page_title: Reconquista
section_title: Reverberations
hierarchical_section_title: Reconquista / Legacy / Reverberations
caption_attribution_description: The Portuguese army attacking Asilah in 1471. Detail of a taprestry produced in Belgium for the King of Portugal.
context_page_description: The Reconquista, was a period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula of about 780 years between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711, the expansion of the Christian kingdoms throughout Hispania, and the fall of the Nasrid kingdom of Granada in 1492.
  The beginning of the Reconquista is traditionally marked with the Battle of Covadonga, the first known victory in Hispania by Christian military forces since the 711 military invasion undertaken by combined Arab-Berber forces. In that battle, a group led by Visigoth nobleman Pelagius and consisting of Hispano-Visigoth refugees, the remnants of their Hispano-Gothic aristocracy, and mountain tribes, including mainly Astures, Galicians, Cantabri and Basques, defeated a Muslim army in the mountains of northern Hispania and established the independent Christian Kingdom of Asturias. In the late 10th century, the Umayyad vizier Almanzor waged military campaigns for 30 years to subjugate the northern Christian kingdoms. His armies ravaged the north, even sacking the great shrine of Santiago de Compostela.
  When the government of Córdoba disintegrated in the early 11th century, a series of petty successor states known as taifas emerged.
context_section_description: On the conclusion of Iberian victory over the Moors, the Iberian powers, Spain and Portugal didn't stop their warring against the Muslims solely in their homelands—they extended the conflict against Islam overseas. The Spanish under the Habsburg dynasty soon became the champions of Roman Catholicism in Europe and the Mediterranean against the encroaching threat of the Ottoman Empire. In a similar vein, the Portuguese also extended the Reconquista, this time against Muslim states overseas. The conquest of Ceuta marked the beginning of Portuguese expansion into Muslim Africa. Soon, the Portuguese also went into conflict with the Ottoman Caliphate in the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia as the Portuguese conquered the Ottomans' allies: the Sultanate of Adal in East Africa, the Sultanate of Delhi in South Asia and the Sultanate of Malacca in Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, the Spanish also went to war against the Sultanate of Brunei in Southeast Asia. The Spanish sent expeditions from New Spain (Mexico) to conquer and Christianize the Philippines, then a territory of the Sultanate of Brunei. Brunei itself was assaulted during the Castilian War. Spain also went to war against the Sultanates of Sulu, Maguindanao, and Lanao in the Spanish-Moro Conflict. The primary inspiration for these wars against Muslim states overseas was the Reconquista.
caption: The Portuguese forces, personally commanded by King Afonso V, in the conquest of Asilah, Morocco, 1471, from the Pastrana Tapestries.
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