26 - Muslim Spain

The place where Christian Europe and the Muslim world had the most interaction was the Iberian Peninsula during the nearly 800 year reign of Islam there.  When the Muslim forces landed in 711, Spanish did not exist.  Over the next eight centuries, al-Andalus, as it was known, was one of the great centers of learning and culture, rivaling Baghdad and Cairo to the East, and was the point of the greatest transfer of knowledge from the Muslim world into Europe.  This episode looks at the conquest and establishment of the Muslim province of al-Andalus.