In Spain, Islamic Cordoba became a center for the arts, especially architecture. This is perhaps best exemplified by the Great Mosque at Cordoba, built by the Umayyad ruler Abd al-Rahman I in 785-786 CE. That's right, this building, still standing today and one of the most amazing mosques in the world, was built in a year, whereas medieval cathedrals took like a million years to finish. The Muslims of Spain were also engineers who rivaled the Romans. Aqueducts in Cordoba brought drinkable water into the city, and Muslim scholars took the lead in agricultural science, improving yields on all kinds of new crops, allowing Spanish lives to be longer and less hungry. Everybody wanted to live in Spain. Even the greatest Jewish philosopher Maimonides wanted to live in Spain, but sadly he was expelled and ended up in Alexandria, Egypt.