Abd al-Rahman III revived the title of Caliph for the Umayyads and brought the Hispano-Muslim power to its height. Culture, arts, architecture, and superior naval power marked al-Andalus's success. Minor Muslim campaigns went into France but nothing militarily significant. The city of Cordova becomes a seat of culture where men of many faiths, nationalities, and allegiances meet. At the end of the first millennium, the power of the Caliph weakened and became a subordinate to that of the chamberlain. Eventually, after the chamberlain's power weakened also, the Caliph was overthrown in 1031. In the power vacuum that ensues, Christian powers to the north and Muslim powers from the south (based in North Africa) take advantage.
| 929 | Sunni Islam in the east is at a low point. The Abbasid Caliphs have become puppets to their advisors the Shiite Buwayids and the Fatimids have taken the Holy Cities (Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem). In response, Abd al-Rahman III establishes his capital at Cordova and sees it fitting to revive the Umayyad title of Caliph. |
| 930 | Badajoz falls to Abd al-Rahman III after a siege of over one year. |
| 931 | The Byzantines carry out an unsuccessful attack on Franxinetum. |
| 932 | Caliph Abd al-Rahman suppresses the last of the rebels after the capitulation of Toledo. |
| 933 | Ramire II emerges as ruler of Leon and goes to war with the Muslims of Spain. |
| 936 | Abd al-Rahman begins construction of the palace at Madinat al-Zahra. After its completion about fourteen years later, the structure will include a mosque, barracks, gardens, and quarters for merchants, civil servants, and dignitaries. |
| 937 | The Christian nations of Spain found an ally in the rebel governor Muhammad ibn Hisham of Saragossa. Saragossa falls to Abd al-Rahman, but the governor is pardoned and reappointed to his post. Around this juncture, Abd al-Rahman invests heavily into soldier slaves –of German, Frankish, Italian, Russian, etc. backgrounds– called Mamluks (not to be confused with the Mamluks of India or Egypt which came from other ethnicities) purchased from Genoese, Venetian, and Pisan traders. |
| 939 | Abd al-Rahman's forces, under the Slav (Iskalabi, the generic term for the Mamluk soldiers) leader Najd, receive their first defeat after losing to the Christian forces of the King of Leon and the Queen of Navarre at the battle of al-Khandak (The Ditch). Suggestions exist that the jealousy of the Arab leaders against the favored Slavs led to disunity and ultimately loss. The warring nations soon sign a truce and establish friendly relations. Queen Tota of Navarre will eventually send her son Sancho the Fat to Cordova for obesity treatment. The renowned Jewish physician Hasday ibn Shaprut will attend Sancho. |
| 940 | Ahmad ibn Ila, governor of Badajoz, crushes Ramire's army and devastates the land. Abd al-Rahman builds a great aqueduct. Umayyad Spain is famous for its technological advancements in irrigation. |
| 946 | Isaac Velázquez translates the Gospels into Arabic in Cordova. A need for Arabic Gospels exists since the first language of many of Muslim Spain's Christian population was Arabic. |
| 947 | An influx of ambassadors comes to the court of Abd al-Rahman from Constantinople, the ruler of the Slavonians, Charles the Simple of France, and the King of Germany. |
| 949 | Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porpyrogenitus sends a manuscript of the famed pharmacologist of antiquity Dioscorides as a present to Abd al-Rahman III. |
| 950 | Ramire II dies. |
| 952 | Battle of Orbe between Muslims and Huns takes place. Conrad of Burgundy massacres Muslims. |
| 953 | Otto I of Germany sends John of Gorze, Abbot of Gorze in Lorraine (960-974), on an embassy to Cordova to request that the Caliph cease his support for the Muslims based at Franxinetum (the settlement included not just Muslims but Christian, Jewish, and "pagan" mercenaries). Abd ar-Rahman will send a return envoy in the person of Recemundus, bishop of Elvira, three years later. |
| 954 | Muslims sack Abbey at St. Gallen and Grenoble. |
| 955 | Ordono III sues for peace with Abd al-Rahman. Abd al-Rahman founds Almería. |
| 956 | Al-Masudi, a renowned geographer, writes in his Muruj adh-Dhahab of Cordova native Khashkhash ibn Saeed ibn Aswad sailing from Delba (Palos), crossing the Atlantic, possibly to the American continent. In response to a Fatimid attack on Spain by a Sicilian fleet, Abd al-Rahman sends his navy, which at the time was among the best of the world, to bombard parts of the North African coast. |
| 957 | Ahmad ibn Ila, now governor of Toledo, defeats the Galicians and Leonese under Sancho. |
| 959 | A coup expels Sancho from leadership. He flees to his relative in Navarre. In this year, after their requests to the Caliph, Abd al-Rahman reinstalls Sancho to his throne. |
