In a classic example of bullies playing victim, Saudi-assisted Muslims have been demanding the right use Spain's Cordoba Cathedral as a mosque in the hope of reclaiming it:

The recuperation of places and buildings that were once mosques or sacred Islamic sites is the primary method employed by Muslims to reconquer Al-Ándalus. So-called moderate Muslims are oftentimes more effective than extremists in gaining concessions because of their attempts to portray Western democracies as intolerant if those countries don't cede to certain demands. This technique has been used repeatedly in the case of the Córdoba Cathedral.

Spanish Muslims have for years been petitioning for the right to celebrate Friday prayer in the cathedral. Up until now these requests have been denied, which is a good thing according to Spanish politician Gustavo de Arístegui, the nation's foremost expert on Islamic terrorism. Arístegui explains that if this request were to be granted, it would set a dangerous precedent. Similar demands would follow in ancient mosques throughout the Iberian Peninsula. Far from satisfying Muslims, initial concessions would only serve to inspire Islamic extremists and their potential recruits.

This game of "who was there first" means that because Roman Christians built the Hagia Sofia, they should have the right to take it back. (As Aaron Hanscom points out while in Turkey last November, the Pope "refrained from praying or crossing himself when he visited the Hagia Sophia.")

Should Wiccans have the right to "take back" the Vatican and other places once home to pagan activities?

As I just got back from Spain, my immediate reaction to the story was to exclaim that I was half expecting Barcelona's statue of Isabel la Católica to stand up and start wielding her sword again.

Fortunately, I took a picture of that very statue, and here she is:

Isabel (known to us as Isabella), of course, was famous not just for dispatching Columbus to the New World, but for expelling the Muslims from Spain. I don't think she'd take kindly to the Muslim demands of today.

Still, she's about likely to get up off her pedestal and start swinging at Muslims as the 12th Imam is to come out of his holy well. I probably have Jason and the Argonauts on the brain and I'm expecting something like this:

Not that I have any illusions about Isabella being a nice person by modern standards. She launched the Spanish Inquisition, and her explusion of Spain's Jews (she initially opposed measures against Jews until Torquemada talked her husband into it) ranks as a major disgrace and weakened Spain.

Still, she was the first named woman to make it onto a United States coin:

Such a feat would seem unlikely today.

(Unless, of course, Isabella could be rebadged as a Hispanic feminist.)

MORE: At Andalucia.com (a tourist site with no particular axe to grind), Lawrence Bohme ("artist, author and conference intepreter") takes a long historical look at the Cathedral:

First, the Romans built a pagan temple on the site. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the new Germanic masters of Spain (the Visigoths) replaced it with the Christian church of Saint Vincent. When the Arabs conquered the peninsula in the early 8th century, they tore down the church and began building their great mosque, which - commensurate with Cordoba's importance as the centre of Muslim power in Spain - became the largest mosque in all of Islam after that of Caaba, in Arabia.

I just knew it had to be the Pagans!