Spain, like other European countries, gives total freedom to its people to practice the religion of their choice. Spain does not have any official state religion. The Spaniards have a very secular outlook, and therefore it could be observed that people of different faiths follow their religious practices without much intervention from others. Regardless of this present situation, Spanish history reflects several struggles between different religions during the first half of the first millennium. These struggles were mainly between the religions like Judaism, Islam and Catholicism.

Spain had become a Christian state a little before the first century, during the reign of Romans. The Visigoths then began to dominate the Iberian Peninsula, weakening Roman control by the fifth century. The Christian community in Spain was strong enough to resist this change, maintaining the dominant position of Catholicism as in the past. In fact, there was a time during the sixth century when Catholic priests were able to convert the Arian King of the Visigoths into a Roman Catholic. This helped to sustain Catholicism in Spain until the start of the eighth century.

During the second decade of the eighth century, Islamic raiders conquered Spain and the Visigoths’ rule came to an end. The Muslims had complete domination over major portions of Spain, and they forced the people to accept Islam. During this period, major churches were converted into mosques in nearly all parts of Spain, which naturally led to the loss of Christian rule. Though the major populations were Catholics because they retained their Catholic religion, they were facing an Islamic population which had grown exponentially with time, rivaling the Catholic population in terms of size. The Islamic religion dominated Spain for another seven hundred years, during which there were several disagreements, mainly between the Muslims and Christians, but to some extent with the Jews as well. The situation had become so grim that to avoid being killed or converted to Islam; several Christians fled Spain during this period.

The violence with the Muslims forced the Catholics to form a strong union so that they could jointly fight with the Islamic rulers. From the sixteenth century onwards, the Roman Catholic religion regained its control over Spain and contributed to the evolution of a new Spanish state. It was only recently, in the year 1978, that Spain declared the freedom to practice religion. As a result of this freedom, the different types of religions that can be observed in Spain today include but are not limited to: Catholicism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism and Bahaism. Along with these, about 20% of the Spanish people do not practice any religion.