So I finished this new game with the Arabs. I still think I failed to get a great early date to finish UHV3. Up to the last game before this, I'd never completed UHV3 before 1291 AD (UHV2 limit date). In the last one I got it a few turns before 1291. This time I got it around 1180 AD (100 years before UHV2).
I'm sure this was Cordoba's fault and in some part my management as well. I delayed the early wonders to make Ghazis. This allowed my horde to conquer the european lands quite early. But the wrong side of this was the total growth focus of my cities, especially in the North African Coast. Of course if I grow faster then the christians, I may win the objective earlier. But if I don't grow fast, and instead conquer all christian lands (by focusing on stability + ghazis), I may complete the objective even earlier.
So I should have focused on making an alternate production between ghazis, stability buildings and growth buildings. In this game I was always thinking like this: New City founded/conquered -> Granary - Smokehouse - Harbor - Defensive Unit - Lighthouse.
In terms of conquest I failed in a single spot: Never destroy the Spanish. Destroying Spain means that Cordoba will fall. Cordoba is
always Shaky or Unstable/Collapsing after some time, so a dead spain will rise from inside Cordoba. In this game when Cordoba failed to handle itself together, it had all Iberia with the exception of Lusitania and had Tanjah as their only african city. Only La Corona, Tulaytulah (capital, they moved the initial settler to make Al-Maryyat) and Tanjah remained with them. Leon, Pamplona, Barcelona, Sevilla, Valencia, Al-Maryyat and some possible other cities they founded became Spain. A few turns later Cordoba collapsed. I even could change Spain to islam briefly, but then they returned to Catholicism and started to persecute islam.
In the rest of my conquests I was even better then I imagined: I started by sending my HAs and Zanji Spearmen to Iberia, to help Cordoba survive (they couldn't even handle the barbs, and almost lost Tulaytulah twice). With my first wave of Ghazis I conquered Spain and liberated the cities to Cordoba. Then I invaded Burgundy. Marseille was destroyed before I arrived, so I conquered Toulouse and Lyon and Capitulated Burgundy. Then Genoa appeared (while I was conquering Milan), and after those 5 turns of peace with them, I conquered Genoa and the city they founded near Marseille site. Venice was already dead (don't know why), so I conquered it, and all this territory I gave to Burgundy. At this time Cordoba collapsed and I was divided between attacking France or Spain. The Pope chose for me: Charlemagne was leading the crusade. Then I conquered a few cities in France and they asked to capitulate. Great, 2 Emirates in Europe. Suddenly Hungary declared war, so I did a blitzkrieg with them, capturing 5 cities in 2 turns. They capitulated after that, and I gave all cities back to then (Zara went to Burgundy and Ragusa I kept for myself, as I did with Neapolis earlier). So finally I went for Iberia, destroyed Spain, attacked Portugal until they capitulated, and divided Iberia with them. After this I won the game (if not my next aim would be Poland/Austria).
And here it is, the final screenshot (you can see that the Emirate of Burgundy was already conquering Poland for me):