The Cordoba Mosque, now a Unesco world heritage site, was turned into a Catholic cathedral in the 13th century after the southern Spanish city, once the capital of Moorish Spain, was taken from the Muslims by the Christians in the war to oust the Moors from the Iberian peninsula and re-establish Christianity in Spain.

The mosque was built when Spain was the Moorish territory of Al-Andalus, and was promoted as the third holiest Islamic site after the Ka’aba in the Saudi Arabian holy city of Mecca, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

The fabulous mosque pays tribute to the architectural and artistic achievements of Muslim Spain, which is also regarded as a beacon of science and scholarship in 10th-century Europe.

Cordoba residents still call the building “mezquita" (mosque), though it has been used as a Catholic cathedral since the city was conquered by King Ferdinand III.

Now, the building has taken the shape of Catholic churches, with choir stall and chapels built inside it, mingling with Islamic features such as the prayer niche, or the mihrab.

Spain's Islamic Board, which represents a community of some 800,000 in a traditional Catholic country of 44 million, challenges the Catholic Church’s exclusive use of the building, arguing that the site is a heritage of Arab-Berber-Spanish Moors, who ruled large parts of Spain for some 800 years and for whom emir Abd ar-Rahman I built the mosque in the 8th century.

Mansur Escudero, a Muslim convert who heads Spain's Islamic Board, recently prayed in front of the mosque to assert Muslims' right to use it for prayer.

The board has asked Pope Benedict XVI in a letter to turn the mosque into an ecumenical temple where believers of all faiths could worship, arguing that such a move could "awake the conscience" of Christians and Muslims and help bury past confrontations.

"What we wanted was not to take over that holy place, but to create in it, together with you and other faiths, an ecumenical space unique in the world which would have been of great significance in bringing peace to humanity," the letter said.

The board also sent a similar letter to Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

But the Roman Catholic bishop of Cordoba rejected the Muslims’ appeal, claiming that the joint use of places of worships would generate confusion amongst the faithful.

Muslim leaders disagree with Bishop Juan Jose Asenjo’s view.

The mosque, a building with an "enormous symbolic power," could show the way for a "universal spirituality," Audalla Conget, secretary of the Islamic Board, told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa in an interview.

"Spain could be the key that opens the door to peace," he says, recalling the Moorish period when Christians, Muslims and Jews lived in relative harmony.

The Vatican has rejected earlier petitions by Muslims to pray at the Cordoba mosque, but Conget hoped that Pope Benedict XVI would have a more favorable attitude.

The Cordoba bishop's negative answer contradicts with the "interesting gestures" by the Pope, such as praying at an Istanbul mosque, Conget said.

-- AJP and Agencies