Seeking Madrid motives in a cradle of Muslim glory
In Andalusia, Golden Age may yield blast clues
GRANADA, Spain -- In the long shadows of the Alhambra, the palace of the Muslim kingdom in Andalucia in the Golden Age of Islam, a steep, narrow road winds its way up to a new mosque.
The size of the sprawling new edifice and the thriving community of believers at the Foundation Mosque of Granada, completed last summer with funding from Libya, Morocco, and the oil-rich monarchies of the Gulf states, reflect the surging Muslim community in Spain and across Europe. There is a building boom in mosques; there are prayer rooms across the continent.
Perched on a cliff overlooking the majesty of the ninth-century Alhambra palace in southern Spain, the new mosque's location also reflects a modern yearning -- and an ancient resentment -- among many Muslims for the return of the Golden Age, according to historians and investigators who follow trends in militant Islam. Their desire is to recover the "Ummah," or nation of Islam, that ruled the Iberian peninsula for almost eight centuries, until the last Muslim king was forced out of Andalucia in the conquest of Spain by Roman Catholic King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1492.
Critics say this yearning has been manipulated and nurtured by the leadership of Al Qaeda. Investigators say a purported Al Qaeda splinter group based in Morocco may have provided theological and perhaps financial backing to the "sleeper cell" that carried out the Madrid train bombings on March 11.
In the minds of Islamic militants, the loss of the Alhambra and the expulsion of the Moors from Spain 500 years ago is what Al Qaeda's leading ideologist, Ayman al Zawahri, called in a videotaped message "the tragedy of Al-Andalus" -- the Moorish name for Andalucia.
The legend of "The Last Sigh of the Moors" is often repeated in the cassette tapes and pamphlets of militant Islamic clerics like the now-jailed Moroccan Sheik Mohammed al-Fazazi, who is said to have given theological inspiration to at least one key suspect in the Madrid bombings. In that story, the last Islamic king, Boabdil, fled Andalucia in tears while his mother scolded him: "Do not weep like a woman for what you could not defend like a man."
A videotape of a man purporting to be a spokesman in Europe for Al Qaeda claims responsibility for the Madrid bombings, and states that the 10 explosions on March 11 had been intended as a punishment for Spain's support of the US-led war in Iraq.
But investigators piecing together shards of evidence now say they believe the cell that carried out the attacks began planning them as much as a year before the war in Iraq began.
Counterterrorism investigators and analysts -- both US and Spanish -- say there may be a much wider backdrop for the attacks on Spain, and for the presence of Al Qaeda cells in Spain. Spain's top counterterrorism magistrate, Baltasar Garzon, has outlined those cells in an indictment that suggests cells in Spain were central to the plot to carry out the 9/11 attacks in the United States.
In the train bombings, authorities have arrested 13 men; almost all of them are Moroccans or from elsewhere in North Africa. Jamal Zougam, a 30-year-old Morrocan immigrant and owner of a mobile phone shop in Madrid, has emerged as the key suspect.
Spanish and Moroccan media have linked Zougam with a militant Islamic faction known as the Salafia Jihadia group, which Moroccan authorities say is inspired by Al Qaeda and was behind attacks on Spanish and Jewish targets in Casablanca last May that killed 45 people. German, Spanish, and Moroccan police are pursuing leads that the bombings may have been connected to another Salafist organization, the Moroccan Islamic Combat Group.
Among those suspects arrested was Fazazi, with whom Zougam met in August 2001 and to whom Zougam offered support, according to wiretapped conversations quoted in court documents.
Gustavo de Aristegui, a member of Parliament and a former director general of the Interior Ministry who is viewed as a leading analyst on militant Islam, said: "These terrorists have a much bigger reason to strike against Spain than the war in Iraq."
"They have a grander vision, which is an obsession with the demise of Al-Andalus. We hear this in the sermons of the militant Islamic sheiks like Fazazi.
"It is all part of their understanding of the historic humiliation that they feel the West inflicted upon Islam," added Aristegui, who has had several diplomatic postings in the Arab world.
Cesar Vidal, author of a new book titled "Spain Facing Islam: From Mohammed to bin Laden," said the yearning for Andalucia, particularly among the Salafi school of Islam, is "very much alive in the mosques."
The memory of Andalucia is indeed alive in the back streets of the immigrant neighborhood of Madrid known as Lavapies, where most of the suspects lived.
Inside a storefront mosque, the Bangladeshi Islamic Cultural Center, in a warren of streets where Islamic restaurants have names like "Alhambra" and "Al-Andalus," the call to prayer was coming from the melodic and steady voice of Allam Mohamed, 28, a jewelry salesman born in Morocco. Asked whether Muslims want to regain control of Spain, he said: "This is a belief of all Muslims. Every Muslim wants to see that happen."
Sheik Riay Tatary Bakry, a Muslim cleric who heads the Abu Bakr mosque in Madrid and is director of the Federation of Islamic Communities of Spain, said there were at least 500,000 Muslims in Spain and perhaps as many as 200,000 more who were undocumented immigrants working in menial labor. Just 20 years ago, he estimated, there were fewer than 30,000 Muslims in Spain.
The Muslim populations have surged all over Europe. Countries including France, Germany, and England also have seen a dramatic increase in construction of mosques, prayer rooms, and cultural centers.
Spain, like most of Europe, has struggled to integrate immigrants from Muslim countries into society while also trying to root out pockets of Islamic militancy that investigators fear have become part of a network of terrorist cells planted over 10 years by Al Qaeda.
Abu Bakr, which was built in 1988, was the first mosque constructed in Spain since the Moors were expelled, according to Tatary. Now there are six mosques and at least 250 smaller places of Muslim worship, known as "prayer rooms," in Spain, he said.
Tatary said the idea of returning Spain to the Ummah was far from the minds of the vast majority of Muslims. But he added: "There are a lot of young people who are influenced by that notion . . . Spain has something of the Muslim in its heart." He spoke as scores of young men with beards and prayer caps came in and out of classrooms and dormitories in the five-story building that houses the Abu Bakr mosque.
Indeed, Spain has had a more intimate relationship with Islam than any other Western country. Spain's food, its art, its music and culture were always greatly influenced by the Moors.
The Alhambra lies on a fault line between East and West. Thousands of Spaniards and foreign tourists wander through the beautiful gardens and courtyards within its massive fortress walls.
For Westerners, it is a place to ponder the past glories of Islam and to try to square them with the struggling, conflict-torn societies of the Arab world now. And for many Muslims, it is a place to be reminded of the proud history of an advanced society in mathematics, architecture, and design that was a light of civilization in the Dark Ages of Europe.
"For every Muslim, Andalucia exists as a romantic theme, a dream, a part of our poetry," said Abdal Hasib Castineira, the director of the cultural center at the Foundation Mosque of Granada, as he looked out over the Alhambra. "But now it is not a dream, we are here as a community."
Asked whether militant Islamic groups had used the memory of Andalucia to foster resentment among recruits, he said of the Madrid bombings: "What these people did can never be justified. Whoever did it has nothing to do with Islam, and knows nothing about the meaning of Alhambra to the history of the faith." 