Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula
The Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula (Arabic: فَتْحُ الأَنْدَلُس), also known as the Arab conquest of Spain,[1] by the Umayyad Caliphate occurred between approximately 711 and the 720s. The conquest resulted in the defeat of the Visigothic rulers (which themselves comprised a very small percentage of the overall population) and led to the establishment of the Umayyad Wilayah of Al-Andalus.
During the caliphate of the sixth Umayyad caliph al-Walid I (r. 705–715), military commander Tariq ibn Ziyad departed from North Africa in early 711 to cross the Straits of Gibraltar, with a force of about 1,700 men, to launch a military expedition against the Visigoth-controlled Kingdom of Toledo, which encompassed the former territory of Roman Hispania.[2][3][4][5] After defeating king Roderic at the Battle of Guadalete in July the same year, Tariq was reinforced by an Arab force led by his superior wali Musa ibn Nusayr and continued northward.
In 713, Theodemir, the Visigothic count of Murcia conditionally surrendered, and in 715, Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa was named the first governor of Al-Andalus, naming Seville as his capital. By 717, the Umayyads had invaded Gaul to launch their first raids into Septimania. By 719, Barcelona and Narbonne had also been captured. From 740 to 742, the invasion was then disrupted by the Berber Revolt, and in 755, when an Abbasid force led by Yusuf ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Fihri landed to claim the territory from the Umayyads.
By 781, Abd al-Rahman I had quashed all rebellions and rivals and consolidated Umayyad rule over an almost wholly reunified Iberia, a presence that would remain until the intensified Pope-backed Reconquista of the mid-13th-century, which was aimed at reclaiming the peninsula for Christianity.[6]
Establishment of the Umayyad Polity of Al-Andalus[edit]
Conquest and Treaty[edit]
According to the later chronicler Ibn Abd al-Hakam, the Tangier governor Tariq ibn Ziyad led a force of approximately 7,000 [20] men from North Africa to southern Spain in 711.[2] Ibn Abd al-Hakam reports, one and a half centuries later, that "the people of Andalus did not observe them, thinking that the vessels crossing and recrossing were similar to the trading vessels which for their benefit plied backwards and forwards". They defeated the Visigothic army, led by King Roderic, in a decisive battle at Guadalete in July that year. In 712, Tariq's forces were then reinforced by those of his superior, the wali Musa ibn Nusayr, who planned a second invasion, and within a few years both took control of more than two-thirds of the Iberian Peninsula. The second invasion comprised 18,000 mostly Arab troops, who rapidly captured Seville and then defeated Roderick's supporters at Mérida and met up with Tariq's troops at Talavera. The following year the combined forces continued into Galicia and the northeast, capturing Léon, Astorga and Zaragoza.[21][22]
According to the Muslim historian Al-Tabari,[23] Iberia was first invaded some sixty years earlier during the caliphate of Uthman (Rashidun era). Another prominent Muslim historian of the 13th century, Ibn Kathir,[24] quoted the same narration, pointing to a campaign led by Abd Allah bin Nafi al Husayn and Abd Allah bin Nafi al Abd al Qays[25] in 32 AH (654 CE), but there is no solid evidence about this campaign.
The first expedition led by Tariq consisted mainly of Berbers, who had themselves only recently come under Muslim influence. It is probable that this army represented a continuation of a historic pattern of large-scale raids into Iberia dating to the pre-Islamic period,[11] and hence it has been suggested that actual conquest was not originally planned. Both the Chronicle of 754 and later Muslim sources speak of raiding activity in previous years, and Tariq's army may have been present for some time before the decisive battle. It has been argued that this possibility is supported by the fact that the army was led by a Berber and that Musa, who was the Umayyad Governor of North Africa, only arrived the following year – the governor had not deigned to lead a mere raid, but hurried across once the unexpected triumph became clear. The historian Abd al-Wāḥid Dhannūn Ṭāhā mentions that several Arab-Muslim writers mention the fact that Tariq decided to cross the strait without informing his superior and wali Musa.[26] The Chronicle of 754 states that many townspeople fled to the hills rather than defend their cities, which might support the view that this was expected to be a temporary raid rather than a permanent change of government.
The Chronicle of 754 stated that "the entire army of the Goths, which had come with him [Roderic] fraudulently and in rivalry out of hopes of the Kingship, fled". This is the only contemporary account of the battle and the paucity of detail led many later historians to invent their own. The location of the battle, though not clear, was probably the Guadalete River.
