<P> In the early fifth century, Germanic peoples invaded the peninsula, namely the Suebi, the Vandals (Silingi and Hasdingi) and their allies, the Alans . Only the kingdom of the Suebi (Quadi and Marcomanni) would endure after the arrival of another wave of Germanic invaders, the Visigoths, who conquered all of the Iberian Peninsula and expelled or partially integrated the Vandals and the Alans . The Visigoths eventually conquered the Suebi kingdom and its capital city, Bracara (modern day Braga), in 584--585 . They would also conquer the province of the Byzantine Empire (552--624) of Spania in the south of the peninsula and the Balearic Islands . </P> <P> In 711, a Muslim army invaded the Visigothic Kingdom in Hispania . Under Tariq ibn Ziyad, the Islamic army landed at Gibraltar and, in an eight - year campaign, occupied all except the northern kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula in the Umayyad conquest of Hispania . Al - Andalus (Arabic: الإندلس ‎, tr . al - ʾAndalūs, possibly "Land of the Vandals"), is the Arabic name given to what is today southern Spain by its Muslim Berber and Arab occupiers . </P> <P> From the 8th--15th centuries, only the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula was incorporated into the Islamic world and became a center of culture and learning, especially during the Caliphate of Córdoba, which reached its height of its power under the rule of Abd - ar - Rahman III and his successor al - Hakam II . The Muslims, who were initially Arabs and Berbers, included some local converts, the so - called Muladi . The Muslims were referred to by the generic name, Moors The Reconquista gained momentum on c. 718, when the Christian Asturians opposed the Moors, the southern march to push out the Muslims continued for three hundred years, so for another four hundred years, only the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula was transformed into a Romance - speaking and Arabic - speaking Muslim land, along with pockets of a large minority of Arabic - speaking Sephardi Jews . </P> <P> Many of the ousted Gothic nobles took refuge in the unconquered north Kingdom of Asturias . From there, they aimed to reconquer their lands from the Moors; this war of reconquest is known as the Reconquista . Christian and Muslim kingdoms fought and allied among themselves . The Muslim taifa kings competed in patronage of the arts, the Camino de Santiago attracted pilgrims from all Western Europe, and the Jewish population set the basis of Sephardi culture . </P>

Who lived in and ruled the iberian peninsula for hundreds of years