page_title: Spread of Islam
section_title: Hispania / Al-Andalus
hierarchical_section_title: Spread of Islam / By region / Europe / Hispania / Al-Andalus
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Spanien, Cordoba, MezquitaEnglish: Spain, Cordoba, Mosque-Cathedral
context_page_description: The history of the spread of Islam spans about 1,500 years. Muslim conquests following Muhammad's death led to the creation of the caliphates, occupying a vast geographical area; conversion to Islam was boosted by missionary activities, particularly those of imams, who intermingled with local populations to propagate the religious teachings. These early caliphates, coupled with Muslim economics and trading, the Islamic Golden Age, and the Age of the Islamic Gunpowders, resulted in Islam's spread outwards from Mecca towards the Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans and the creation of the Muslim world. Trading played an important role in the spread of Islam in several parts of the world, especially Indian traders in southeast Asia.
  Muslim dynasties were soon established and subsequent empires such as those of the Umayyads, Abbasids, Fatimids, Mamluks, Seljukids, and the Ayyubids were among the largest and most powerful in the world.
context_section_description: The history of Arab and Islamic rule in the Iberian peninsula is probably one of the most studied periods of European history. For centuries after the Arab conquest, European accounts of Arab rule in Iberia were negative. European points of view started changing with the Protestant Reformation, which resulted in new descriptions of the period of Islamic rule in Spain as a "golden age" (mostly as a reaction against Spain's militant Roman Catholicism after 1500).
  The tide of Arab expansion after 630 rolled through North Africa up to Ceuta in present-day Morocco. Their arrival coincided with a period of political weakness in the three centuries old kingdom established in the Iberian peninsula by the Germanic Visigoths, who had taken over the region after seven centuries of Roman rule. Seizing the opportunity, an Arab-led (but mostly Berber) army invaded in 711, and by 720 had conquered the southern and central regions of the peninsula. The Arab expansion pushed over the mountains into southern France, and for a short period Arabs controlled the old Visigothic province of Septimania (centered on present-day Narbonne). The Arab Caliphate was pushed back by Charles Martel (Frankish Mayor of the Palace) at Poitiers, and Christian armies started pushing southwards over the mountains, until Charlemagne established in 801 the Spanish March (which stretched from Barcelona to present day Navarre).
  A major development in the history of Muslim Spain was the dynastic change in 750 in the Arab Caliphate, when an Umayyad Prince escaped the slaughter of his family in Damascus, fled to Cordoba in Spain, and created a new Islamic state in the area. This was the start of a distinctly Spanish Muslim society, where large Christian and Jewish populations coexisted with an increasing percentage of Muslims. There are many stories of descendants of Visigothic chieftains and Roman counts whose families converted to Islam during this period. The at-first small Muslim elite continued to grow with converts, and with a few exceptions, rulers in Islamic Spain allowed Christians and Jews the right specified in the Koran to practice their own religions, though non-Muslims suffered from political and taxation inequities. The net result was, in those areas of Spain where Muslim rule lasted the longest, the creation of a society that was mostly Arabic-speaking because of the assimilation of native inhabitants, a process in some ways similar to the assimilation many years later of millions of immigrants to the United States into English-speaking culture.  As the descendants of Visigoths and Hispano-Romans concentrated in the north of the peninsula, in the kingdoms of Asturias/Leon, Navarre and Aragon and started a long campaign known as the 'Reconquista' which started with the victory of the Christian armies in Covadonga in 722.  Military campaigns continued without pause.  In 1085 Alfonso VI of Castille took back Toledo.  In 1212 the crucial Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa meant the recovery of the bulk of the peninsula for the Christian kingdoms.  In 1238 James I of Aragon  took Valencia.  In 1236 the ancient Roman city of Cordoba was re-conquered by Ferdinand III of Castille and in 1248 the city of Seville.  The famous medieval epic poem 'Cantar de Mio Cid' narrates the life and deeds of this hero during the Reconquista.
  The Islamic state centered in Cordoba had ended up splintering into many smaller kingdoms (the so-called taifas). While Muslim Spain was fragmenting, the Christian kingdoms grew larger and stronger, and the balance of power shifted against the 'Taifa' kingdoms. The last Muslim kingdom of Granada in the south was finally taken in 1492 by Queen Isabelle of Castille and Ferdinand of Aragon. In 1499, the remaining Muslim inhabitants were ordered to convert or leave (at the same time the Jews were expelled). Poorer Muslims (Moriscos) who could not afford to leave ended up converting to Catholic Christianity and hiding their Muslim practices, hiding from the Spanish Inquisition, until their presence was finally extinguished.
caption: The interior of the Cathedral of Cordoba, formerly the Great Mosque of Córdoba was built in 742. It is one of the finest examples of Islamic architecture in the Umayyad style; inspired the design of other Mosques in Al-Andalus.
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