The Reconquista (a Spanish and Portuguese word for "Reconquest"; Arabic: الاسترداد, "Recapturing") was a period of 800 years in the Middle Ages during which the several Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula expanded themselves (grew) by fighting the Muslim states of "al-Andalus" (Arabic الأندلس), the Muslim states on the Iberian Peninsula, and pushing them out of the peninsula.