ICS 120 - Anything from the Moors to Pancho Villa - Term Paper Example

However, the Vandals and Byzantine rulers failed to penetrate the interior that still under the Moorish control. The Berbers were also able to resist domination by the warring Arab armies that kept attacking them from the East. However, this resistance did not last long as the Moors became Islamised by 700 CE (Nicolle 22). The Islamic Moors were able to defeat and take control of much of Iberia by 711 CE. They named peninsula area the Al Indulus. They tried to move northeast towards and across the Pyrenees Mountains but they were revolted by Frank Charles and his army in 732 CE at the Battle of Poitiers.

The Moors were ruled over Iberia for several years, converting several of the original inhabitants into Islam (Sertima 65). A small Christain Iberian Kingdom known as the Austrias started the reconquista, or Inquisition, in the 8th century. Slowly they were able to spread their control over the north and western parts of Iberia. By the 13th century, a group of Christian leaders were able to drive out the Islamic Moors from the central part of the peninsula. Although most of the Iberian area fell under foreign control, the Moor’s Kingdom of Granada in the south thrived for three hundred more years.

During the late half of the 15th century, a mass exodus from the peninsula was caused by forced conversion into Catholicism. This led to the decline of the powerful Al-Indulus into small fiefdoms which were known as taifas. These fiefdoms were consolidated in part under the Cordoba Caliphate (Nicolle 55). During the wars of Inquisition, many of the Moors chose to remain in Spain and were converted to Christianity. They were heavily persecuted by King Phillip and his armies if and when they were thought to be practising Islam in secret.

They revolted in 1568 and this led to more persecutions. Eventually, they were expelled from Spain. Although