ENDNOTE  page 80

59.

Moorish mosques: *

When the exiled Umayyad prince Abd al-Rahman I escaped to Iberia and defeated the governor of Al-Andalus, Yusuf al-Fihri, he found the Cordovese divided into various sects; to insure stability & unity he established his own army (of Berbers) and his own civil service.  He also wished to erect a temple which would rival in magnificence those of Baghdad, Jerusalem, and Damascus, and approach in sanctity the fame of Mecca.  This became his rational for building the Great Mosque of Córdoba.  See below, view of the dome and hypostyle hall.