Small Arab-Berber armies landed in Hispania in 711. The Visigoth kingdoms of Roderick and Akhila quickly fell and the Iberian peninsula came under the control of the Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus. A new society was born within the confines of Dar al-Islam: al-Andalus (Andalusia). In 929 Cordoba became the centre of the new Umayyad Caliphate proclaimed by Abd al-Rahman. Al-Andalus became the foremost economic and cultural power in Europe.
The territories at the upper border of al-Andalus, called al-Tagr l-Ula, were linked to the religious and economic community that extended all the way to the edge of India for over four centuries. This Islamic cultural legacy was to become a powerful influence on the shaping of Catalonia.
