In 711 an army of Arabs and Berbers from North Africa, united by their faith in Islam, crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and arrived on the Iberian Peninsula.
In less than a decade the Muslims brought most of the peninsula under their domination; they called the Iberian lands they controlled
Al Andalus.
Although the borders of Al Andalus shifted over the centuries, the Muslims remained a powerful force on the peninsula for almost eight hundred years.
From 711 to 1492 Al Andalus was the occidental frontier of Islam.
