Today in History: Christian Spain Overcomes the Hordes of Islam

On July 16, 1212, atop the windswept plains of Las Navas de Tolosa, Christendom and Islam clashed in one of the most consequential battles of the Middle Ages. This event shattered an empire, galvanized a continent, and still echoes in the political currents of modern Spain and among Islamist terrorists who vow vengeance for it.

It had been 500 years since the armies of Muhammad first crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and began their conquest of Iberia in 711. In their wake, most of the peninsula fell under the crescent. Yet a single ember of resistance smouldered in the northern mountains of Asturia—small, defiant, unyielding. From this remnan,t the Reconquista was born: the slow-burning, centuries-long Christian effort to reclaim the land for the cross.

A Gathering Storm

By the dawn of the thirteenth century, that ember had grown into a flame. Northern Christian kingdoms had pushed their borders south, reclaiming nearly half of Spain. Alarmed, the Muslim world responded with a thunderous reply. Almohad caliph Muhammad al-Nasir, known as “Miramamolín” to Christian chroniclers, declared a war of annihilation. From the deserts of North Africa, across the straits and into Spain, he summoned one of the largest Islamic armies ever to march in Europe—sworn not merely to halt the Reconquista, but to extinguish it.

In a fiery proclamation circulated across Muslim lands, Muhammad commanded the Christians to surrender and embrace sharia, warning that “all those who adore the sign of the cross … will feel our scimitars.” His campaign was not merely political—it was eschatological.

Rome answered. Pope Innocent III called upon all Christian rulers to unite under the banner of the cross. “The enemies of Christ,” he wrote, “seek not only to destroy the Spains but to carry their wrath across Christendom and blot out the Christian name.”

Spain’s kings responded. Alfonso VIII of Castile took supreme command. Alongside him marched Sancho VII of Navarre—the “Giant King”—and Pedro II of Aragon, joined by warrior-monks of the military orders, foreign volunteers, and bishops clad in mail. Troubadours rallied the faithful with battle songs: “Saladin took Jerusalem [25 years earlier],” they warned, “and now the king of Morocco prepares to strike the Christians with his perfidious Arabs and Andalusians, believing the world is theirs by right.” Others chanted more grimly, “Let us not yield our heritage to the black dogs from across the sea.”
Battle Lines Drawn

On July 14, the Christian and Muslim armies met in the shadow of the Sierra Morena mountains. The caliph’s force, as chronicled by Darío Fernández-Morera, was vast and diverse:

Berbers, fierce black slave-soldiers (imesebelen) chained together as an unbreakable guard around the caliph’s tent, Arabs, Turkic archers, Andalusian levies, mujahidin from across the Islamic world, and even Christian turncoats drawn by gold.

In sheer numbers, the Muslims outmatched the Christians nearly three to one. But if the Islamic host resembled a whirlwind of the East and South, the Christian lines stood as armoured bulwarks of the West—mail-clad knights gripping three-foot blades, their banners bearing crosses and icons of the Virgin.

The Christians spent July 15 in prayer and preparation. Clergy moved among the men, administering the sacraments and exhorting them to fight for Christendom’s survival. That night, just after midnight, horns blared and heralds cried out: “Arm yourselves—for the Lord’s battle is at hand!” Psalms and hymns rang through the camp as warriors donned their armour in silence.
The Fateful Day

At dawn on July 16, battle was joined. For hours, both sides fought in a brutal, grinding deadlock. A Christian eyewitness recalled:

They fought hand-to-hand with lances, swords, and axes. Arrows could find no space. The Christians pressed forward; the Moors resisted with savage force. The din of war echoed across the hills—yet neither side broke.

King Alfonso’s army advanced through wave after wave, each Muslim line collapsing only for another to form behind it. At last, they reached the caliph’s final guard, where stood the Black slave-soldiers, shackled together in a ring of iron and resolve. There, the Christians faltered. Surrounded and exhausted, they wavered.

Some began to flee. Panic rippled through the rear ranks. But then King Alfonso, hearing the cry of retreat, mounted and charged into the fray, his standard flying high—the cross of Christ at the fore, the image of Mary and her Child upon his banner.

However, the situation had not yet changed.

The Pivotal Moment

Then came a moment that was later burned into Christian memory: Muslim archers began defiling the holy standards, showering crosses and icons with stones and arrows. The Christians erupted into righteous fury upon witnessing this blasphemy. “We had resolved to die for the faith,” wrote one participant, “but now our arms were guided by heaven.” Inspired by what some called a miracle—a gleaming cross appearing behind enemy lines—the crusaders surged forward.

Sancho VII of Navarre led the final, decisive charge. A towering man, armored and unstoppable, he and his knights shattered the chained slave-soldiers and reached the caliph’s tent. Muhammad fled on horseback. His elite guard was butchered where they stood. The tents of the caliph became his army’s tomb.

“Thus was the battle of the Lord won,” King Alfonso proclaimed, “by God alone and through God alone.”

The slaughter was total. The seemingly invincible Almohad empire had been broken. Tens of thousands of Muslims lay dead; the Christian losses numbered fewer than two thousand, mainly among the military orders that had fought wherever danger was greatest.

However, Las Navas de Tolosa represented more than just a triumph; it marked a pivotal moment. Following this event, the Muslim strongholds in the south began to crumble one after another. By 1248, only the small, distant kingdom of Granada remained Islamic—and even it had become a tributary of Castile.

For centuries, July 16 was enshrined as the Triumph of the Holy Cross in the Spanish calendar. Churches rang bells; masses were said. But in time, even that memory was erased. The Second Vatican Council quietly removed the feast from the calendar—a gesture in keeping with the modern spirit of historical amnesia.



Raymond Ibrahim, author of Defenders of the West and Sword and Scimitar, is the Distinguished Senior Shillman Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.