The Umayyad conquest of Hispania begins as an army of the Umayyad Caliphate consisting largely of Berbers, inhabitants of Northwest Africa recently converted to Islam, invades the Christian Visigothic Kingdom located on the Iberian peninsula (Hispania).
Under the authority of the Umayyad Caliph Al-Walid I of Damascus, and commanded by Tariq ibn Ziyad, they disembark at Gibraltar on April 30, 711, and campaign their way northward.
Tariq's forces are reinforced the next year by those of his superior, the Emir Musa ibn Nusair.During the eight-year campaign, most of the Iberian Peninsula is brought under Muslim occupation, save for small areas in the northwest (Galicia and Asturias) and largely Basque regions in the Pyrenees.
The conquered territory, under the Arabic name al-Andalus, becomes part of the expanding Umayyad empire.The invaders subsequently move northeast across the Pyrenees, but are defeated by the Frank Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours (Poitiers) in 732.
Muslim control of French territory is intermittent and ends in 975.Though Muslim armies are to dominate the peninsula for centuries afterward, Pelayo of Asturias's victory at the Battle of Covadonga in 722 preserves at least one Christian principality in the north.
This battle later assumes major symbolic importance for Spanish Christians as the beginning of the Reconquista.
