he history of Islamic Spain begins at the beginning of the 8th century, when the Christian kingdom of the Visigoths was destroyed by the amia of Berber tribes, who under the leadership of the liberator Tariq ibn Ziyad invaded the Iberian Peninsula from the newly conquered northern Africa (Arabian: Ifrikiyya). In 711, King Rideric, despite being vastly outnumbered, was defeated by Tariq at the Battle of Guadalete River. Within two years, the invaders, reinforced by reinforcements under the African governor Musa ibn Nusajra, occupied a succession of towns, and in 713 captured the kingdom's capital, Toledo. In the next few years Visigothic resistance was finally broken. After three centuries of rule, the Visigoths left the historical arena and Arab rule in the Iberian Peninsula began. The newly conquered territory up to the southern borders of France was called al-Andalus (Andalusia), becoming the front province of the Ottoman caliphate. The only Christian state enclave was a small kingdom established in the mountains of Asturias, in the north of the peninsula.
The Berber army
The army that moved into Spain consisted of a patchwork of different groups. Their main core were the Berbers. These nomads did not constitute a unity. They differed from each other in their religious beliefs. In time, after the seizure of North Africa by the Arabs, they almost all united under the banner of Islam. The governors of the Maghreb (arbs. Machreb - ,,West", now Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco) began to recruit newly converted Berbers into their armies. In 711 an army made up of neophytes, reinforced by pagan nomads, Arab soldiers and Berbers professing Judaism started a company of several years against the Visigoths.
The collapse of the seemingly powerful kingdom was very rapid. It is not clear how the rapid defeat of the Visigoths occurred and why the Arabs found it easy to conquer. A small army took part in the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, the maximum estimate being 7,000 soldiers. It is also unclear how long the battles with the resisting Visigoth remnants lasted. It is also unclear whether the expedition was conceived as a looting raid which, under favourable circumstances, took the form of a permanent occupation of the invaded lands, or as a preconceived plan of conquest. The internal conflict caused by the usurper Rideric's seizure of the Visigothic throne, however, led to a split among the Visigoths and plots against the ruler. The Visigoths themselves constituted less than 2% of the population of the Iberian Peninsula and when the king was absent they were unable to organise effective resistance on their own.
Characteristics of al - Andalus
Arab Spain was inhabited by peoples of diverse ethnic composition - newly arrived Arabs and Berbers, Spanish-Romans, Visigoths and Jews. However, the gradual and increasing Islamisation of the population took place quite quickly. Eventually, the Iberian Peninsula was populated by followers of Islam, Judaism and Christianity of various ethnic compositions. The elite were aristocratic families of Arab origin, who were connected by blood ties with Berbers and local Iberian families. The first example of family amalgamation was the marriage of a widow under Rideric, who became the wife of the first governor of Andalusia. She was followed by other Visigothic aristocrats. From 756, the lands of Iberia became a refuge for the remnants of the surviving Omayyad dynasty. Abd ar-Rahman I was the only male descendant of the Omayyad dynasty to escape death at the hands of the new rulers of the Islamic world, the Abbasids, during the so-called Blood Feast in 750, during which unsuspecting male members of his family were slaughtered. After several years of fleeing and hiding, he made his way to the Iberian Peninsula, where he was proclaimed Emir, thus establishing the independent existence of Arab Spain. His descendants ruled Spain until 1031. During the 32 years of his reign, he organised a strong army and stopped the march of the Christians southwards. The Rhamandzite army was originally organised on the Arab model. The army - although not large in numbers - consisted of Arab soldiers coming from the Syrian garrisons ("jund") that remained loyal to the deposed dynasty (as well as their descendants born outside the Arabian Peninsula but remembering their roots and emphasising their Arab ancestry). These soldiers helped Rahman I to capture the Arabian possessions of Iberia. The army also consisted of Berbers and Iberian neophytes (called ,,daribat al-bu'nt"), who were organised into cavalry units serving under native commanders. At the beginning of the 9th century, a heavy-armed elite guard ("hasham") appeared at the court of the rulers, in whose ranks served slaves acquired from European and Asian slave markets (e.g. numerous Slavs) and local mercenaries. Over time, the palace guard was also reinforced with Berbers. Guard troops, comprising both cavalry and infantry, were deployed in and around the capital.
The army was armed with weapons both of their own making (the metal deposits found on the peninsula were reused) and those imported from Europe and Asia (Turkey, Persia, India). Riders were armed with swords, sometimes also maces and axes. Some of them also had Turkish bows. Three types of swords were popular: ,,ifranji" (Frankish type), ,,idwi" (Berber type) and Syrian-Arabic.
Infantry were armed with spears of various lengths. The long-range weapon was the Turkish bow (more solid, reflexive) or the Arabian bow (for showering the enemy with arrows en masse). The crossbow was also known, although it was used more as a novelty and historical examples show crossbowmen only when defending cities than in the open field.
Development of the Caliphate
The descendants of Abd ar-Rahman gradually conquered more lands, heading north. One of them, the emir Abd ar Rahman III, managed to create a caliphate independent of Baghdad, thus declaring himself caliph. Thus the capital city of Córdoba became a centre of rivalry with the only temporary caliphate. During the reign of this ruler Cordoba, next to Baghdad and Constantinople, was the greatest cultural centre in the world.
