Battle of Guadalete

Battle of Guadalete
	Part of Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula
	; The Visigothic retreat in front of the Berber cavalry, as depicted by Salvador Martínez Cubells (1845–1914)
Date	July 711
Location	Near a body of water in southern Iberia
Result	Umayyad victory
Belligerents
Visigothic Kingdom	Umayyad Caliphate
Commanders and leaders
Roderic †	Ṭāriq ibn Ziyad
Strength
~2,500 (Collins); 33,000 (Lewis)	~1,900 (Collins); 12,000 (Lewis)
Casualties and losses
Heavy, including many nobles and the king	~3,000

The Battle of Guadalete was the first major battle of the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, fought in 711 at an unidentified location in what is now southern Spain between the Visigoths under their king, Roderic, and the invading forces of the Umayyad Caliphate, composed mainly of Berbers and some Arabs^[1] under the commander Tariq ibn Ziyad. The battle was significant as the culmination of a series of Berber attacks and the beginning of al-Andalus. Roderic was killed in the battle, along with many members of the Visigothic nobility, opening the way for the capture of the Visigothic capital of Toledo.

^ Norman Roth (1976), "The Jews and the Muslim Conquest of Spain Archived 7 December 2019 at the Wayback Machine", Jewish Social Studies, Vol. 38, No. 2 pp. 145–58.

[1] Norman Roth (1976), "The Jews and the Muslim Conquest of Spain Archived 7 December 2019 at the Wayback Machine", Jewish Social Studies, Vol. 38, No. 2 pp. 145–58.

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