Widen the mosque or build the library?
In Cordoba the money sufficed for one great work this year: widening the Great Mosque to fit the crowds, or a library to gather books and copyists? The decision: the building the people crowd every day, or the house that set the city apart?
The positions
the mosque party
the mosque gathers everyone every day; nothing comes first
The evidence
its building grew over the reigns until it became the West's greatest landmark
the library party
books without a house are lost; a library births a thousand mosques in minds
The evidence
Cordoba gathered libraries so large their catalogue count became proverbial
You decide
Which of the two buildings would you have paid for first? Write your reason.
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