Umayyad Conquest of Hispania

The Umayyad conquest of Hispania is the initial Islamic Umayyad Caliphate's conquest, between 711 and 718, of the Christian Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania, centered in the Iberian Peninsula, which was known to them under the Arabic name al-Andalus.

The conquest began with an invasion by an army that (according to traditional accounts) consisted largely of Berber Northwest Africans and was commanded by Tariq ibn Ziyad. They disembarked in early 711 at Gibraltar and campaigned their way northward. After the decisive Battle of Guadalete against the usurper Roderic and the defection to the Saracens of the legitimate heirs to the throne, the Visigothic kingdom splintered into client-kingdoms of the Ummayads and over the following decade most of the Iberian Peninsula was further occupied and brought under Muslim sovereignty, save for mountainous areas in the north-west (Galicia, Asturias) and northern mountainous areas (Pyrenees, Basque Mountains) with little interest for the conquerors and hard to defend.

The successfully retained conquered territory became the Emirate (later Caliphate) of Córdoba. At first it was part of the expanding Umayyad empire, and after the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate a separate state.

The invaders initially had moved northeast across the Pyrenees to occupy Septimania, then under the client-king Ardo, only to be temporarily halted by Odo the Great´s Aquitanians in the Battle of Toulouse (721). However, massing a larger army they resumed their advance to the northwest, defeating Odo at the Battle of Bordeaux. Charles Martel at the time held the high office of mayor of the palace in Francia and Odo saw no choice but to seek the help of his former enemy, swear an oath of loyalty to him and join the Frankish military forces, who after a forced march defeated the Muslims at the Battle of Tours (Poitiers) in 732. Muslim control of territory in what became France was intermittent and ended in 759.

Though Muslim armies dominated the Iberian Peninsula for centuries afterward, Pelayo of Asturias's victory at the Battle of Covadonga in 722 preserved at least one Christian principality in the north. This battle later assumed major symbolic importance for Iberian Christians as the beginning of the Reconquista.

Perhaps because of the Muslim perception of Christians and Jews as People of the Book (those who believe in the God of Abraham), numerous Jewish and Christian communities survived through the centuries of Muslim rule in al-Andalus.