-
Tariq ibn Ziyad was the Berber general who led the conquest of Visigothic Hispania under the orders of the Umayyad Caliph Al-Walid I. The conquest was staged in Morocco and carried out mainly by Berber horse cavalry under Arab command.
-
The Battle of Tours or ma‘arakat Balâṭ ash-Shuhadâ’ (Battle of Court of The Martyrs) was the decisive event which halted the Moslem advance through the Iberian peninsula into Frankish territory. The victory, won by Charles Martel, helped lay the foundations of 8th century Carolingian power, culminating in the rise of Charlemagne.
-
Following the overthrow of the Ummayad caliphate of Damascus in 750, Abd al-Rahman I (reigned 756 – 88) established the Umayyad emirate in Cordoba.
-
"My Cid and they went up to the fortress, there he led them up to the highest place. Then fair eyes gaze out on every side, they see Valencia, the city, as it lies ..." Poema de Mio Cid. Giving a contemporary Moslem view of the Fall of Valencia, Ibn Khafaja wrote "Swords have wrought ruin in you, oh dwellings, your beauties were wiped out by fire and decay ..."
-
Five days after the death of The Cid, the armies of the First Crusade launched their successful assualt on Jerusalem.
-
The Christian victory at las Navas de Tolosa (Jaén) precipitated the decline of the Almohad empire of North Africa and Spain, creating a patchwork of Moslem statelets unable to unite against the Christian invaders of al-Andalus. In the 14th century, Ibn Khaldoun described the political landscape of the country following the battle of las Navas de Tolosa : "Al-Andalus afforded the singular aspect of a country ruled by as many kings as there were castellated towns in it"
-
The 17 year old James I made the first abortive attempt to subdue the Moslem inhabitants of Peñíscola by means of a two months-long seige in this year.
-
"Jacobus fortunatus"
-
Following James I's victorious campaign in Mallorca, the castles in the north of the Moslem Kingdom of Valencia fell under his control, usually without the need for a seige. The Templars acquired the lordship of "domos et possessiones in civitate Valentina, ac in de Cervaria, de Peniscola, de Xivert, de Polpiz ..."
-
It was a Saturday, on the Feast of St Denis. Jaume I could now boast of being king "from the Rhone to Valencia" (tota terra Regis Aragonum et suorum a Rodano usque Valenciam). Jaume's victory vindicated his policy of 'conquest by surrender' <a href='http://libro.uca.edu/ck/crusader.htm' >
-
The collapse of the final Moslem kingdom of al-Andalus. Mohammed XII surrendered the Crown of Castile "... and the Moorish King and the Moors who were with him for their part could not disguise the sadness and pain they felt for the joy of the Christians, and certainly with much reason on account of their loss, for Granada is the most distinguished and chief thing in the world…"
Four months later, the Jews were expelled from Spain by royal decree -
