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Ṭāriq ibn Ziyād ( ar, طارق بن زياد), also known simply as Tarik in English, was a Berber commander who served the
Umayyad Caliphate The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by th ...
and initiated the Muslim Umayyad conquest of Visigothic Hispania (present-day
Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...
and
Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
) in 711–718 AD. He led an army and crossed the Strait of Gibraltar from the
North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
n coast, consolidating his troops at what is today known as the Rock of Gibraltar. The name "Gibraltar" is the
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
derivation of the
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
name ''Jabal Ṭāriq'' (جبل طارق), meaning "mountain of Ṭāriq", which is named after him.


Origins

Medieval Arabic historians give contradictory data about Ṭāriq's origins and nationality. Some conclusions about his personality and the circumstances of his entry into
al-Andalus Al-Andalus translit. ; an, al-Andalus; ast, al-Ándalus; eu, al-Andalus; ber, ⴰⵏⴷⴰⵍⵓⵙ, label= Berber, translit=Andalus; ca, al-Àndalus; gl, al-Andalus; oc, Al Andalús; pt, al-Ândalus; es, al-Ándalus () was the M ...
are surrounded by uncertainty. The vast majority of modern sources state that Ṭāriq was a Berber ''
mawla Mawlā ( ar, مَوْلَى, plural ''mawālī'' ()), is a polysemous Arabic word, whose meaning varied in different periods and contexts.A.J. Wensinck, Encyclopedia of Islam 2nd ed, Brill. "Mawlā", vol. 6, p. 874. Before the Islamic prophet ...
'' of
Musa ibn Nusayr Musa ibn Nusayr ( ar, موسى بن نصير ''Mūsá bin Nuṣayr''; 640 – c. 716) served as a Umayyad governor and an Arab general under the Umayyad caliph Al-Walid I. He ruled over the Muslim provinces of North Africa ( Ifriqiya), and dire ...
, the Umayyad governor of Ifriqiya. He is traditionally said to have been born in the Tlemcen region, he had also lived there with his wife prior to his governance of Tangier.Shākir, Maḥmūd
موسوعة اعلام وقادة الفتح الاسلامي‬‎.
‫دار أسامة للنشر والتوزيع‬‎, 2002.


History

According to
Ibn Abd al-Hakam Abu'l Qāsim ʿAbd ar-Raḥman bin ʿAbdullah bin ʿAbd al-Ḥakam (Arabic: أبو القاسم عبد الرحمن بن عبد الله بن عبد الحكم), generally known simply as Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam (Arabic: ابن عبد الحكم) (801 ...
(803–871), Musa ibn Nusayr appointed Ṭāriq governor of
Tangier Tangier ( ; ; ar, طنجة, Ṭanja) is a city in northwestern Morocco. It is on the Moroccan coast at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar, where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Spartel. The town is the capi ...
after its conquest in 710-711 but an unconquered Visigothic outpost remained nearby at
Ceuta Ceuta (, , ; ar, سَبْتَة, Sabtah) is a Spanish autonomous city on the north coast of Africa. Bordered by Morocco, it lies along the boundary between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It is one of several Spanish territorie ...
, a stronghold commanded by a nobleman named Julian, Count of Ceuta. After Roderic came to power in Spain, Julian had, as was the custom, sent his daughter,
Florinda la Cava Florinda la Cava, or simply La Cava, is a character who, according to legend, played a central role in the downfall of the Visigothic kingdom in Spain in 711. Although she was treated as historical in Spain for centuries, there is no evidence for ...
, to the court of the Visigothic king for education. It is said that Roderic raped her, and that Julian was so incensed he resolved to have the Muslims bring down the Visigothic Kingdom. Accordingly, he entered into a treaty with Ṭāriq (Mūsā having returned to
Qayrawan Kairouan (, ), also spelled El Qayrawān or Kairwan ( ar, ٱلْقَيْرَوَان, al-Qayrawān , aeb, script=Latn, Qeirwān ), is the capital of the Kairouan Governorate in Tunisia and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city was founded by t ...
) to secretly convoy the Muslim army across the Straits of Gibraltar, as he owned a number of merchant ships and had his own forts on the Spanish mainland. On or about April 26, 711, the army of Ṭāriq Bin Ziyad, composed of recent Berber converts to Islam, was landed on the Iberian peninsula (in what is now Spain) by Julian.), vol. 2 p. 18 of French translation. Apart from a mention in the slightly later ''Kitāb al-iktifa fī akhbār al-khulafā'' (English translation in Appendix D of Gayangos, ''The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain''), this legend was not sustained by other authors. They debarked at the foothills of a mountain which was henceforth named after him, Gibraltar (''Jabal Tariq''). Ṭāriq's army contained about 7,000 soldiers, composed largely of Berber stock but also Arab troops. Roderic, to meet the threat of the Umayyads, assembled an army said to number 100,000, though the real number may well have been much lower. Most of the army was commanded by, and loyal to, the sons of Wittiza, whom Roderic had brutally deposed. Ṭāriq won a decisive victory when Roderic was defeated and killed on July 19 at the Battle of Guadalete. Ṭāriq Bin Ziyad split his army into four divisions, which went on to capture Córdoba under Mughith al-Rumi, Granada, and other places, while he remained at the head of the division which captured Toledo. Afterwards, he continued advancing towards the north, reaching Guadalajara and Astorga. Ṭāriq was ''de facto'' governor of Hispania until the arrival of Mūsā a year later. Ṭāriq's success led Musa to assemble 12,000 (mostly Arab) troops to plan a second invasion, and within a few years Ṭāriq and Musa had captured two-thirds of the Iberian peninsula from the Visigoths. Both Ṭāriq and Musa were simultaneously ordered back to Damascus by the Umayyad Caliph Al-Walid I in 714, where they spent the rest of their lives. The son of Musa, Abd al-Aziz, who took command of the troops of al-Andalus, was assassinated in 716. In the many Arabic histories written about the conquest of southern Spain, there is a definite division of opinion regarding the relationship between Ṭāriq and Musa bin Nusayr. Some relate episodes of anger and envy on the part of Mūsā that his freedman had conquered an entire country. Others do not mention, or play down, any such bad blood. On the other hand, another early historian,
al-Baladhuri ʾAḥmad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Jābir al-Balādhurī ( ar, أحمد بن يحيى بن جابر البلاذري) was a 9th-century Muslim historian. One of the eminent Middle Eastern historians of his age, he spent most of his life in Baghdad and e ...
, writing in the 9th century, merely states that Mūsā wrote Ṭāriq a "severe letter" and that the two were later reconciled.


