Caliphal Baths in Códoba

Hammam or Baths of the Umayyad and Almohad Caliphs

Al-Andalus was the Muslim-ruled Iberian peninsula during 711–1492. It included all of today's Portugal and Spain minus a thin strip through the Pyrenees mountains and north coast, plus a thin strip along the coast of today's southern France.

Greek and Phoenician colonists had established settlements along the Mediterranean coast of Iberia. Rome took control of Iberia, then Rome faded and crumbled away. The city known today as Córdoba was briefly an important place in 552–572 under the Byzantine Empire. Then, later in the 6th century, the Visigoths took control of Iberia. Both the Greeks and the Romans had built classic three-stage bath facilities, where one progressed through a cold room, a warm room, and a hot room, and that technology continued through the following Arab takeover.

The Umayyad Caliphate was the second caliphate established after the death of Muhammad. It was established in Damascus in 661, and expanded west across North Africa. Crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, and starting with a military victory over the Visigoths in 711, the Umayyads took control of Iberia. They established their regional capital in today's Córdoba, their قرطبة or Qurṭubah.

Córdoba became the second-largest city in Europe, after Constantinople. In 1000 CE, 500,000 people lived in Constantinople and 350,000 in Córdoba. Only 30,000 people lived in Rome.

Of course the ruling Emirs and Caliphs had a luxurious hammam or bath with both religious and social purposes, and of course I visited it!

Control of al-Andalus progressed through various dynasties, the taifa periods being non-unified rule by small kingdoms. The years here are in CE and not AH. Periods in bold face are of particular interest here:

The 750 Emirate and 929 Caliphate upgrades were bold declarations by the leaders at the time. Caliph is an especially bold claim, as it implies that the Caliph is the political–religious successor to Muhammad, and thus the leader of the entire Muslim world. The Ottoman Caliphate of 1517–1924 was the most recent credible and successful claim to be one.

Dark and Dirty Europe

The Dark Ages in Europe were the Dirty Ages. Outside of al-Andalus, greater Russia, the more Greek parts of the Byzantine Empire, and Jewish settlements, people simply didn't bathe.

Oh, maybe once a year, for Easter. But very likely not even then. Washing your body with water was seen as tremendously risky. A bath carried a risk of immediate death because of the supposed shock caused by getting wet. Russians had their banya, Jews had their mikveh, and traditional Greeks had their three-chamber multi-temperature bath facilities. The rest of non-Muslim Europe had their protective outer crust of filth.

Smart and Clean al-Andalus

The Muslims, like the Jews, bathed to clean themselves for ritual reasons, and also just simply to be clean. Further down this page are pictures and descriptions of the baths built for the Caliphs of Córdoba.

The Muslims also maintained civilization. Córdoba was one of the leading cultural and intellectual centers of the Mediterranean basin and east through the Islamic world. "Algebra" and "alcohol" are Arabic words: al-jabr and al-kuḥl. In addition to mathematics and chemistry, Europe could also thank the Muslims of al-Andalus for many other advances beyond Greek science and philosophy: trigonometry, medicine, surgery, pharmacology, psychology, astronomy, agronomy, and several other fields of science. Plus theology, philosophy, and linguistics.

Moses ben Maimon, popularly known today as Maimonides (1138–1204), trained in medicine in Fez and Córdoba. He eventually became the personal physician of Sala'adin and his son. He was a highly esteemed rabbi, and is still influential on Jewish thought and practice. And, he wrote widely on both astronomy and philosophy. His statue is close to the old synagogue of Córdoba, just inside the old city walls. It stays highly polished by all the people who rub his foot to ensure a return to Córdoba, or his book in hopes of gaining knowledge.

Close to his statue but on the other side of the wall is one of Ibn Rushd (1126–1198), an Islamic law expert who lived in Córdoba at the same time as Maimonides. He said "Hold my tea and watch this":

Ibn Rushd was also a physician, the first to describe the signs of Parkinson's, the first to conclude that the retina and not the lens was the sensor of light, and the developer of a new and more accurate understanding of stroke.

Ibn Rushd was also a major figure of philosophy. He translated and wrote commentaries of Aristotle's works. In Arabic, of course, but other Arabs eventually translated all that into Latin. Almost no one in Roman Catholic western Europe could read Greek, so they couldn't read anything written by Greek philosophers (or any of the original New Testament, for that matter). If not for Ibn Rushd, western Europe wouldn't have known that Aristotle existed, let alone what he said.

Not wanting to be accused of just idly sitting around, Ibn Rushd also wrote books on astronomy, physics, theology, and psychology.

To the Caliphal Baths

Córdoba had public baths, with different operating hours for men and women. Many public baths were the property of the mosques, who charged a small entry fee to pay for their upkeep.

