Umayyad Conquest of Hispania (711): The Birth of al-Andalus

The Umayyad conquest of Hispania began in April or May 711, when a mainly Berber army under Tariq ibn Ziyad crossed the Strait of Gibraltar from North Africa. Within a few years the Visigothic kingdom, which had ruled the Iberian Peninsula for two centuries, collapsed, and most of present-day Spain and Portugal became al-Andalus, a province of the Umayyad Caliphate. The conquest opened almost eight centuries of Muslim presence in the peninsula and shaped the history, culture and languages of Spain and Portugal.

Background

The Visigothic kingdom

The Visigoths, a Germanic people, had settled in southern Gaul in the 5th century, in the Visigothic Kingdom of Toulouse. After their defeat by the Franks in 507 they gradually shifted their power to the Iberian Peninsula, ruling from Toledo. In 589 King Reccared converted from Arian to Catholic Christianity, and the kingdom developed a sophisticated legal and church tradition.

Visigothic monarchy was elective, and succession was often violent. When King Wittiza died around 710, a noble named Roderic (Rodrigo) seized the throne, opposed by a faction linked to Wittiza’s family. Coins show that a rival king, Achila II, ruled in the north-east around the same time, so the kingdom was effectively divided when the invasion came.

The Umayyads in North Africa

The Umayyad Caliphate, ruling from Damascus, had spent decades conquering North Africa against Byzantine and Berber resistance. By about 708-710 its governor Musa ibn Nusayr controlled most of the Maghreb as far as the Atlantic. Many Berbers had joined the Muslim armies, and Tangier was held by Musa’s Berber freedman Tariq ibn Ziyad.

A small reconnaissance raid in 710, led by a commander named Tarif, landed on the southern tip of Spain; the town of Tarifa is traditionally said to take its name from him. It returned with booty and information about the divided kingdom.

The invasion of 711

In the spring of 711 Tariq crossed the strait with an army usually estimated at about 7,000 men, most of them Berbers, later reinforced to around 12,000. Tradition says he landed near the great rock that afterwards bore his name, Jabal Tariq, the origin of the name Gibraltar.

Roderic was campaigning against the Basques in the north when he heard the news. He marched south and met Tariq in the summer of 711, probably in July, in a battle usually located near the Guadalete river or the Laguna de la Janda in the province of Cádiz. The Visigothic army was defeated, reportedly after parts of it, possibly supporters of Wittiza’s family, deserted. Roderic was killed or disappeared; his body was never found.

Tariq then advanced rapidly north. A detachment under Mughith al-Rumi captured Córdoba after a short siege, while Tariq himself took the royal capital, Toledo, probably in the autumn of 711, finding many of its nobles had fled.

Musa’s campaign and the conquest of the peninsula

In 712 Musa ibn Nusayr crossed into Spain with a second army of about 18,000 men, mostly Arabs. He took Seville and besieged Mérida, one of the strongest cities in the peninsula, which surrendered in the summer of 713. He then met Tariq near Toledo, and together they advanced into the Ebro valley, taking Zaragoza around 714 and campaigning in the north-west.

Much of the conquest was achieved by agreements rather than battles. Local lords and cities submitted in return for keeping their property and religion and paying tribute. The best-known example is the treaty of 713 between Musa’s son Abd al-Aziz and Theodemir (Tudmir), a Visigothic lord in the region of Murcia. Its text survives in Arabic and promises Theodemir and his people security, freedom of worship and control of seven towns in exchange for an annual tax.

Why the kingdom fell so fast

Historians point to several reasons for the speed of the collapse. The Visigothic kingdom was divided by its succession crisis, and the death of Roderic and many of his nobles in 711 left no leader able to organise resistance. Power was concentrated in Toledo and a few great cities; once these fell, the countryside had little reason to fight on.

The kingdom may also have been weakened by plague and famine in the late 7th century, mentioned in its church councils, though the scale of these crises is uncertain. Jewish communities had suffered harsh persecution under several Visigothic kings, and some Arabic sources say Jews helped garrison captured towns, although the extent of this cooperation is debated.

Finally, the conquerors offered generous terms. Surrender meant keeping land, laws and churches in exchange for tribute, which many local elites judged a better choice than a hopeless war.

