Muslims went to Spain in response to the locals asking for their help against tyrant rulers that overburdened the locals with unbearable taxes, and injustice.  In the summer of 710, a small force of 7000-strong men under the command of Tariq ibn Ziyad landed to the west of Gibraltar.  Tariq was given orders from his superior Musa ibn Nusair in Damascus to conquer as much land as he could northwards of the peninsula from the hands of a declining Visgothic kingdom, and, upon Tariq's fateful arrival on the shores of the peninsula, he set ablaze to all his ships while  commandingly quoting to his troops : "behind you lies the crashing waters and ahead lies your enemy."  Tariq and his conquerors began their campaigns while experiencing little organized resistance and achieved their success by occupying Cordova and Toledo shortly after, where they decided to give the name al-Andalus to the region. 

Tariq's military exploits are unquestionably of great importance historically and it is with his honor that Gibraltar takes its name from (Jabal Tariq, Tarik's Mountain).  When news arrived to Damascus of Tariq's success, Musa ibn Nusair was quick to come to the aid of Tariq when he crossed the straits with an army of 18,000 men.  His ambition to share some prominence as well as fighting for the Islamic cause, quickly saw the conquering of other neighboring towns and cities, but his advance was soon halted to the extreme North where he was defeated at the battle of Poitiers by the French.  Nevertheless, the conquest of most of Spain was complete with the joint efforts of these two figures.

    The forty years that follow the conquests are a little muddled and all that is noted is of numerous quarrels that took place between  Arabs and Berbers and Medinans and Damascenes.  This suggests that the population of al-Andalus was very multi-cultural that saw the settlement of people from the Arabian Peninsula all the way across North Africa, but this made society extremely fragmented and the local government found it hard to enforce its authority and progress politically and financially.  However, luck was soon to befall al-Andalus from the surprising arrival of a wandering figure of royalty who escaped with his life amidst political turbulence in his native Syrian homeland.  Abd ar-Rahman I, was barely 20-years old when he saw the massacre of his ruling Umayyad dynasty by the Abassids in Syria.  He was the only person who managed to escape with his life from his homeland and after wandering for almost 4 years away from home, he sought his fortune in Spain.  After settling in Spain, many clients (Mawali) of the Umayyads had settled and it was to them that the fugitive Abd ar-Rahman significantly enhanced the appreciation of the public majority. 

Thus, after enforcing his cause, Abd-ar-Rahman was pronounced Emir of al-Andalus in the Grand Mosque of Cordova and proceeded later by building his Emir's palace (dar al-Imara) on the banks of the Guadalquivir, as well as ordering the erection of city walls and smaller mosques around the residential provinces.  However, despite his celebrated accomplishments in al-Andalus, Abd ar-Rahman still maintained a lifelong attachment to his Syrian homeland and his nostalgia for Syria is quite apparent in a poetic verse he wrote in Rusafa, one of which reads:

Nevertheless, neither he nor a single one of his successors managed to reclaim their Syrian homeland, but there is no doubt that Abd-ar-Rahman restored political and financial order in the province along with the development of the local infrastructure.  The literature of al-Andalus is inexhaustible in its praise of Abd ar-Rahman, the "Flacon of the Umayyads." His splendor is praised upon by the Abassid Caliph in Baghdad when he quotes:

"The Falcon of the Quraish is Abd-ar-Rahman ibn Mu'awiya; he traveled over the sea, crossed the desert, and came to a country which was not of the Arabs.  Left entirely to his own resources, he founded cities, gathered troops, and organized the government.  Having lost his throne here, he acquired a realm there, and all by his virtue of his clever mind and his brave heart......Abd-ar-Rahman all alone-his only helper was his cause, his only friend was his will- founded the emirate of al-Andalus, he conquered border castles, he brought death to the heretics and forced reluctant tyrants to do his will."

View from Tarifa towards the African coast

al-Hakam I was soon elected as heir to Abd ar-Rahman I and attained his throne after encountering much trouble in enforcing his authority.  Insurrections broke out in many parts of the realm: in Saragossa, Huesca, Merida, Lisbon, and above all Toledo, where historians claim a rebellion was put down in a bloody and treacherous fashion.  Notwithstanding these social ailments,  al-Hakam ruled with tolerance and respected the counsel of his advisers and loved learning.  He was responsible for instituting the first university of Andalusia and extended the great mosque of Cordoba.

