The Battle of Tours, also known as the Battle of Poitiers was fought in an area between the cities of Poitiers and Tours, in north-central France, in October 732CE. Tours is less than 150 miles away from Paris.

The battle pitted Frankish and Burgundian forces under Charles Martel, against an army of the Umayyad Caliphate led by ‘Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, Governor-General of al-Andalus.

The Franks were victorious. ‘Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi was killed, and Charles subsequently extended his authority in the south.

Later Christian chroniclers and pre-20th century historians praised Charles Martel as the champion of Christianity, characterizing the battle as the decisive turning point in the struggle against Islam, a struggle which preserved Christianity as the religion of Europe; “A landmark battle that marked the high tide of the Muslim advance into Europe”. “Poitiers was the turning point of one of the most important epochs in the history of the world.” Charles’s victory is widely believed to have stopped the northward advance of Umayyad forces from the Iberian Peninsula, and to have preserved Christianity in Europe during a period when Muslim rule was overrunning the remains of the old Roman and Persian Empires

The Battle of Tours followed 21 years of Umayyad conquests in Europe which had begun with the invasion of the Visigothic Christian Kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula in 711.