Al-Walid I in the context of "Muslim Spain"

Al-Andalus (Arabic: الأَنْدَلُس, romanized: al-ʾAndalus) was the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula. The name refers to the different Muslim states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most of the peninsula as well as Septimania under Umayyad rule. These boundaries changed through a series of conquests Western historiography has traditionally characterized as the Reconquista, eventually shrinking to the south and finally to the Emirate of Granada.

As a political domain, it successively constituted a province of the Umayyad Caliphate, initiated by the Caliph al-Walid I (711–750); the Emirate of Córdoba (c. 750–929); the Caliphate of Córdoba (929–1031); the first taifa kingdoms (1009–1110); the Almoravid Empire (1085–1145); the second taifa period (1140–1203); the Almohad Caliphate (1147–1238); the third taifa period (1232–1287); and ultimately the Nasrid Emirate of Granada (1238–1492). Under the Caliphate of Córdoba, the city of Córdoba became one of the leading cultural and economic centres throughout the Mediterranean Basin, Europe, and the Islamic world. Achievements that advanced Islamic and Western science came from al-Andalus, including major advances in trigonometry (Jabir ibn Aflah), astronomy (al-Zarqali), surgery (al-Zahrawi), pharmacology (Ibn Zuhr), and agronomy (Ibn Bassal and Abu'l-Khayr al-Ishbili). Al-Andalus became a conduit for cultural and scientific exchange between the Islamic and Christian worlds.

The Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula (Arabic: فَتْحُ الأَنْدَلُس, romanized: fatḥu l-andalus; 711–720s), also known as the Arab conquest of Spain, was the Umayyad conquest of the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania in the early 8th century. The conquest resulted in the end of Christian rule in most of Iberia and the establishment of Muslim Arab-Moorish rule in that territory, which came to be known as al-Andalus, under the Umayyad dynasty.

During the caliphate of the sixth Umayyad caliph al-Walid I (r. 705–715), military commander Tariq ibn Ziyad departed from North Africa under the command of Musa bin Nusayr in early 711 to cross the Straits of Gibraltar, with a force of about 1,700 men, to launch a military expedition against the Visigoth-controlled Kingdom of Toledo, which encompassed the former territory of Roman Hispania. After defeating king Roderic at the Battle of Guadalete in July the same year, Tariq was reinforced by an Arab force led by his superior wali Musa ibn Nusayr and continued northward.

The conquest of the Maghreb by the Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates commenced in 647 and concluded in 709, when the Byzantine Empire lost its last remaining strongholds to Caliph Al-Walid I. The North African campaigns were part of the century of rapid early Muslim conquests.

By 642 AD, under Caliph Umar, Arab Muslim forces had taken control of Mesopotamia (638 AD), Syria (641 AD), Egypt (642 AD), and had invaded Armenia (642 AD), all territories previously split between the warring Byzantine and Sasanian empires, and were concluding their conquest of Sasanian Persia with their defeat of the Persian army at the Battle of Nahāvand. It was at this point that Arab military expeditions into North African regions west of Egypt were first launched, continuing for years and furthering the spread of Islam.

Abū Ḥafṣ Qutayba ibn Abī Ṣāliḥ Muslim ibn ʿAmr al-Bāhilī (Arabic: أبو حفص قتيبة بن أبي صالح مسلم بن عمرو الباهلي; 669–715/6) was an Arab commander of the Umayyad Caliphate who became governor of Khurasan and distinguished himself in the conquest of Transoxiana during the reign of al-Walid I (705–715). A capable soldier and administrator, he consolidated Muslim rule in the area and expanded the Caliphate's border to include most of Transoxiana. From 705 to c. 710, he consolidated Muslim control over the native principalities of Tokharistan and conquered the principality of Bukhara, while in 710–712 he conquered Khwarizm and completed the conquest of Sogdiana with the capture of Samarkand. The latter opened the road to the Jaxartes valley, and during the last years of his life Qutayba led annual campaigns there, extending Muslim control up to the Fergana Valley and parts of Chinese Turkestan.

To increase his strained manpower, Qutayba initiated the wide-scale levy of native Khurasani and Transoxianian soldiers who fought alongside the Arab Muslim troops. Following Walid's death, Qutayba, insecure of his position under the new regime, rebelled but failed to secure the support of his army, and was killed. Most of his conquests in Transoxiana were lost in the years after his death; only in the 740s was the Muslim position restored to the line reached by Qutayba, and only after the Battle of Talas in 751 did the region come solidly under Muslim control.

Al-Aqsa (/æl ˈæksə/; Arabic: الأَقْصَى, romanized: Al-Aqṣā) or al-Masjid al-Aqṣā (Arabic: المسجد الأقصى) is the compound of Islamic religious buildings that sit atop the Temple Mount, also known as the Haram al-Sharif, in the Old City of Jerusalem, including the Dome of the Rock, many mosques and prayer halls, madrasas, zawiyas, khalwas and other domes and religious structures, as well as the four encircling minarets. It is considered the third holiest site in Islam. The compound's main congregational mosque or prayer hall is variously known as Al-Aqsa Mosque, Qibli Mosque or al-Jāmiʿ al-Aqṣā, while in some sources it is also known as al-Masjid al-Aqṣā; the wider compound is sometimes known as Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in order to avoid confusion.

During the rule of the Rashidun caliph Umar (r. 634–644) or the Umayyad caliph Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680), a small prayer house on the compound was erected near the mosque's site. The present-day mosque, located on the south wall of the compound, was originally built by the fifth Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705) or his successor al-Walid I (r. 705–715) (or both) as a congregational mosque on the same axis as the Dome of the Rock, a commemorative Islamic monument. After being destroyed in an earthquake in 746, the mosque was rebuilt in 758 by the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur (r. 754–775). It was further expanded upon in 780 by the Abbasid caliph al-Mahdi (r. 775–785), after which it consisted of fifteen aisles and a central dome. However, it was again destroyed during the 1033 Jordan Rift Valley earthquake. The mosque was rebuilt by the Fatimid caliph al-Zahir (r. 1021–1036), who reduced it to seven aisles but adorned its interior with an elaborate central archway covered in vegetal mosaics; the current structure preserves the 11th-century outline.

During the first half of the 8th century, a series of battles took place in the Indian subcontinent between the Umayyad Caliphate and Indian kingdoms situated to the east of the Indus River, subsequent to the Arab conquest of Sindh (present day Pakistan) during 711–713.

The Rashidun Caliphate (632–661) launched a few raids in India, but no larger campaign took place. The second wave of military expansion of the Umayyad Caliphate lasted from 692 to 718. The reign of Al-Walid I (705–715) saw the most dramatic Marwanid Umayyad conquests in a period of barely ten years; North Africa, Iberia, Transoxiana, and Sindh were subdued and conquered by the Arabs. Sindh, ruled by King Dahir of the Brahmin dynasty, was captured by the Umayyad general Muhammad bin Qasim, which became a second-level province of the Caliphate (iqlim) and a suitable base for excursions into India, but, after bin Qasim's departure in 715 most of his captured territories were recaptured by Indian kings.

Musa ibn Nusayr (Arabic: موسى بن نصير Mūsá bin Nuṣayr; c. 640 – c. 716) was an Arab general and governor who served under the Umayyad caliphs Abd al-Malik and Al-Walid I. He ruled over the Muslim province of Ifriqiya, and directed the Islamic conquest of the Maghreb as well as the Visigothic Kingdom that controlled the Iberian Peninsula and part of what is now southern France (Septimania).