In support of this “Spanish” version of Islam, the Junta received some public funding for its postgraduate course in Islamic civilization and culture at Spain’s National Distance Learning University, as well as for the international conference it sponsors on Islamic feminism. The influence was mutual: Zapatero’s proposal to the United Nations in September 2004 for an “Alliance of Civilizations” bore clear traces of New Muslim rhetoric. Urging international efforts to foster understanding between Muslim and non-Muslim countries as a defence against international terrorism, Zapatero began his address by calling himself the leader of an “ancient and diverse country, with different languages, different traditions, different cultures.”
However, not all of the Junta’s activities have been well-received by Spanish non-Muslims. The group’s attempts to publicly redefine Cordoba’s famous Mezquita, one of al-Andalus’s most revered sites, for example, have so far failed. Begun under the Emir Abd ar-Rahman I in 784, the Mezquita was one of the wonders of the Muslim world, an architectural triumph that epitomized the cultural, religious, and educational achievements of the caliphate. In the sixteenth century, Charles V ripped out the Mezquita’s centre arches and replaced them with a Catholic nave appropriate to the building’s new status as Cordoba’s cathedral — a status it retains to this day. Critics have since lamented the loss of the mosque’s aesthetic unity, but not even the ornately carved choir stall or florid paintings of saints lining the chapel walls have eradicated the edifice’s essential Islamic style. And yet Muslims are not allowed to worship there. Private security guards, hired by Cordoba’s bishopric, which owns the Mezquita, follow orders to forcibly eject from the building any Muslim who bends to pray.
Many ecumenical groups supported the effort, but not the Catholic Church. Although Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, then the president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, declared that the matter had to be decided by the local bishop, he also pointedly suggested that “Muslims must accept history.” In December 2006, with a new pope in Rome, the Junta again appealed to the Vatican, only to be told brusquely by Cordoba’s bishop, Juan José Asenjo, that the diocese would not consent to Muslim worship in its cathedral. The temple had been Christian since its reconquest in the thirteenth century, he said, and opening it to Muslim prayer would “only generate confusion among the faithful.” Escudero staged a sit-in of sorts, unrolling his prayer mat in the gardens of the Mezquita and, as cameras flashed, beginning to pray. His gesture was not well-received.
For many in Spain, the New Muslims’ pleasing discourse about al-Andalus has begun to seem insufficient to justify their privileged position. The group’s liberal efforts have failed, for example, to persuade some critics that converts are not involved in broader attempts to radicalize Islam in Europe, especially since three British converts were found among those charged in the London airline bombing plot in 2006. Indeed, two prominent members of Spanish society have published books warning of the dangers converts pose. Gustavo de Arístegui, a congressman with the conservative Popular Party and the author of La Yíhad en España (Jihad in Spain), argues that converts represent an effective means of spreading extremist ideas. “Jihadist groups were once suspicious of converts because they feared that they were intelligence agents trying to infiltrate their cells,” he writes. “But someone with European looks and a Western last name raises fewer suspicions, so the jihadists are realizing that they can be effective cannon fodder for suicide missions. They are almost impossible to detect, especially if they have not revealed their conversion to their family.” Arístegui admits the number of converts who are active jihadists is small (Yusuf Galán is the only convert among the 200 Muslims arrested in Spain in conjunction with 9/11 and 3/11; he was later released). “But,” he notes, “the number who support the ideals that feed terrorism is much greater.”
Rosa María Rodríguez Magda, a member of the Valencia Council for Culture, worries less about terrorism than about the converts’ position in the debate about democratic values in Spain. She blames converts for seeking rights that contradict democratic values. She is also concerned that converts may be an unwitting Trojan Horse through which a more conservative Islam will take hold in Spain. And she calls special attention to what she views as a slippery slope between converts’ claims of descent from al-Andalus and Islamist demands to reclaim the historic kingdom.
Her anxiety is shared by many. In December 2006, the conservative newspaper abc reported, with notable distress, on plans for large mosques in Seville and at Medina Azahara, the site of a caliphal palace once located outside Cordoba, and tied the proposed construction to Muslim efforts “to reclaim al-Andalus,” observing that the groups backing the construction “are comprised mainly of converts.”
Despite these fears, many New Muslims find themselves increasingly at odds with foreign-born Muslims. Part of this tension is likely due to the natural sense of displacement felt by converts as more immigrant Muslims arrive and become comfortable in their adopted country. But the friction also confirms the tension between the version of Islam preached by the Junta and other convert groups and the version propagated by “old” Muslims. Says Castiñeira of those he calls “Arab” fundamentalists, “They don’t have a problem with our vision of Islam. They have a problem with how we implement our vision of Islam.”
Many old Muslims are reluctant to air their differences with converts. Mohamed El Afifi, spokesperson for Madrid’s Islamic cultural centre, for example, goes no further than to diplomatically acknowledge certain distinctions. “Those of us who are born Muslim have one kind of defined life,” he says. “Those who convert to Islam have another. The faith is enriched by both.” As to the disagreements between the Junta Islámica and other Muslim organizations, he demurs. “We don’t like to get involved in that kind of muddle.”
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