With its university, Cordoba thus became the greatest centre of learning in Europe at a time when the rest of the continent was plunged in ignorance, and in its flowering Cordoba was clearly one of the wonders of the world. Quoting an earlier writer Lane-Poole wrote:

"To Cordoba belong all the beauty and ornaments that delight the eye or dazzle the sight. Her long line of Sultans form her crown of glory; her necklace is strung with the pearls which her poets have gathered from the ocean of language; her dress is of the banners of learning, well-knit together by her men of science; and the masters of every art and industry are the hem of her garments."

When Cordoba was at the height of its flowering (Ninth and Tenth Century) there were over 200,000 houses in the city along with six hundred mosques, nine hundred public baths, fifty hospitals and several large markets which catered for all branches of trade and commerce, including 15,000 weavers.  It is also noteworthy the fact that street-lighting was first installed in Cordoba as is evident from this extract:

"You could walk through her streets for ten miles in one direction at night, and always have the light of lamps to guide your way. Seven hundred years later this would still be an innovation in London or Paris, as would paved streets."

Unfortunately though, domestic distractions left al-Hakam virtually no time for military campaigns to defend the attacks by his Christian neighbors.  It was during his time that Barcelona was soon conquered by the Franks, whose expeditions extended as far as Huesca, Lerida and Tortosa.  However, historians commend him on his brutal energy that his son and heir, Abd ar-Rahman II, owed the fact that it was a united country when he succeeded as Emir.

The time of Abd-ar-Rahman II was marked by relative peace and prosperity.  A few revolts in outlying regions (in Toledo and Merida) did not extinguish his authority.  He is viewed as a counter-reformist to his father and succeeded in hastening military expansion in al-Andalus.  He achieved a victory over the Normans, who were seen as a danger to all, and enhanced his prestige as an Emir; moreover, it led not only to fortifications, but also to a major reformation of the military and saw the introduction of arsenals, and to a certain interest in naval warfare, which had, after all, traditionally been regarded by the Arabs with some suspicion!  Abd ar-Rahman II also improved relations with neighboring provinces and spoke as a protector to all.  Aside from military reform,  the reign of Abd ar-Rahman II saw the introduction of new fashions in dress, new manufactured luxury fabrics (following the examples of Byzantium and Baghdad).

It was during this period too that court protocol took on a more oriental aspect, becoming more formal, more rigid, and more sumptuous, which unfortunately lead to an increasing distance between prince and people.  Furthermore, Abd ar-Rahman II is ascribed with the establishment of the princely monopoly over the minting of coinage, and, the streamlining of the administrative machine.

Following his death, Abd ar-Rahman III was crowned Emir of al-Andalus.  He was 21-years old when he came to the throne and is ascribed with every imaginable physical and intellectual quality by Arab chroniclers including strength, skill, courage, kindness, culture and intelligence.  Abd ar-Rahman's first important task was to accomplish what his forebears had failed to do, which was restoring internal unity amongst the citizens of al-Andalus and stabilize the region from invaders.  His ability to achieve this by settling quarrels and feuds between the public seemed futile, but he did manage to secure the country's external borders by building forts, garrisons and strengthening his army to bring recognition to the province without the escalation of violence.

He made Islamic Spain a cultural center of the world and his capital Cordoba the largest city in Europe.  Here the great optician Al Hassan investigated the functioning of the human eye and Abu Kasim wrote the first illustrated book on surgery.  Muslim Spain was the center from which medical education in Europe largely came from Arab historians and Westerners alike commend Abd ar-Rahman III with his exploits in an age of extreme unrest.  His Vizier and Historian Ibn al-Khatib contrasts his reign with the former Abd ar-Rahman I and praise him with these verses:

" It is said that when Abd-Ar-Rahman took over the reigns of government, al-Andalus was a glowing coal, a spluttering fire, with overt and covert resistance seething between its borders.  Through his fortunate hand and strong power, God pacified the country.  So it is that people compare the third Abd ar-Rahman with the first: he tamed rebels (as they appeared); he built castles, he planted cultures and immortalized his name.  He bled the unbelievers, until in al-Andalus no enemy was left, no rival raised his banner.  The peoples submitted to his law and accepted his peace."

