Stories from Early Islamic Iberia (711-911)

By 475, a Germanic (Visigothic) Christian state had taken control of almost all of Roman Christian Iberia. By 589, its rulers had become Roman Catholics.

In 711 a Muslim army invaded Iberia from Carthaginia. Later reinforced, it took control of almost all of Iberia by 718. The area of Iberia controlled by a Muslim state came to be known as al-Andalus, or Andalusia, with its capital, beginning in 717, in Córdoba.

Expansion of the Caliphate (634-732)

The advance of Muslim armies from the southern Levantian city of Medina completely surprised the two Olympian superpowers of the time: the Roman and Persian empires. In December 634 Muslim armies captured the Roman city of Damascus, in 636 they defeated the Persians and took control of Mesopotamia, and by 637 they had taken control of the eastern Mediterranean coast from the Romans and so controlled all of the geocultural province of Levantia.