| 961 | Abd al-Rahman III dies at age 73. Industry, agriculture, arts, sciences, and the navy all flourished under his rule. A Saxon nun called Cordova the world's ornament. It boasted an enormous population, contained over 3,000 mosques, a university that rivaled the best in the world, lighted streets, and 80,000 shops. The reign of Umayyad al-Hakam II begins. He greatly patronized scholarship and disliked warfare. He was also a bibliophile who was said to have amassed a library of 400,000 volumes. In the capital, he established 27 schools for the children of poorer citizens. Literacy rate prospers under his rule. |
| 962 | Hakam leads an expedition against rebel forces. |
| 966 | Sancho of Leon submits to the Umayyads. The Danes, under Harald Blatand (Bluetooth), defeat Andalusian Muslims near Lisbon. The Jewish Khazar kingdom in Eastern Europe collapses. Many of its citizens go to Muslim Spain. |
| 972 | Hakam sends a successful expedition to Mauritania in North Africa to combat the Fatimids. |
| 973 | William, Count of Arles, moves for local feudatories to band together against Muslim invasion. Fraxinetum is lost to the Muslims. |
| 976 | Al-Hakam II dies leaving his eleven-year old son Hisham II as heir to the caliphate. Muhammad ibn Abu `Aamir, the secretary of state, overtakes the leadership of Spain and assumes the title Hajib al-Mansur ("The Victorious Lord Chamberlain"). The Hajibs will retain the real power of the state. The Galicians and the Basques revolt. Hajib's forces crush them sacking Barcelona in the process. |
| 985 | Hajib's forces sack the monastery of San Cugat. |
| 988 | Hajib sacks Leon. |
| 991 | Hajib al Mansur declares his office to be hereditary. |
| 997 | Hajib seizes the church of Santiago de Compostela and sacks numerous churches and monasteries during his military campaigns more because of their wealth--monasteries sometimes rendered banking services--rather than their religious symbolism. He employs Christians in his armies. |
| 999 | Gerbert is consecrated as Pope Sylvester II. Around 952, he entered an abbey. After growing tired of monasticism, he is said to have gone to Muslim Spain (around 960) where he learned the sciences. He became so learned in these sciences that many in his homeland accused him of acquiring this knowledge via a pact with the devil. Abu Bakr ibn Omar al-Gutiya, an Andalusian historian and descendent of Gothic Princess Sara, states that Ibn Faruq of Granada sailed from Cadix into the Atlantic, landed in the Great Canary Islands, and went west to Capraria and the Pluitana islands. |
| 1002 | Hajib al-Mansur dies and is succeeded by his son Abd al-Malik, under the title Hajib al-Muzaffar. |
| 1008 | Hajib Abd al-Rahman Sanchol (meaning little Sancho, after his maternal grandfather who was the King of Navarre) begins his reign in Spain. He poisons his brother Abd al-Malik to attain the throne. This act will result in his execution. |
| 1009 | Muhammad II ascends as Umayyad ruler in Spain. Suleiman al-Musta'in succeeds him that same year with the help of the Christian Castile and Leon. |
| 1010 | Muslim chroniclers call this the year of the Catalans because of the region's intervention in the civil strife of the Muslims. Muhammad II begins his second reign in Spain. Again he loses his power within a year, this time to Hisham II who also begins his second reign. |
| 1013 | Suleiman assumes power for a second time in Spain. |
| 1016 | Ali al-Nasr of the Hammudid dynasty ascends to power in Spain (the caliphate will alternate between families in Spain until the ultimate fall of the Umayyads in 1031). |
| 1018 | Abd ar-Rahman IV becomes Umayyad ruler of Spain. Al-Qasim al-Mamun, a Hammudid, replaces him this year. |
| 1021 | Yahya al-Mutali, a Hammudid, assumes power in Spain. |
| 1022 | The Hammudid al-Qasim begins his second reign as Caliph in Spain. |
| 1023 | Abd ar-Rahman V returns the Umayyads to the throne of Caliph in Spain. He proves to be one of the more apt, but still unfortunate, rulers during this turbulent period for the dynasty with the scholar ibn Hazm as his vizier. Abd ar-Rahman will be dragged from his hiding place in a bathroom heater and executed in front of his successor Muhammad. |
| 1024 | Muhammad III al-Mustakfi ascends to power as Spain's caliph. He will try to avoid assassination by disguising himself as a singing girl in a veil. In a frontier village, one of his officers discovers and poisons him. Al-Mustakfi's daughter is the beautiful and renowned poetess Walladah. |
| 1025 | Hammudids gain the caliphate again in Spain with the second ascension of Yahya. |
| 1027 | Hisham III, an Umayyad, rules as Caliph in Spain. |
| 1031 | Umayyads lose control of Spain with the deposition of Hisham III. Muslim Spain is split up into petty kingdoms. |
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