The state was divided into provinces, which in time of war were obliged to provide a predetermined number of soldiers. Troops were mobilised around the capital, where they were thoroughly inspected over a period of several days (20 to 40). This was also the time to prepare campaign plans and to notify local provincial governors of the need to prepare food supplies for men and horses and to improve the roads by which the army would move. Preparations were completed with a military parade on the outskirts of Cordoba, in front of the caliph's residence, the City of Flowers. The expeditions went to war usually on Friday, a holy day for Muslims.
The breakdown of the Caliphate
The end of the 10th century is a time of increased military activity of the state, which is connected with the person of the vizier Muhammad ibn abi Amir, who took over the real power, first practically, then nominally. He abolished the palace guard and replaced it with well-paid mercenary soldiers (mainly of Christian origin), with whose help he removed the minor caliph. With the coming to power of the Amir, the policy of the state towards its Christian neighbours also changed. Every spring and autumn Amir led expeditions against the Christian states in the north of Spain. In total he led at least 56 victorious raids. His military successes were made possible not only by his military skills and political cunning but also by the professionalisation of his army, which at that time was undergoing a transition from an army based on conscripted civilians and mainly semi-professional troops to a permanent professional army, paid for by newly imposed taxes. This army was largely made up of Berbers imported from the Maghreb and the numerous war campaigns were not so much aimed at conquering new territories as at permanently weakening the Christians and thus blocking their consolidation and strengthening, as well as obtaining booty and slaves. The inhabitants of Andalusia were exempted from military service and the Omayyad army took on a predominantly Berber and foreign character. In addition, Christians, Slavs, blacks, Andalusians and volunteers from the Arab world, driven by religious fanaticism, served in the army. The troops of the Mahreb were no longer tribal in character - i.e. the unit was headed by a commander from a given tribe - but became ethnically mixed, taking their orders from commanders appointed or rather imposed by the chief. Winning campaigns and booty - kept the morale and satisfaction of the soldiers high - also strengthened the position of the Amir, who was able to use the existing national animosities to divide potential opponents and thus immediately prevented the formation of opposition against his person. Thanks to his organisational skills, shrewdness and intelligence, he was the undisputed leader and chieftain. After Amir's death, the Amirid dynasty he had set up failed to maintain the unity of the state. The Omayyads also tried to return to power. Over the next twenty-plus years, continuous revolts and uprisings initiated by various factions ushered in and deposed successive caliphs from their lineage, seeking primarily to reduce the influence of the hated Berbers. In 1031 the last Omayyad was overthrown. Andalusia broke up into a series of smaller states, called Maluk at-tawaif. More than twenty of these, mostly short-lived and feuding entities, emerged in various provinces and cities.
The fighting between them was exploited by the Christian states of the north, which survived in the mountains of Asturias defending themselves against regular attacks. As long as they had the united Cordoban Caliphate opposite them their progress was muted. Since the disintegration of the state, the Christian rulers - supported by co-religionists, mainly from French lands - crossed the Sierra de Guaderrama mountains conquering, one Arab principality after another. The kingdoms of Navarre and Aragon came into being, but the Christians lacked soldiers for a complete victory. Most of the kingdoms fell prey to the Moroccan Almoravids, a Berber dynasty ruling in north-western Africa and Spain between 1061 and 147. The warlike Almoravids were descendants of one of the Berber tribes in the north-western Sahara. This tribe adhered to a radical Islamic doctrine and, spreading it to other tribes by means of a holy war, occupied vast areas of North Africa and thus created the most powerful Islamic state in the Arabian West. In 1086, the warlike Berbers, called to their aid by the Arab ruler of Seville against the Christians, inflicted a defeat on the King of Leon, Castile and Galicia, Alfonso VI at Zallak. After a brief return to their African sieges, the Almarovids returned to Spain, which they conquered as far as the Ebro River. The Mahreb and most of Spain thus came under the rule of the Berber dynasty. The Almoravids established a strict rule in their country - taxes were raised and the persecution of infidels began. The state elite became a nomadic military aristocracy. However, the brave Berber warriors, amidst the luxury of the Iberian cities, soon lost their strictness and combat qualities in favour of fun and games. Their rule was brought to an end by the Almohads (also of Berber origin) who, in 1141, like their predecessors, came to rule Spain under the banner of religious renewal. They ruled there until 1269, until the defeat inflicted on them by the Christians at Las Navas de Tolosa.
Muslim rule lasted longest in the south, in the kingdom of Granada. It was there that the followers of Islam, who had been driven out of the Pyrenean peninsula by the Christians, converged. In Granada, between 1232 and 1492, the Nassyrid dynasty ruled, which emerged after the fall of the Almohads and the disintegration of the Arab part of Spain into principalities ruled by different Islamic families.
The densely populated country came to a flourishing state - crafts, trade but also horticulture and fruit growing were at a high level. After a long, ten-year war with the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, Granada fell in 1492. It was the last point of Muslim resistance on the peninsula. The victorious Christian states, soon formed a united kingdom of Spain.