Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa

The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, known in Arabic as Ma'rakat al-'Iqab (Battle of the Pass), was a decisive defeat for the Almohad Caliphate that permanently shifted the balance of power in the Iberian Peninsula in favour of the Christian kingdoms. The Almohads under Caliph al-Nasir had recovered much of Andalusia after their victory at Alarcos in 1195, but a coalition of the three major Iberian Christian kingdoms, reinforced by crusader volunteers from across Europe, assembled in response to a papal call. The battle took place in a mountain pass. The crusader forces broke through the Almohad defences and routed the army. Caliph al-Nasir barely escaped. The defeat fatally weakened the Almohad state, leading to its fragmentation and the rapid Christian conquest of major Andalusian cities over the following decades: Córdoba (1236), Valencia (1238), and Seville (1248). It marked the beginning of the irreversible decline of Muslim power in Iberia.