Roderic was believed to have been killed, and a crushing defeat would have left the Visigoths largely leaderless and disorganized, partly because the ruling Visigoth population is estimated to have been a mere 1 to 2% of the total population.[27] While this isolation is said to have been "a reasonably strong and effective instrument of government"; it was highly "centralised to the extent that the defeat of the royal army left the entire land open to the invaders".[28] The resulting power vacuum, which may have indeed caught Tariq completely by surprise, would have aided the Muslim conquest. It may have been equally welcome to the Hispano-Roman peasants who were probably – as D.W. Lomax claims – disillusioned by the prominent legal, linguistic and social divide between them and the "barbaric" and "decadent" Visigoth royal family.[29]
In 714, Musa ibn Nusayr headed north-west up the Ebro river to overrun the western Basque regions and the Cantabrian mountains all the way to Gallaecia, with no relevant or attested opposition. During the period of the second (or first, depending on the sources) Arab governor Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa (714–716), the principal urban centres of Catalonia surrendered. In 714, his father, Musa ibn Nusayr, advanced and overran Soria, the western Basque regions, Palencia, and as far west as Gijón or León, where a Berber governor was appointed with no recorded opposition. The northern areas of Iberia drew little attention from the conquerors and were hard to defend when taken. The high western and central sub-Pyrenean valleys remained unconquered.
At this time, Umayyad troops reached Pamplona, and the Basque town submitted after a compromise was brokered with Arab commanders to respect the town and its inhabitants, a practice that was common in many towns of the Iberian Peninsula.[32] The Umayyad troops met little resistance. Considering that era's communication capabilities, three years was a reasonable time spent almost reaching the Pyrenees, after making the necessary arrangements for the towns' submissions and their future governance.[33]
Scholars have emphasized that animosity against the Visigothic rule in some regions of the Visigothic Kingdom, including to a greater extent the deep disagreements and resentment involving the local Jewish communities and the ruling authorities, weakened the kingdom and played a pivotal role in the ultimate success of the Umayyad Conquest of Iberia.[34]
Aftermath and consequences[edit]
The Iberian Peninsula was the westernmost tip of the Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus and was under the rule of the governor of Ifriqiya.[11] In 720, the caliph even considered abandoning the territory.[23] The conquest was followed by a period of several hundred years during which most of the Iberian peninsula was known as al-Andalus, dominated by Muslim rulers.[11] Only a handful of new small Christian realms managed to reassert their authority across the distant mountainous north of the peninsula.
In 756, Abd al-Rahman I, a survivor of the recently overthrown Umayyad dynasty, landed in al-Andalus and seized power in Cordova and Seville, and proclaimed himself emir or malik, removing any mentions of the Abbasid Caliphs from the Friday prayers.[43] In the wake of those events, southern Iberia became de jure and de facto independent from the Abbasid Caliphate.[44] Although this was not accepted outside al-Andalus and those North African territories with which it was affiliated, Abd al-Rahman, and especially his successors, considered that they were the legitimate continuation of the Umayyad caliphate, i.e. that their rule was more legitimate than that of the Abbasids.[44] It seems that Abd ar-Rahman never considered establishing a separate principality. (See Caliphate of Córdoba.)
During the unification of al-Andalus in the reign of Abd ar-Rahman before his death in 788, al-Andalus underwent centralization and slow but steady homogenization. The autonomous status of many towns and regions negotiated in the first years of the conquest was reversed by 778,[45] in some cases much earlier (Pamplona by 742, for example). The Hispanic Church based in Toledo, whose status remained largely undiminished under the new rulers, fell out with the Roman Church during the Adoptionist controversy (late 8th century). Rome relied on an alliance with Charlemagne (in war with the Cordovan emirs) to defend its political authority and possessions and went on to recognize the northern Asturian principality (Gallaecia) as a kingdom apart from Cordova and Alfonso II as king.
The population of al-Andalus, especially local nobles who aspired to a share in power, began to embrace Islam and the Arabic language.[46] However, the majority of the population remained Christians using the Mozarabic Rite, and Latin (Mozarabic) remained the principal language until the 11th century. The historian Jessica Coope of University of Nebraska argues that the pre-modern Islamic conquest was unlike Christianization because the latter was "imposed on everyone as part of a negotiated surrender, and thus lacked the element of personal conviction that modern ideas about religious faith would require", but the conquest of Dar al-Harb was motivated not by a goal of converting the population to Islam but by the belief that everyone was better off under Islamic rule.[47]
Abd ar-Rahman I founded an independent dynasty that survived until the 11th century.[11] That line was succeeded by a variety of short and small emirates (taifas) unable to stop the push of the expanding northern Christian kingdoms. The Almoravids (1086–1094) and the Almohads (1146–1173) occupied al-Andalus, followed by the Marinids in 1269, but that could not prevent the fragmentation of Muslim-ruled territory. The last Muslim emirate, Granada, was defeated by the armies of Castile (successor to Asturias) and Aragon under Isabella and Ferdinand in 1492. The last wave of expulsions of Spaniards of Muslim descent took place in 1614.
As discussed above, much of the traditional narrative of the Conquest is more legend than reliable history. Some of the key events and the stories around them are outlined below.