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Religion was central to medieval life. The invaders brought with them a religion that was a polytheizing faith and this greatly complicated the religious situation in Iberia. Traditionally the Muslim Conquest of Spain was believed to have resulted in many conversions from Christianity to Islam. However, these were not as numerous as many have believed and it was mainly members of the Visigoth elite who converted in the first decades after the Muslim invasion and this was done to retain their lands. The majority of the Christian population did not convert to Islam. This was in part because they were strongly attached to their faith but also the simple fact was that the Muslims did not really seek to convert them. The traditional view is that the Arabs forcibly converted the populations they ruled. This has been proven to be untrue. It was often hard for a Christian to convert. The Dhimmi paid a poll tax, and this was essential for the treasury and this gave the Arab overlords every incentive to dissuade conversions <ref> Kennedy, p. 114</ref>. It seems that in the first few centuries of Islamic rule that there were relatively few conversions. There were only mass-conversions during the 9th and especially the 10th century and these were all voluntarily conversions. The Muslim invasion changed the religion of Spain, but it did so over time. This was once again similar to the situation in Persia, where the conversion of Zoroastrians to Islam which was also a gradual process <ref> Kennedy, p. 79</ref>.
==Conclusion==
The Muslim Civilization in Spain is rightly regarded as one of the world’s great cultures. It enriched both European and Middle Eastern civilization and this makes it unique. This diverse and cultured society was very slow to emerge. The Arabs did not simply sweep away the existing Christian civilization. Rather they sought to exploit the prevailing culture and administrative system to maintain their rule, this is understandable as they were a minority in Spain. There was not simply not enough Arabs or their Berber allies to make significant changes to the existing ways of life of the people that they had conquered. Rather we should see the influence as creeping slowly over time over the Iberian Peninsula. Over time they The Muslims even influenced those who remained Christians, as seen in the emergence of the Mozarabs, these were Spanish Christians who adopted many Arabic practices. The evidence shows that while Iberia was conquered by the Muslims in a short space of time that it took centuries for them to change the lives and thinking of the indigenous peoples. This was also the case in the other lands that they conquered. Then there is the issue of religion. The Muslims did introduce a new religion, but it was many decades before there were a great number of conversions to Islam. ==References==
