Chronograph Русский Open the atlasAtlas

Umayyad conquest of Hispania

Crossing the strait in 711, Tariq ibn Ziyad defeated King Roderic at the Guadalete; within a few years the Arabs and Berbers conquered almost all of the Visigothic kingdom, which became al-Andalus.

Date
711–718year known · duration: ≈ 7 years
Place
Toledotoday: Toledo, Castilla–La Mancha, Spain · Western and Central Europe
Participants
Umayyad Caliphate, Tariq ibn Ziyad, Visigoths, Roderic
Threads
Early medieval Europe (500–1000)
Also known as
Muslim conquest of Spain; Battle of Guadalete; Битва при Гвадалете; Арабское завоевание Пиренейского полуострова; al-Andalus

The Visigothic kingdom was divided by a succession dispute when Tariq, the Berber governor of Tangier, landed at the rock later named after him (Jabal Tariq, Gibraltar) with a mainly Berber force. In July 711 Roderic’s army was routed and the king killed, probably near the Guadalete river. Tariq took the capital, Toledo; in 712 his superior Musa ibn Nusayr arrived with Arab troops, took Seville and Mérida, and by 714 the conquerors reached the Ebro and the north-west. Some Visigothic lords, like Theodemir of Murcia, submitted by treaty and kept their lands.

By 718 almost the whole peninsula was under Muslim rule, except the mountains of the north. Raids into Gaul followed: Narbonne fell in 720, and the advance was stopped only in 732. Al-Andalus remained part of the Islamic world for almost eight centuries.

Open in the interactive atlas

Connections

Consequences

  • Battle of Covadongabetween 718 and 722 · Western and Central EuropeA revolt against the new Muslim rulers in the mountains of the north
  • Battle of Tours10 October 732 · Western and Central EuropeRaids into Gaul from newly conquered al-Andalus

Related events

Same participants

Adjacent events in the thread

Meanwhile in the world

Other regions, within 25 years of this event

Eastern Europe

Balkans and Anatolia

The same period

Sources

  1. Wikipedia (English): Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula
  2. Wikipedia (English): Battle of Guadalete
  3. Wikipedia (Russian): Арабское завоевание Пиренейского полуострова
  4. Wikipedia (Russian): Битва при Гвадалете
  5. Collins R. The Arab Conquest of Spain, 710–797. — Oxford: Blackwell, 1989.
  6. Wikidata: Q1455917