Christian prisoners of war. Note the similarity between the Christian captives and the Moorish foot soldiers, in contrast with the leader in his purple robes with silk and pearls. From the Cantigas de Santa Maria. The Umayyad conquest of Hispania is the initial Islamic Umayyad Caliphate's conquest, between 711 and 718, of the Christian Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania, centered in the Iberian Peninsula. After the conquest Christians were herded off into slavery along with all their livestock. The conquest was followed by a period of several hundred years during which most of the Iberian peninsula was known as the province of Al-Andalus, dominated by Muslim rulers. Only a handful of small Christian states survived in the mountainous north of the peninsula.