Yes, and there is history previous to that, as well -
'In 711 Tariq ibn Ziyad, a Berber governor of Tangier, crossed into Spain with an army of 12,000 (landing at a promontory that was later named, in his honor, Jabal Tariq, or Mount Tariq, from which the name, Gibraltar, is derived). They came at the invitation of a Visigothic clan to assist it in rising against King Roderic. Roderic died in battle, and Spain was left without a leader. Tariq returned to Morocco, but the next year (712) Musa ibn Nusair, the Muslim governor in North Africa, led the best of his Arab troops to Spain with the intention of staying. In three years he had subdued all but the mountainous region in the extreme north and had initiated forays into France, which were stemmed at Poitiers in 732.
Al Andalus, as Islamic Spain was called, was organized under the civil and religious leadership of the caliph of Damascus. Governors in Spain were generally Syrians, whose political frame of reference was deeply influenced by Byzantine practices.
Nevertheless, the largest contingent of Moors in Spain consisted of the North African Berbers, recent converts to Islam, who were hostile to the sophisticated Arab governors and bureaucrats and were given to a religious enthusiasm and fundamentalism that were to set the standard for the Islamic community in Spain. Berber settlers fanned out through the country and made up as much as 20 percent of the population of the occupied territory. The Arabs constituted an aristocracy in the revived cities and on the latifundios that they had inherited from the Romans and the Visigoths.
Most members of the Visigothic nobility converted to Islam, and they retained their privileged position in the new society ... '
lcweb2.loc.gov - not a direct link, which won't work on this site, click on 'AL ANDALUS' .... which presumably is how the moros spelled Andalucía, which is a province named after the tribe who called themselves Vandals, and who lived there for long enough to name the place after them
The Balkans, the Middle East, and the Iberian peninsula have all been crossroads of civilizations, battlefields for culture competition .... of the three, you are today least likely to get shot in the latter ... funny how things work out eh |