The Caliphal Baths, however, were for the elite, the rulers and their families. It's close to the palace, which in turn is close to what the locals today simply call la Mezquita, The Mosque, or more formally, the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba. It's one of the top buildings in the world, perhaps the best thing to see in all of Spain.

On the way to the baths, I passed many city utility covers and several fountains. The city's water system access covers show versions of the city seal, with the minaret-turned-belltower of the Mosque and the palm trees of the Patio de las Naranjas, the Courtyard of the Oranges attached to the Mosque. Some also show the old water wheel and the bridge, built by the Arabs in 711–712 on the ruins of a Roman bridge, and used for vehicle traffic until 2004.

The city has many continuously running water fountains.

The Caliphal Baths ceased to be used after the Christians seized the city in 1236. They were covered over and the space was used to build a square.

The baths were forgotten until they were accidentally rediscovered in 1903 during gardening work in that square. A historian studied them briefly, enough to realize that they were baths and were associated with the Caliphs. Then they were covered up again.

The baths were again uncovered and studied in 1961–1964, and declared a Cultural Heritage Property of Spain a few years later. UNESCO declared them a World Heritage Site in 1994. They were partially reconstructed and converted into a museum in 2006. Here's how the site looked when I visited in 2025:

Surah 5:6 of the Quran says that it is important to wash before prayer, or after you have used the toilet, or had contact with women:

O you who believe, when you rise up for prayer, wash your faces, and your hands up to the elbows, and wipe your heads, and (wash) your feet up to the ankles. And if you are under an obligation, then wash (yourselves). And if you are sick or on a journey, or one of you comes from the privy, or you have had contact with women and you cannot find water, betake yourselves to pure earth and wipe your faces and your hands therewith. Allah desires not to place a burden on you but He wishes to purify you, and that He may complete His favour on you, so that you may give thanks.

Pre-prayer washing or ablution is done at a mîdhâ, an ablutions facility, frequently in a walled courtyard attached to the entry side of the mosque. Or, built into a side wall of a mosque built within a limited space. Wuḍū or الوضوء is the specific procedure for cleaning your face and head, hands and arms to the elbows, and feet up to the ankles. Further Islamic regulations on toilet hygiene are codified in hādīth, sayings attributed to Muhammad.

Full-body ablutions, or ghusl or غسل are required in certain situations including Friday prayers and prayers for Islamic holidays. For that you need a full bath facility, like what we're seeing here.

The Reception Hall or Bayt al-Maslaj

The first Caliphal Baths of Córdoba, what you're seeing here, were built during the 961–976 reign of Caliph Al-Hakam II, during the Umayyad Caliphate.

The users of these baths entered from the south side. A display of the overall layout is in the original entryway, just in from where you buy your ticket.

They want today's visitors to keep their pants on. But back when, the Bayt al-Maslaj, where you removed clothing, was either here or in the next chamber.

The Cold Room or Bayt al-Barid, and the Latrines

Into the bath! Bayt al-Barid or the Cold Room is the starting point. Since many hammam visits were for ritual purification, not just getting cleaner than those smelly northern Europeans, that means getting clean outside and inside. Not necessarily colonoscopy clean, somehow neither Maimonides nor Ibn Rushd had invented that process just yet, but definitely dump the contents of your bladder and bowels.

The bathers would have received loose robes and alcorques, cork-soled sandals to avoid slipping on the wet marble floors, or scalding their feet on the floors of the Warm or especially the Hot Room.

The cold room is a little over-reconstructed:

But, they do have a diagram of how the Caliph's latrine was built. Pee directly into the small drain, poop into the slot. Running water washed the waste away.

A nearby narrow space was used for purposes they don't now clearly explain. Perhaps storage, perhaps a personal disrobing space.

From here, the bather continued along the route through different rooms with water at various temperature. Steam baths, water jets, and massages awaited on the route to total purification of the body.

The Warm Room or Bayt al-Wastany

Bayt al-Wastany or the Warm Room was the most important room in the Caliphal baths.

This is where the thorough cleaning was done and where social connections and political deals happened.

The Warm Room is rectangular with alcoves around its perimeter. Columns and arches support half-barrel vaults. It was decorated with murals made with iron oxide, painted on the walls above marble tiles extending a short distance up the wall. Star-shaped skylights provide light.

The Warm Room was a space for bodily hygiene. Staff provided vigorous scrubbing and massaging. The staff was especially attentive to the Caliph, who received daily hygiene and cosmetic treatment — hairdressing, shaving, massage, and assistance with dressing.

And, once properly cleaned and prepared, the Caliph would use the space to receive illustrious visitors and to make political deals for the Córdoban court.