Speech

The 16th-century historian
Ahmed Mohammed al-Maqqari Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Maqqarī al-Tilmisānī (or al-Maḳḳarī) (), (1577-1632) was an Algerian scholar, biographer and historian who is best known for his , a compendium of the history of Al-Andalus which provided a basis for the scholar ...
, in his ''The Breath of Perfume'', attributes a long speech by Ṭāriq to his troops before the Battle of Guadalete.
/ref>


Notes


References


Sources


Primary sources

*
Pascual de Gayangos y Arce Pascual de Gayangos y Arce (June 21, 1809 – October 4, 1897) was a Spanish scholar and Orientalism, orientalist. Life Born in Seville, he was the son of Brigadier#Officer rank in the former Spanish empire, Brigadier José de Gayangos, intend ...
, ''The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain.'' vol. 1. 1840. English translation of
al-Maqqari Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Maqqarī al-Tilmisānī (or al-Maḳḳarī) (), (1577-1632) was an Algerian scholar, biographer and historian who is best known for his , a compendium of the history of Al-Andalus which provided a basis for the scholar ...
. *
al-Baladhuri ʾAḥmad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Jābir al-Balādhurī ( ar, أحمد بن يحيى بن جابر البلاذري) was a 9th-century Muslim historian. One of the eminent Middle Eastern historians of his age, he spent most of his life in Baghdad and e ...
, ''
Kitab Futuh al-Buldan ''Futūh al-Buldān'' ( ar, فتوح البلدان, , Conquest of (the) countries), or ''Kitāb Futūḥ al-Buldān''("Book of the Conquest of the Countries/Lands"), is the best known work by the 9th century Arab or Persian historian Ahmad Ibn Ya ...
'', English translation by
Phillip Hitti Philip Khuri Hitti (Arabic: فيليب خوري حتي), ( Shimlan 22 June 1886 – Princeton 24 December 1978) was a Lebanese-American professor and scholar at Princeton and Harvard University, and authority on Arab and Middle Eastern history, I ...
in ''The Origins of, the Islamic State'' (1916, 1924). * Anon., ''Akhbār majmūa fī fath al-andalūs wa dhikr ūmarā'ihā''. Arabic text edited with Spanish translation: E. Lafuente y Alcantara, ''Ajbar Machmua'', Coleccion de Obras Arabigas de Historia y Geografia, vol. 1, Madrid, 1867. * Anon., '' Mozarab Chronicle''. *
Ibn Abd al-Hakam Abu'l Qāsim ʿAbd ar-Raḥman bin ʿAbdullah bin ʿAbd al-Ḥakam (Arabic: أبو القاسم عبد الرحمن بن عبد الله بن عبد الحكم), generally known simply as Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam (Arabic: ابن عبد الحكم) (801 ...
, ''Kitab Futuh Misr wa'l Maghrib wa'l Andalus''. Critical Arabic edition of the whole work published by Torrey, Yale University Press, 1932. Spanish translation by Eliseo Vidal Beltran of the North African and Spanish parts of Torrey's Arabic text: "Conquista de Africa del Norte y de Espana", Textos Medievales #17, Valencia, 1966. This is to be preferred to the obsolete 19th-century English translation at
Medieval Sourcebook: ''The Islamic conquest of Spain''
* Enrique Gozalbes Cravioto, "Tarif, el conquistador de Tarifa", ''Aljaranda'', no. 30 (1998) (not paginated). *
Muhammad al-Idrisi Abu Abdullah Muhammad al-Idrisi al-Qurtubi al-Hasani as-Sabti, or simply al-Idrisi ( ar, أبو عبد الله محمد الإدريسي القرطبي الحسني السبتي; la, Dreses; 1100 – 1165), was a Muslim geographer, cartogra ...
, ''Kitab nuzhat al-mushtaq'' (1154). Critical edition of the Arabic text: ''Opus geographicum: sive "Liber ad eorum delectationem qui terras peragrare studeant."'' (ed. Bombaci, A. et al., 9 Fascicles, 1970–1978). Istituto Universitario Orientale, Naples. French translation: . *
