Al-Andalus located on terrain feature Iberian Peninsula
Al-Andalus (Arabic: الأَنْدَلُس) was the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula. The term is used by modern historians for the former Islamic states in modern Spain and Portugal. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most of the peninsula and part of present-day southern France, Septimania (8th Century) under Umayyad rule. For nearly 100 years, from the 9th century to the 10th, al-Andalus extended its presence from Fraxinetum into the Alps with a series of organized raids. The name describes the different Muslim states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492. These boundaries changed constantly as the Christian Reconquista progressed, eventually shrinking to the south and finally to the Emirate of Granada.
Following the Muslim conquest of Spain, al-Andalus, then at its greatest extent, was divided into five administrative units, corresponding roughly to: modern Andalusia; Castile and León; Navarre, Aragon, and Catalonia; Portugal and Galicia; and the Languedoc-Roussillon area of Occitania.As a political domain, it successively constituted a province of the Umayyad Caliphate, initiated by the Caliph al-Walid I (711–750); the Emirate of Córdoba (c. 750–929); the Caliphate of Córdoba (929–1031); the taifa kingdoms that succeeded the Caliphate of Córdoba (1009–1110); the Almoravid Empire (1085–1145); the second taifa period (1140–1203); the Almohad Caliphate (1147–1238); the third taifa period (1232–1287); and ultimately the Nasrid Emirate of Granada (1238–1492).
Under the Caliphate of Córdoba, al-Andalus was a centre of learning. The city of Córdoba became one of the leading cultural and economic centres throughout the Mediterranean Basin, Europe, and the Islamic world. Achievements that advanced Islamic and Western science came from al-Andalus, including major advances in trigonometry (Jabir ibn Aflah), astronomy (Al-Zarqali), surgery (Al-Zahrawi), pharmacology (Ibn Zuhr), and agronomy (Ibn Bassal and Abū l-Khayr al-Ishbīlī). Al-Andalus became a major educational centre for Europe and the lands around the Mediterranean Sea as well as a conduit for cultural and scientific exchange between the Islamic and Christian worlds.Christians and Jews were subject to a special tax called jizya to the state, which in return provided internal autonomy in practicing their religion, and offered the same level of protection by the Muslim rulers. Peaceful coexistence led to their economic and social expansion. Their status was that of dhimmis, non-Muslims living in a land governed by Muslims.For much of its history, al-Andalus existed in conflict with Christian kingdoms to the north. After the fall of the Umayyad caliphate, al-Andalus was fragmented into minor taifa states and principalities. Attacks from the Christians intensified, led by the Castilians under Alfonso VI. The Almoravid empire intervened and repelled the Christian attacks on the region, deposing the weak Andalusi taifa rulers and including al-Andalus under direct Almoravid rule. In the next century and a half, al-Andalus became a province of the Muslim empires of the Almoravids and Almohads, both based in Marrakesh.
Ultimately, the Christian kingdoms in the north of the Iberian Peninsula overpowered the Muslim states to the south. In 1085, Alfonso VI captured Toledo, which started the decline of Muslim power. With the fall of Córdoba in 1236, most of the south quickly fell under Christian rule, and the Emirate of Granada became a tributary state of the Kingdom of Castile two years later. In 1249, the Portuguese Reconquista culminated with the conquest of the Algarve by Afonso III, leaving Granada as the last Muslim state on the Iberian Peninsula. Finally, on January 2, 1492, Emir Muhammad XII surrendered the Emirate of Granada to Queen Isabella I of Castile, completing the Christian Reconquista of the peninsula.