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Al-Andalus

EuropeHeartland today: Spain and Portugal

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The Muslim-ruled lands of the Iberian peninsula, from a North African crossing in 711 to the surrender of Granada in 1492. Córdoba was its capital under the Umayyads. The realm split into taifa kingdoms in 1031, and Nasrid Granada outlasted the rest.

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Key events

  1. A Muslim army under Tariq ibn Ziyad crosses from North Africa and defeats the Visigothic king Roderic at the GuadaleteDisputed

    Sources agree on 711 for the crossing and the battle, but the day (traditionally mid-July) and the exact site are uncertain; the medieval Arabic account names a different place from the Guadalete. Musa ibn Nusayr arrived the next year, 712, and the conquest of the peninsula took several years.

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  2. Abd al-Rahman I, an Umayyad prince who escaped the Abbasid takeover in the east, becomes emir at Córdoba

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  3. Abd al-Rahman I begins the Great Mosque of CórdobaDisputed

    Sources date the start between 784 and 786.

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  4. Abd al-Rahman III takes the title of caliph, making Córdoba the seat of a caliphate

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  5. The Caliphate of Córdoba is abolished and al-Andalus breaks into some thirty to fifty taifa kingdomsDisputed

    The break-up was gradual, from about 1008. 1031 is the year the caliphate was formally abolished.

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  6. – After Alfonso VI takes Toledo, the taifa rulers call in the Almoravids from Morocco, who then take over their kingdoms

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  7. Castile, Aragon and Navarre defeat the Almohad army at Las Navas de Tolosa

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  8. Muhammad I, the first Nasrid emir, lays out the Alhambra above GranadaDisputed

    Some accounts date the start to 1237 and others to 1238; Britannica and the Nasrid chronicle quoted by Nazari Viajes give 1238. The best-known palaces were built in the 14th century.

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  9. Ferdinand III of Castile takes Seville after a long siege, leaving the emirate of Granada as the last Muslim state in the peninsula

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  10. Boabdil, the last Nasrid emir, surrenders Granada to Ferdinand and Isabella

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