, and no. The cathedral of Seville was built on the ruins of the grand central mosque that went out of business rather suddenly in 1492. It is (I believe) the largest Gothic style cathedral in the world. It is massive, moody, and I didn't really care for it when I visited Sevilla in September '06.

However. It does have a lovely feature, La Gitanilla, which is a clock tower located next to the cathedral. It was indeed a minaret for the mosque; the conquistadores decided to preserve it (and the Court of Oranges) when they renovated.

The tower is square and the ramp inside leading to the top is also square and inlaid with brick. There are regular windows with small balconies where the muezzins would call for prayer five times each day.

As I ascended the ramp, I pictured first the soft slippers of the muezzins and then the hard leather boots of the Spaniards as they labored to haul up all the machinery necessary to build the clock tower.

Each step for me grew lighter as I made my way to the top, thinking of al-Andalus giving way to Spain and Christianity.

Then I reached the top, eagerly looked out over the beautiful panoply of Seville, and then my blood ran cold.

At the outskirts of Greater Seville, in a 360 degree radius:

The bright golden spires atop the minarets of mosque after mosque after mosque.

Seville is surrounded.