Recall to Damascus

In 714 the caliph al-Walid I summoned Musa and Tariq to Damascus, apparently concerned about their growing independence and the vast treasure they had taken. They arrived around 715, shortly before al-Walid’s death. Musa fell out of favour with the new caliph Sulayman and died in obscurity; nothing certain is known of Tariq’s later life.

Musa had left his son Abd al-Aziz as governor of al-Andalus. Abd al-Aziz married Roderic’s widow, according to the Arabic sources, and continued the conquest, but he was murdered in 716. Around that time the capital of al-Andalus was moved from Seville to Córdoba.

Beyond the peninsula and the limits of conquest

By about 718 almost the whole peninsula was under Muslim control. Governors soon led raids across the Pyrenees into Gaul: Narbonne was taken around 719-720, but an attack on Toulouse was defeated in 721. Further north, the Frankish leader Charles Martel defeated a Muslim army at the Battle of Tours in 732, and the Muslims were finally driven from Narbonne in 759.

In the mountains of Asturias, in the far north, a Visigothic noble named Pelayo led a revolt. His victory over a small Muslim force at the Battle of Covadonga, dated to 718 or 722, became in later Christian tradition the start of the Reconquista. At the time it was a minor episode, but the Kingdom of Asturias that grew from it survived.

Key people

• Tariq ibn Ziyad (died c. 720): Berber commander and freedman of Musa, leader of the first invasion army.
• Musa ibn Nusayr (c. 640-c. 716): Umayyad governor of North Africa who directed the conquest from 712.
• Roderic (died 711): the last Visigothic king of Toledo, defeated in 711.
• Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa (died 716): Musa’s son, first governor of al-Andalus.
• Theodemir (Tudmir): Visigothic lord of Murcia who negotiated a famous surrender treaty in 713.

Consequences

The conquest created al-Andalus, which for nearly 40 years was governed by appointed governors (walis) answering to Damascus or to Kairouan. Tensions between Arabs and Berbers, who had done much of the fighting but received poorer lands, erupted in a great Berber revolt in 740-741 in North Africa and al-Andalus.

In 750 the Umayyad dynasty was overthrown in the east by the Abbasids. A surviving Umayyad prince, Abd al-Rahman I, reached al-Andalus in 755 and in 756 founded an independent emirate at Córdoba, which in 929 became a caliphate.

The Christian majority was not forced to convert. Christians and Jews became “protected peoples” (dhimmis) who paid a special tax and kept their own communities, and many Christians, later called Mozarabs, adopted Arabic language and culture. Conversion to Islam was gradual, and historians estimate that Muslims became a majority only by the 10th century or later.

By the numbers

The army sizes come from later Arabic sources and are uncertain; they are usually treated as rough orders of magnitude.

Myths and facts

• Myth: Count Julian invited the Muslims to avenge his daughter. The story of Julian of Ceuta, whose daughter was supposedly dishonoured by Roderic, appears in later chronicles and is regarded as legend, although a Christian ruler of Ceuta may have helped the invaders.
• Myth: Tariq burned his ships. This dramatic tale appears only in much later sources, as does the famous speech attributed to Tariq.
• Myth: Spain was conquered by Arabs alone. The first army was overwhelmingly Berber, and Berbers formed a large part of the Muslim population of al-Andalus.
• Fact: the sources are thin. The closest account is a Latin chronicle written in 754 by a Christian living under Muslim rule. Most Arabic narratives date from the 9th century or later.

Timeline

• c. 710: death of King Wittiza; Roderic takes the throne amid civil conflict.
• 710: Tarif leads a raid on southern Spain.
• 711, April or May: Tariq ibn Ziyad lands near Gibraltar.
• 711, summer (probably July): Roderic is defeated near the Guadalete river.
• 711, autumn: Córdoba and Toledo fall.
• 712: Musa ibn Nusayr crosses to Spain with a second army.
• 713, April: treaty between Abd al-Aziz and Theodemir; Mérida surrenders in the summer.
• 714: Musa and Tariq are recalled to Damascus.
• 716: Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa is murdered.
• 718 or 722: Pelayo defeats a Muslim force at Covadonga.

Why it matters

The conquest of 711 brought the Iberian Peninsula into the Islamic world for nearly 800 years. Al-Andalus became a meeting place of Muslims, Christians and Jews and a channel through which Arabic learning reached Latin Europe. The long struggle that followed shaped the identity of the Christian kingdoms of Spain and Portugal, and its traces survive in their architecture, place names and thousands of words of Arabic origin.