Umayyad Forces Cross the Strait and Topple the Visigoths
A Berber general, a dead king, and the start of nearly 800 years of Muslim rule on the peninsula
Quick facts
- Umayyad commander
- Tariq ibn Ziyad
- Visigothic king killed
- Roderic
- Year
- 711 CE
- New territory's name
- Al-Andalus
What happened
In 711 CE the Berber general Tariq ibn Ziyad led Umayyad forces across the Strait of Gibraltar into Iberia and defeated the Visigothic king Roderic, who died in the fighting. Reinforced by Musa ibn Nusayr, Tariq's forces conquered most of Visigothic Spain within a few years, including the capital Toledo, and the Umayyads organized the new territory into a province called Al-Andalus. Kingdom by kingdom, the Visigothic state that had ruled Hispania for a century and a half collapsed.
Why it matters
The conquest ended nearly three centuries of Germanic Christian rule in Iberia and opened almost 800 years of Muslim political presence on the peninsula in one form or another, setting up the centuries-long Reconquista that would define medieval Spanish history. The fuller story of the conquest, and of the Umayyad Caliphate that launched it, is told in the Rise of Islam timeline.
How we know
The 711 conquest and the fall of the Visigothic kingdom are documented in Arabic chronicles written in the following centuries and corroborated by the World History Encyclopedia's overview of the Visigothic kingdom's collapse.
Sources
- World History Encyclopedia. Visigoth · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- World History Encyclopedia. Timeline: Iberia · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry.
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Related timelines
- The Rise of Islam → · See the Rise of Islam timeline for the fuller story of Tariq ibn Ziyad's crossing, the Umayyad Caliphate that sent him, and the Abbasid revolution that later drove a surviving Umayyad prince to found a new emirate in Al-Andalus.