“Shawarmas are as diverse as people”, my mind postulates. I’ve tried the Shawarmas of two side by side shops on Windsor’s Oulette Ave, and I’m impressed. Canadian Arabs and Muslims are making great progress on many things, and in that moment for me, it was the Shawarma.
I took three Shawarmas to go, for myself and two friends in this journey — Brian H. and Hisham O. (yes, another Hisham). We continued our drive towards Detroit Airport, met with the Department of Homeland Security to exchange goodbyes (they insisted), sat on a seat for half a day, and were soon landing in Madrid, Spain.
No one spoke English in Spain, even in the airport. Oddly enough, we hear some Arabic cheers close by. They’re Muslim families, with tea and biscuits in hand, welcoming back their pilgrims from Hajj. So much for the Catholic Kingdom’s brutal expulsion of Muslims out of Spain 500 years ago. I guess we’re back.
As if to prove that even more, the families direct us to the 20-year old mosque (pic1,pic2). Coming from Canada, we expected some warehouse-turned-mosque building, but just seeing the minaret from a distance blew that impression away.
With a cafe, restaurant, library, and a fountain courtyard, the Madrid mosque is more than just a place to pray. The worldly and spiritual lives are meshed together, or perhaps just one and the same. And that theme continued as we explored, in the next 8 days, the 800 year Muslim rule of Al-Andalus.
If I only had one day in Al-Andalus, Granada would be my destination. Heck, if I had another 8 days, I might just spend them all in Granada next time. The city put all three of us into some kind of a tranquil reflective state.
Perhaps it was the sad beauty of The AlHambra. It had beautiful rooms and fountains but no one lived there. It had walls filled with Arabic calligraphy praising God, but only sounds of tour guides and digital cameras bouncing against them. It had rooms oriented towards Mecca, but devoid of worshipers. It was like a beautiful young woman who lost her love, and will remain beautiful and young forever but without her loved one.
Ok, back to reality: Granada actually has a sizable Muslim population, many of whom are Spanish converts. Their main masjid, though much smaller than anything of Andalucian times, is very nice and of the same style as it’s predecessors. We went there for the Friday Prayer, where the sermon was given in Spanish and Arabic. 
In there, we accidentally met Niyaz, another wandering Canadian. It turns out he also went to the University of Waterloo (all four of us were from the ‘loo!), and we had many common friends back in Canada!
At a coffee shop with a breathtaking view of AlHambra, we caught up with our new companion and reflected on the past, present, and future. Niyaz is one of these people who took an extended break from Canada to study Islam in Fez, Morocco (which we would later visit and hook up with Niyaz again in), so there was a lot to talk about. It was one of those few moments where you just know you’re in the right place, with the right people, talking about the right things.
Other great Andalucian cities we visited include: Malaga, Ronda, Seville, and Cordoba. But I am too lazy to write about them, and a picture is worth a thousand words, so let’s do a couple of sentences for each city with many pictures:
Malaga (pic) (“Malaka” — Queen in Arabic) is a coastal town with the awesome El Gibralfaro fortress that manages to be both beautiful and impenetrable (only a siege could defeat the city). It also had many orange and cactus trees that I couldn’t help eat from (Sour Sour Oranges, Attack of the Cactus Trees). Walking around the city, we oddly enough see camel Christmas decorations (pic). Oh and the underground parking garage in downtown Malaga has a superb invention. A green light above each parking spot indicates the space is available, otherwise it’s red. So user friendly.
Ronda is a town high up in the mountains at the end of a funny twisty road (pic). I ate Octopus there. Definitely no Windsor Shawarma. Besides Moorish fortress walls and arched city gates, Ronda has a very well preserved Moorish public bath. Interestingly, when Ronda fell, the Catholic Kingdom forbade anyone to use this bath because regular showering was considered affinity to Islam.
Seville is one of the major Andalucian cities, but without its significant history and huge monuments would be a flat and dull city kind of like Waterloo. It had a huge mosque-turned-cathedral. The minaret was extended with church bells and structures I’ve never seen like before were put over the dome and rooftop. There’s also a huge well-preserved Moorish palace with the keys to Seville inside inscribed with “May Allah keep this land Muslim”. Nearby is the street where the Inquisition burned Jews and Muslims at the stake. Unfortunately, due to an announced change in the hours the cathedral and palace were open, we weren’t able to enter any of them. So we instead explored Seville and tried out various dishes of “Tapas“, a variety of Spanish appetizers. They were good but no Windsor Shawarma. When we asked the non-English speaking waiter what one particular Tapa dish contained, he pointed to his crotch and stomach and laughed, so we passed on that one!
Cordoba has two magnificent sights: Medina Az-Zahra’ and the Cordoba Masjid-turned-Cathedral. Medina Az-Zahra‘ seems to be a recent excavation, and was still being worked on when we visited. It is a grand residential town built by one of the Cordoba Caliphs and named after his favorite wife, Az-Zahra’ (the pink one, or the rose?). It has a series of beautiful arches and well-preserved bathtubs — just like the ones in our homes today.
The Cordoba Mosque was packed with tourists from all over the world. It’s architecture was originally Islamic, but Catholic modifications later made, so the build is kind of a visual oxymoron. Statues of Jesus and Saints stand alongside Arabic “There is no God but Allah” calligraphy. The thousands of Islamic-styled arches are actually nicely merged with Gothic/Roman cathedral architecture, culminating into the cathedral placed in the centre of the mosque. There’s a room filled with various paintings, one huge one depicted Muslim rulers bowing to King Ferdinand and handing him the keys to the city. I was watching the tourists, and most of them paid more attention to the Islamic architecture rather than the Christian, probably because they’ve seen the same Christian art in Churches elsewhere. According to history, even King Carlos V who ordered the work regretted it and scolded the artists when the work was done: “You have built what you or others might have built anywhere, but you have destroyed something that was unique in the world.” This was more than just a mosque by the way — it was a university, a place where leading thinkers “hung out”, and a place to walk in and enjoy the orange trees (though I read that in Muslim times, palm trees were planted).
There’s much more to write of course, but my writing skills will never be up to par to the wonder of Al-Andalus. You just gotta go and visit it sometime. Leaving Al-Andalus, there was a mixture of emotions in me. I felt part proud, part ashamed, part contemplating “What If?” questions, part feeling the Muslims got what they deserved, part optimistic, and part longing for that Windsor Shawarma 
.
And like the Andalucian refugees escaping their lost land, we took the ferry to Morocco. They must have good Shawarma there.
To be continued…
. Let me summarize it.