Abd ar-Rahman III's eldest son, al-Hakam II, had been designated heir to the throne at an early stage, but he was 46 before he finally came to power, and he was Caliph for only 15 years.  He is depicted as cultured and peaceable, as a generous lover of the arts (with a particular interest in the works of Antiquity), a noteworthy commissioner of new buildings, and at the same time a deeply religious man well versed in theology and law.  He is praised upon with a short enigmatic verses:

          "His name is uttered in one breath with strength and splendor, with nobility and scholarship, immortal works and fine achievements" 

He continued the domestic and foreign policy of his father, albeit without the latter's energy, and he had an undisputed tendency to leave the affairs of state in the hands of his officials.  Even so, he was able to repel a Norman attack by Almeria, and subsequently enlarged his naval fleet.  Much is being researched in his building activities, and even today some point out that he is responsible for the extension and beautification of Madinat al-Zahra.

Al-Hakam had just one son, born of a Basque mother when he was already of advanced age.  This son, Hisham, took the oath of loyalty from his father at the age of eleven, shortly after the latter's death.  The child's investiture as Caliph was met with resistance, and it was only with difficulty that his mother and her close associates managed to have him recognized.  However, Hisham was incompetent and a pawn in the hands of his mother and his guardian, Ibn Abi Amir, who ruled much of the affairs of state in his shadow.  He had the advantage of a thorough legal training, and his ambitions were far-reaching.  In the sources he comes across as intelligent, energetic, and at the same time totally lacking in hesitance.  His close relationship with the conservative legal profession in Cordova were the foundations of his rapid rise to power.  In order to secure the favor of his influential community, Ibn Abi Amir went so far as to have the books in al-Hakam II's library which they judged heretical (in particular the scientific works) publicly burned. 

Unfortunately though, the splendor of al-Andalus could not of remained eternal with the progressive political and social problems such as disunity and squabbling over  leadership.  It was the inevitable consequence, therefore, that towns and cities fell slowly to invaders and the death-blow soon came to the Islamic dynasty with the marriage of King Ferdinand and Isabella who slowly managed to occupy the very heart of al-Andalus and reach Granada.  It is in this region that famous poets and writers such as Washington Irving are inspired to write in a historic climax and extremely melancholic tribute to the closing of this 800-year old golden age.  Washington Irving writes of the last Emir, Boabdil, of Granada, where in an extract he says:

"I rode slowly thence across the Vega to a village where the family and household of the unhappy king awaited him, for he had sent them forward on the preceding night from the Alhambra, that his mother and wife might not participate in his personal humiliation, or be exposed to the gaze of the conquerors.  Following on in the route of the melancholy band of royal exiles, I arrived at the foot of a chain of barren and dreary heights, forming the skirt of the Al-puxarra Mountains.  From the summit of one of these unfortunate Boabdil took his last look at Granada; it bears a name expressive to his sorrows, "La Cuesta de las Lagrimas," (the hill of tears).  Beyond it, a sandy road winds across a rugged cheerless waste, doubly dismal to the unhappy monarch, as it led to exile.  I spurred my horse to the summit of a rock, where Boabdil uttered his last sorrowful exclamation, as he turned his eyes from taking their farewell gaze: it is still denominated "el ultimo suspio del Moro," (the last sigh of the moor).  Who can wonder at his anguish at being expelled from such a kingdom and such an abode? With the Alhambra seemed to be yielding up all honors of his line, and all the glories and delights of life.  It was here, too, that his affliction was embittered by the reproach of his mother, Ayxa, who had so often assisted him in time of peril, and had vainly sought to instill into him her own resolute spirit. "You do well," said she, "to weep as a woman over what you could not defend as a man."

• By: Br. Nofal Al-Abdulali