Seeking Madrid motives in a cradle of Muslim glory
In Andalusia, Golden Age may yield blast clues
By Charles M. Sennott, Globe Staff, 3/28/2004

http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2004/03/28/seeking_madrid_motiv\
es_in_a_cradle_of_muslim_glory/

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."

© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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