The entirety of the Caliphal baths was richly decorated. Display cases show of column capitals, wall trim, and other decorative stonework.

The Infrastructure and the Hot Room or Bayt al-Sajun

The Bayt al-Sajun or the Hot Room was next. As you step in from the Warm Room, what you immediately see is the infrastructure. A space beyond the Hot Room held the furnace and the bronze boiler. A channel in the floor, visible here, carried hot water and steam into a hypocaust, a space beneath the floors of the Hot Room and the Warm Room. The floor was supported by narrow stacks of tiles that held up the much broader floor tiles.

The exhaust from the furnace also traveled into the hypocaust and then up through channels in the walls between the Hot Room and the Warm Room and into the chimney.

The Hot Room was optional, available if you wanted to use it. The focus was on the Warm Room, where the detailed hygiene maintenance took place.

The hot room had two chambers, one on either side of the central furnace and bronze boiler. One chamber contained a hot water pool, although hot water immersions were used mostly as a theraputic remedy.

The other side was more likely to be used. It was the shower, with a hot water tank with a nozzle that sprayed water out about shoulder to head high.

The Hot Room Turns Hot

The hot room was the site of the assassinations of two Caliphs, in 1018 and 1024.

The first was the 22 March 1018 assassination of Ali ibn Hammud al-Nasir, a Caliph of Moroccan origin who ruled 1016–1018, carried out by three of his slaves.

The second hot room assassination happened on 17 January 1024. There was unrest in Córdoba because the Umayyad Caliph, Abd al-Rahman V, kept showing favoritism to the African troops billeted in the city. The public stormed the palace, and then swarmed into the bath and killed the Caliph.

Taifa-era Garden

The Umayyad Caliphate fell in 1031. Córdoba remained an influential city, but for a while it was the seat of the governor under the Taifa or Kingdom of Seville. The taifa periods saw al-Andalusia ruled by multiple non-unified kingdoms, not an overall Emirate or Caliphate.

The Arabs had very sophisticated hydraulic engineering and irrigation systems. Under taifa rule, a garden was built across the entry side of the baths. The garden was designed to reflect the Islamic idea of Paradise. Two channels of water divided the garden into four sections, meeting at a pavilion or fountain at the garden's center. The water for the baths and the garden was brought in via an aqueduct that ran along the top of the city walls.

The garden probably contained orange and lemon trees, and myrtle and other aromatic plants, making it a pleasure for the senses. The garden was laid out at a lower level, so that the treetops were at the same height as the people entering the baths.

A long chamber runs along the front side of today's museum, where the taifa-built garden once stood.

The Almohad Extension and its Reception Hall or Bayt al-Maslaj

The Almoravid dynasty based in Marrakech conquered and took control from the taifa kingdoms in 1085. See the dedicated page for a look at Almoravid waterworks.

The Almoravids lost control of al-Andalus in 1145, and it was back to fragmented taifa rule for two years. Then the Almohad dynasty took control and announced that they were the Almohad Caliphate. They build a new three-stage hammam, reusing the existing furnace, boiler, and other infrastructure.

The picture below was taken from one end of the new entry hall, looking toward the door to the changing room and onward to the Cold Room. The person at left is walking through what was the garden.

The bather then prepared by removing their clothes in Bayt al-Maslaj, the Changing Room.

The Cold Room or Bayt al-Barid

The bather entered Bay al-Barid, the Cold Room, to receive a robe and alcorques or cork-soled shoes.

Initial ablutions were done in the Cold Room, which had a tiled fountain at its center. The latrine was in a small chamber off the Cold Room, kept clean with running water. Get clean inside as well as outside!

The Warm Room or Bayt al-Wastany

More involved washing and other forms of cleaning and beautification happened in Bayt al-Wastany, the Warm Room.

The Warm Room remained the focus of a visit to the baths, with socialization in parallel to hygiene. At least as restored today, the Almohad Warm Room is far less opulent than the Umayyad one. I suspect that the original Caliphal baths were used by the Almohad Caliph while the Almohad extension was for figures of lower rank.

The Hot Room or Bayt al-Sajun

The Almohad era Bayt al-Sajun or Hot Room was also adjacent to the central furnace and bronze water boiler, on the opposite side from the Umayyad one. The furnace and boiler were through that narrow opening.

As in the earlier side, the Hot Room was flanked by two chambers with pools, one for immersion and the other for showering.

After the Christian Reconquista

After Christian forces under Ferdinand III captured Córdoba in 1236, the new Christian rulers actually used the baths for a while. Then, in 1328, King Alfonso XI built a new set of baths for his favorite mistress, Leonor de Guzmán, within the adjacent palace. This was when the Caliphal baths were buried and forgotten, as described at the top of this page.