The Umayyad Caliphate and al-Andalus
From Damascus, the Umayyads rule an empire from Spain to Central Asia, and Muslim Spain, al-Andalus, begins its nearly eight centuries.
- The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates — Hugh Kennedy, Longman (1986)
- The Great Arab Conquests — Hugh Kennedy, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (2007)
- Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of al-Andalus — Hugh Kennedy, Longman (1996)
- A History of the Arab Peoples — Albert Hourani, Faber and Faber (1991)
Mu’awiya ruled from Damascus, and under his Umayyad successors the caliphate reached its greatest size. Their armies reached Central Asia and the Indus valley in the east, and in the west crossed North Africa. In 711 a Berber commander, Tariq ibn Ziyad, crossed into Spain (giving his name to Gibraltar, Jabal Tariq), and within a few years most of the Iberian peninsula was under Muslim rule. A raid deep into France was turned back near Tours in 732.
- The Great Arab Conquests — Hugh Kennedy, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (2007)
- Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of al-Andalus — Hugh Kennedy, Longman (1996)
- A History of the Arab Peoples — Albert Hourani, Faber and Faber (1991)
The caliph Abd al-Malik (685–705) made Arabic the language of government and minted coins with Qur’anic phrases instead of images, and in 691–692 built the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.
- The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates — Hugh Kennedy, Longman (1986)
- The Art and Architecture of Islam, 1250-1800 — Sheila S. Blair and Jonathan M. Bloom, Yale University Press (1994)
- A History of the Arab Peoples — Albert Hourani, Faber and Faber (1991)
- The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates — Hugh Kennedy, Longman (1986)
- The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization — Marshall G. S. Hodgson, University of Chicago Press (1974)
One survivor, Abd al-Rahman, escaped to Spain and founded an Umayyad emirate at Córdoba in 756, later a rival caliphate (929). Córdoba became one of the largest and most cultured cities in Europe, with its Great Mosque, libraries and scholars such as the philosopher Ibn Rushd (Averroes) and the Jewish thinker Maimonides, both born there in the twelfth century. Christian kingdoms gradually pushed south in the Reconquista, and the last Muslim kingdom, Granada, fell in 1492. Over the following decades Spain’s Muslims were forced to convert, and their descendants, the Moriscos, were expelled in 1609–1614.
- Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of al-Andalus — Hugh Kennedy, Longman (1996)
- A History of the Arab Peoples — Albert Hourani, Faber and Faber (1991)
- The Art and Architecture of Islam, 1250-1800 — Sheila S. Blair and Jonathan M. Bloom, Yale University Press (1994)
The conquests are often called *futuhat*, "openings": they opened lands to Islam's message and to just rule. Al-Andalus is a lost paradise of learning, poetry and coexistence.
- A History of the Arab Peoples — Albert Hourani, Faber and Faber (1991)
- Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of al-Andalus — Hugh Kennedy, Longman (1996)
The conquests were wars of expansion like those of other empires, though often accepted through negotiated surrender. Al-Andalus did see remarkable cultural exchange among Muslims, Jews and Christians, but "coexistence" was uneven and its peace is sometimes romanticised.
- The Great Arab Conquests — Hugh Kennedy, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (2007)
- In God's Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire — Robert G. Hoyland, Oxford University Press (2015)
- Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of al-Andalus — Hugh Kennedy, Longman (1996)
Why it matters today
The Umayyads built some of Islam's oldest surviving monuments, the Dome of the Rock and the Great Mosque of Damascus, and made Arabic the language of an empire. Al-Andalus is remembered by many Muslims with deep nostalgia, as proof that Muslim civilisation was once at the heart of Europe.