Qurtuba

Before the Alhambra, before the Reconquista, there was Córdoba - Qurtuba - the intellectual capital of the medieval Islamic world, home to Europe’s greatest library, its finest physicians, and its most luminous poets. This mat evokes that civilization: a deep navy ground woven through with fine gold arabesque of extraordinary density, centered on a multi-pointed star medallion that radiates outward in every direction. There is a meditative quality to the Qurtuba, more restrained than its Andalusian counterpart, more inward-looking - like the scholars who once sat in Córdoba’s lamp-lit libraries and looked for God in mathematics. For those who carry that same search into their salah.