Changes

Iberia (modern Spain and Portugal) had been occupied by Germanic invaders after the fall of the Roman Empire. The Visigoths emerged as the most powerful group and they established a kingdom that ruled all of Spain and Portugal except for the mountainous northern mountainsregions. The Visigoths established a centralized administration and they became the dominant political and military elite in Iberian society <ref> Collins, Roger. The Conquest of Spain (John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1995), p. 67 </ref>. However, the kingdom was never stable and was constantly disturbed by civil wars which seriously weakened it by the start of the 8th century. This happened at the same time as the Arabs inspired by the Prophet Muhammad and their new religion had burst out of the Arabian Peninsula and had conquered much of the Byzantine Empire. By the early 8th century they had spread out across North Africa and after a long conflict had subdued the Berbers of North Africa. In 712 AD an Arab force landed near modern Gibraltar. It appears that it was initially a raid but soon became an all-out invasion <ref> Collins, p. 15 </ref>. The Arab invasion army was composed of Arabs from all over the Muslim world and recently converted Berber tribesmen. The Visigoth King Roderic advanced to meet the invasion army and he met them at the River Guadalete, which is believed to be in modern Granada. Roderic’s army outnumbered the Muslim forces but the Visigoths were decisively defeated, and the king was killed in the battle. This left the Visigoth Kingdom in disarray as without a monarch the highly centralized kingdom could not function. Furthermore, the Visigoths were disliked by their Roman-Hispanic subjects because of high taxation and religious differences. Various Visigoth warlords defended their territories in the Iberian Peninsula <ref> Collins, p. 13 </ref>. However, within a space of three years, the Muslims had conquered all of Iberia. The newly conquered territories were incorporated into the vast Umayyad Empire and were initially ruled by a governor based in North Africa. After the collapse of the Umayyad Empire, a member of the dynasty fled to Spain and he created a kingdom that was independent of the new Abbasid Empire. The Muslims formed a political and a military elite in the Peninsula. They were a minority in their new territory and most of the population were Christians, at least in the first centuries of their rule. There was also a large Jewish population in what is modern Spain and Portugal. The new Muslim state was not only home to several religions but was also home to several different ethnic groups. The Muslims were divided between Berbers and Arabs and there were often tensions between them that occasionally flared into civil war <ref>Marazin Guzman, Roberto. ‘Ethnic and social groups in Islamic Spain’ Islamic Studies, 30 (1991) 37-66 </ref>. The ruler of the Muslim state was a self-styled Emir and later Caliph and posed as the rival of the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad. The Umayyad ruler was, in theory, an absolute monarch, in reality, he ruled over a feudal state where local had considerable autonomy.