Timeline 722 - 1000 (Umayyad World)

Battle of Corvadonga
See main article: Battle of Corvadonga

In 722, the forces of the Umayyad leader Al Qama engaged Pelagius's Asturian forces at Corvadonga after an invasion of the small kingdom in northwestern Iberia. The battle raged for only a few days before the Umayyads overwhelmed the Asturian forces encamped in the mountains, and stormed the rest of the Kingdom after defeating King Pelagius and slaying him in combat. The battle was fought chiefly in Corvadonga, but engulfed several neighboring villages and the surrounding area. Within the month, Asturias was formally added to the Umayyad Caliphate in the province of Al-Andalus.

However, after the new addition, the caliphate was faced with a logistical crisis. By no means could information travel to Damascus from Al-Andalus in time for action to be taken, and the same went for supplies. So, Governor Anbasa and Yazid II agreed to make Al-Andalus an independent emirate that would cooperate woth the caliphate to wage jihad against Europe, and Anbasa was made emir. After his rise to emir status, Anbasa initiated wide reforms, expanding religious tolerance in the emirate through decreasing the Jizya, and allowing greater freedom of worship, although many cathedrals were transformed into grand mosques.

Conquest of the Duchy of Gascony
After solidifying his grip on his new nation, Anbasa sent Al Qama into the Kingdom of Basque, a tiny Christian monarchy in northern Iberia in 723. The invasion began with Muslim hordes crossing the borders of the Kingdom and laying waste to several villages. Before the kingdom could respond, Al Qama had reached Gasteiz, the capital, and began to lay siege. The siege was relatively short, lasting only a few days, and the Muslims begn raiding the surrounding territory as well, looting and setting up outposts along the way. The forces of King were overpowered within weeks, and the small nation was lost, absorbed by the Islamic behemoth awakening below Europe.

The armies then moved on to southern Gaul, flooding into the cities of Tarbes, Pau, and Tartas, capturing them throughout 724 and 725, eventually gaining hold throughout the entire Duchy, looting it and converting the populace in such short a time that the provincial government was overthrown and unified to the emirate, leaving Aquitaine proper the chief rival to the Muslims in western Gaul. After the absorption of the Duchy of Gascony, Anbasa sought to allow time for the assimilation of the territory, but before he could fully carry this out, he died of natural causes in Cordoba in 726 and was succeeded by the battle-hungry Ayyub II al-Lakhmi, who set his sights to the entirety of Gaul and the growing Frankish Kingdom.