Ibn Taghribirdi Jamal al-Din Yusuf bin al-Amir Sayf al-Din Taghribirdi ( ar, جمال الدين يوسف بن الأمير سيف الدين تغري بردي), or Abū al-Maḥāsin Yūsuf ibn Taghrī-Birdī, or Ibn Taghribirdi (2 February 1411— 5 June 1470; ...
, ''Nujum al-zahira fi muluk Misr wa'l-Qahira''. Partial French translation by E. Fagnan, "En-Nodjoum ez-Zâhîra. Extraits relatifs au Maghreb." ''Recueil des Notices et Mémoires de la Société Archéologique du Département de Constantine'', v. 40, 1907, 269–382. *
Ibn Khallikan Aḥmad bin Muḥammad bin Ibrāhīm bin Abū Bakr ibn Khallikān) ( ar, أحمد بن محمد بن إبراهيم بن أبي بكر ابن خلكان; 1211 – 1282), better known as Ibn Khallikān, was a 13th century Shafi'i Islamic scholar w ...
, ''Wafayāt al-aʿyān wa-anbāʾ abnāʾ az-zamān''. English translation by M. De Slane, ''Ibn Khallikan's Biographical dictionary'', Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland, 1843. *
Ibn Idhari Abū al-ʽAbbās Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʽIḏārī al-Marrākushī ( ar, أبو العباس أحمد ابن عذاري المراكشي) was a Moroccan historian of the late-13th/early-14th century, and author of the famous ''Al-Bayan al-M ...
, '' Kitāb al-bayān al-mughrib fī ākhbār mulūk al-andalus wa'l-maghrib''. Arabic text ed. G.S. Colin & E. Lévi-Provençal, ''Histoire de l'Afrique du Nord et de l'Espagne intitulée Kitāb al-Bayān al-Mughrib'', 1948.


Secondary sources

* * * * * * * *


External links


Pascual de Gayangos y Arce, ''The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain.'' vol. 1. 1840. Authoritative English translation of al-Maqqari available from Google eBooks
This is the translation still cited by modern historians.

A translation of
al-Maqqari Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Maqqarī al-Tilmisānī (or al-Maḳḳarī) (), (1577-1632) was an Algerian scholar, biographer and historian who is best known for his , a compendium of the history of Al-Andalus which provided a basis for the scholar ...
's work included in Charles F. Horne, ''The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East'', (New York: Parke, Austin, & Lipscomb, 1917), Vol. VI: Medieval Arabia, pp. 241–242. Horne was the editor, the translator is not identified. NB: the online extract, often cited, does not include the warning on p. 238 (downloa
the whole book from other sites
: "This speech does not, however, preserve the actual words of Tarik; it only presents the tradition of them as preserved by the Moorish historian Al Maggari, who wrote in Africa long after the last of the Moors had been driven out of Spain. In Al Maggari's day the older Arabic traditions of exact service had quite faded. The Moors had become poets and dreamers instead of scientists and critical historians." *
Ibn Abd al-Hakam Abu'l Qāsim ʿAbd ar-Raḥman bin ʿAbdullah bin ʿAbd al-Ḥakam (Arabic: أبو القاسم عبد الرحمن بن عبد الله بن عبد الحكم), generally known simply as Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam (Arabic: ابن عبد الحكم) (801 ...
, rather outdated English translation i
Medieval Sourcebook: ''The Islamic Conquest of Spain''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tariq Ibn Ziyad 7th-century births 720 deaths Generals of the Umayyad Caliphate 8th-century Al-Andalus people Berbers in Gibraltar 7th-century Berber people 8th-century Berber people Islam in Gibraltar Military history of Gibraltar Umayyad governors of Al-Andalus 7th-century Muslims Umayyad conquest of Hispania Al-Andalus military personnel