The conquest of Spain towards the end of the 1st cent. A.H. (early 8th cent. A.D.) was jointly an Arab and Berber undertaking, the Berbers being in the great majority in the invading army, and most of the leaders being Berber. Thus in Andalusia the old rivalries between Arab and Berber figure largely in the next few centuries. At first Andalusia was regarded merely as a district attached to the province of North Africa, and was ruled from Ifrikiya.
In A.H. 138, after the fall of the Umayyads in Asia, a fugitive member of the fallen dynasty, `Abdu r-Rahman, failing in an attempt to restore his family in Africa, crossed over to Spain, and there established a new and independent power, with its seat of government at Cordova, and in A.H. 317 one of his descendants formally assumed the title of “Commander of the Faithful.” The Umayyads of Spain very closely reproduced the general characteristics of their rule in Syria. They were tolerant, and made free use of Christian and Jewish officials; they encouraged the older literary arts, and especially poetry, and employed Greek artists and architects; but though doing much for the more material elements of culture, there is no evidence under their rule of any interest in Greek learning or philosophy. Yet, though in a sense old-fashioned, the country was by no means isolated, and we find frequent intercourse between Spain and the east. The religious duty of the pilgrimage has always been an important factor in promoting the common life of Islam, and there is abundant evidence that the Spanish Muslims looked steadily eastwards for religious guidance, accepting the _hadith_, the canon law, and the development of a scientific jurisprudence as it took shape in the east. Both Muslims and Jews travelled to Mesopotamia in order to complete their education, and thus kept in contact with the more cultured life of Asia. But Spanish Islam had no feeling of sympathy with the philosophical speculation popular in the east, and certainly disapproved the latitudinarian developments which were taking place under the `Abbasids of the third century: its tendency was to a rigid orthodoxy and strict conservatism, its interests were confined to the canon law, Qur´anic exegesis, and the study of tradition.