Interview with Jalid Nieto, spokesperson for the Seville Mosque Foundation

When Ferdinand III conquered the city of Seville, the inhabitants of the Muslim city were grouped together in a neighbourhood marked by the current squares of San Leandro, San Marcos or San Pedro.
In this old neighborhood of the Moorish Quarter, nearby is the Plaza de Ponce de León and in this square, today a bustle of buses coming and going with new travelers, between a Sevillian house and an old convent of the Third Order is a low room, with a discreet façade where you can read: “Fundación Mezquita de Sevilla”.
The wall already looks clean, a few weeks ago it had suffered the xenophobic graffiti of those who, according to our protragonist, “do not understand that this is a place of coexistence with the city”. “I don’t have a rejection of the past, on the contrary, I felt an evolution, I didn’t have a break with what I was” Khalid Nieto, welcomes us with the singular “Adab”, the word that Islam uses for the meaning of welcome and hospitality, which is nothing more than good manners and courtesy.
Khalid (whose meaning is the eternal, that which remains) reveals in his first surname “Grandson”, that we are talking about a singular Muslim.
Born and raised in the Cortijo de Cuarto, on the hill of Bellavista, where San Fernando entrusted himself to the Virgin of Valme for his entry into the Muslim city, Khalid called himself, before his conversion, Joaquín.
He was educated in Catholicism, fulfilled its sacraments and had an active role in the social action of the Church, from Catholic Action and his parish of Bellavista, practically sponsored by Don Pedro Ybarra, rector of the seminary of Seville.
He had received the Salesian charism that makes man useful to society, or the ecumenical spirituality of Taize, but, “Religious action is emptied if there is no interior action,” he reflects.
A book by Professor José Acosta on historical Andalusism reveals the linearity of history, impossible to compartmentalize, and the heritage that this history maintains in Seville in all its inhabitants today.
He knows Islam gently, without shock, for years.
He discovers it “as a civilizing vision that taught me to observe man, and did not make me break with the love I had felt for Jesus or Mary” Khalid in Seville, becomes the former headquarters of his community, established for the first time in the 80s in the street, which coincidence, “inn of the Moor” where you can visit some well-known Arab baths in a famous restaurant.
“We love the city, the city has not treated us the same” Khalid recalls the episodes of relationship with the city in which it has been elusive, such as the episode of his mosque project in Los Bermejales that obtained the urban planning license, tender and was even paid for and was knocked down and later removed with complaints and demands from neighbors and that even a court in Andalusia later confirmed its illegality.
With the singular episode of the dead pig that was buried in these lands to deburse the soil according to their beliefs.
“They treated us badly, the journalists, the politicians, the neighbors, they treated us as terrorists, they were violent in their proclamations.”
“We were a family in the 80s, but in 92, as a result of the opening of the city and the increase in immigration, we noticed a great increase in activity, they sought us out to live their faith,” exclaims Nieto when asked about the evolution of his community.
Their relationship changed as a result of that episode in Bermejales, and they sought more their relationship with the private than with the public.
They found their place in the Ponce de León square where they maintain a good relationship with their neighbors, “we are wall to wall with the Brotherhood of the Supper and we have never had problems, the parish priest of Santa Catalina was one of the first to call me after the graffiti.”
This place is owned by Frederick Kanouté, a star Sevilla footballer who made a show of professing the Islamic religion and who gave them the space for his mosque, in exchange the community strives to raise up to 20,000 Euros per year for the foundation that the tall Malian player has in his country for education and childcare.
The mosque serves them, he says, as a meeting point for prayer, for family life, for activities with the little ones, for training in the “Din” (the compendium of Islamic meaning, meaning and beliefs). They collaborate with the University of Seville in thesis projects, doctorates, final degree projects, or help the Moroccan consulate in welcoming and guiding those arriving from that country.
“In Ramadan we distribute 80 meals a day, 2500 a month, to people who do not have enough to eat, we do social work” “In the Mosque we have put an end to speeches that could be close to extremism, but not now, for 30 years” Khalid is calm about the obligatory question of terrorism and how it affects them in their relationship with each other and in their relationship with the city .
“Organizamos visitas guiadas por la ciudad, los jóvenes recorren la historia de Sevilla para que amen Sevilla, educamos en el amor al pais, al paisaje y al paisano” They say they feel a part of the city, “we are not culturally Arab, we are Europeans, we accept the city and we join it”.
Terrorism, says Nieto, who was president of the Islamic community of Spain, “affects us doubly, it puts us in the spotlight”.
“The security forces have our help, we have been collaborating with them for 25 years, introducing them to each imam, meeting 1 or 2 times a year to inform, we could refuse but in our spirit is that of collaboration.”
Khalid is blunt when he deals with this issue and fed up with the fact that the question always comes after terrorist attacks.
“Our speeches in prayer are uploaded to the network on our website, in Spanish recorded live, anyone can listen to them and download them.”
“The terrorists believe that the city is theirs, that they have certain rights of conquest, we do not resist tradition, we give the best of ourselves to the city.”
Their generations and descendants will be Sevillians, they are a generation that has stayed, worked, lived and given to the city.
“Our children will go to these schools, to these universities, they will give the city, doctors, athletes, lawyers… we are still people who love the city.”
Khalid does not say goodbye to us without mentioning his collaboration with Indonesia or Malaysia, where they broadcast, through production companies from these countries, a series of documentaries of the city inviting his visit to pay for his project of an Islamic cultural center, or the organization of the Islamic days in Almonaster la Real where they are co-participants as they are in those organized in Portugal, in the town of Mértola.
Terrorism allows us to distance ourselves through fear, radicalize actions and fall into generalities empty of arguments.
Khalid Nieto, its spokesman, bids me farewell with a photo of me barefoot in the carpeted space of the Mosque, a worshipper at a microphone clarifies his voice by starting the prayer songs. “The best prevention,” he tells us finally, “is to work on elevating the person.”