Machine summary:
Those gates of Toledo transport the onlooker back a thousand years or more, and enable him to visualise the appearance of the city in the days of its Arab overlords.
A most interesting building, commenced in 922, and now known as the church of Santo Cristo de la Luz, is reminiscent of the Great Mosque of Cordova by reason of its horseshoe arches and the varied capitals of its pillars.
Both internally and externally the building is most impressive, so thoroughly Arab in appearance and atmosphere that the pleasant little Spanish girl, who acts as cicerone, is as out of place as the additions made by the Christians when they converted this mosque of Bab al-Iviardio: into a church.
At [aen, the Arab J ayydn, once the capital of an independent Moorish kingdom, it is a fascinating occupation to wander round the ruined castle and ramparts, picking out here and there finely cut horseshoe arches, ajimcccs and houses of oriental aspect with beautiful wrought• iron balustrades.
Over the arch there is an inscription in Spanish-Arab characters, the translation of which is as follows: "This Gate of Justice (May God keep it in the Justice of Islam, since it has been erected to glorify Him for long) was built by order of our lord the Amir of the Muslims, the just and warlike Sultan, Abu'l• Hajja] Yusuf, son of our master, the just and holy Sultan, Abu'l-Walid b.
Yet her wonderful mosque is a superb legacy of the days when Cordova was the capital of the Arab empire in Spain.