La Convivencia (Spanish: [la kombiˈβenθja], "The Coexistence") is an academic hypothesis regarding the period of Spanish history from the Muslim Umayyad conquest of Hispania in the early eighth century until the expulsion of the Jews in 1492. It claims that in the different Moorish Iberian kingdoms, the Muslims, Christians and Jews lived in relative peace. According to this interpretation of history, this period of religious diversity differs from later Spanish and Portuguese history when Catholicism became the sole religion in the Iberian Peninsula, as a result of expulsions and forced conversions.