Tariq ibn Ziyad

Tariq ibn Ziyad (Arabic: طارق بن زياد Ṭāriq ibn Ziyād; c. 670 – c. 720), also known simply as Tarik in English, was an Umayyad commander who initiated the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula (present-day Spain and Portugal) against the Visigothic Kingdom in 711–718 AD. He led an army and crossed the Strait of Gibraltar from the North African coast, consolidating his troops at what is today known as the Rock of Gibraltar. The name "Gibraltar" is the Spanish derivation of the Arabic name Jabal Ṭāriq (جبل طارق), meaning 'mountain of Tariq', which is named after him.

Ṭāriq ibn Ziyād طارق بن زياد
A depiction of Ṭāriq ibn Ziyād (right) and the last Visigothic king, Roderic (left) in the 15th century manuscript Semblanzas de reyes
Born	c. 670 North Africa
Died	c. 720 Damascus, Syria
Allegiance	Umayyad Caliphate
Battles / wars	Conquest of Hispania Battle of Guadalete
Other work	Governor of Tangier Governor of Al-Andalus

Origins

Medieval Arabic historians give contradictory data about Ṭāriq's origins and ethnicity. Some conclusions about his personality and the circumstances of his entry into al-Andalus are surrounded by uncertainty.^[1] The vast majority of modern sources state that Ṭāriq was a Berber mawla of Musa ibn Nusayr, the Umayyad governor of Ifriqiya.^[1][2][3][4]

According to Ibn Khaldun, Tariq Ibn Ziyad was from a Berber tribe in what is now Algeria.^[5] Heinrich Barth mentions that Tariq Ibn Ziyad was a Berber from the tribe of the Ulhassa,^[6] a tribe native to the Tafna^[7] that currently inhabits the Béni Saf region in Algeria.^[8] According to David Nicolle, Tariq Ibn Ziyad is first mentioned in historical records as the governor of Tangier.^[5] Additionally, as per David Nicolle, it is traditionally believed that he was born in Wadi Tafna (a region in present day Tlemcen).^[5][9] He had also lived there with his wife prior to his governance of Tangier.^[10]

History

The Moorish Castle's Tower of Homage, symbol of the Muslim rule in Gibraltar

According to Ibn Abd al-Hakam (803–871), Musa ibn Nusayr appointed Ṭāriq governor of Tangier after its conquest in 710–711,^[11] but an unconquered Visigothic outpost remained nearby at Ceuta, 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, 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) 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.^[12]

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.^{[lower-alpha 1]} They debarked at the foothills of a mountain which was henceforth named after him, Gibraltar (Jabal Tariq).^[13]

Ṭāriq's army contained about 7,000 soldiers, composed largely of Berber stock but also Arab troops.^[14] Roderic, to meet the threat of the Umayyads, assembled an army said to number 100,000,^[15] though the real number may well have been much lower.^[16] Most of the army was commanded by, and loyal to, the sons of Wittiza, whom Roderic had brutally deposed.^[17] Ṭāriq won a decisive victory when Roderic was defeated and killed on July 19 at the Battle of Guadalete.^[1][18]

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.^[1] 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. Within a few years, Ṭāriq and Musa had captured two-thirds of the Iberian peninsula from the Visigoths.^[19][20]

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.^[18] The son of Musa, Abd al-Aziz, who took command of the troops of al-Andalus, was assassinated in 716.^[2] 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, writing in the 9th century, merely states that Mūsā wrote Ṭāriq a "severe letter" and that the two were later reconciled.^[21]

Speech

The 16th-century historian Ahmed Mohammed al-Maqqari, in his The Breath of Perfume, attributes a long speech by Ṭāriq to his troops before the Battle of Guadalete.^[22][23][24]

Legends and cultural references

• Ṭāriq appears in one story of the One Thousand and One Nights (nights 272-273). He is referenced as having killed the king of the city of Labtayt (probably Toledo), in accordance to a prophesy.^[25]

Notes

1. There is a legend that Ṭāriq ordered that the ships he arrived in be burnt, to prevent any cowardice. This is first mentioned over 400 years later by the geographer al-Idrisi, fasc. 5 p. 540 of Arabic text (Arabic: فٱمر بإحراق المراكب), 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.

References

1. Molina 2000, p. 242.
2. Abun-Nasr 1993, p. 71.
3. Kennedy 1996, p. 6.
4. Nicolle 2009, p. 64.
5. David Nicolle (2014). The Great Islamic Conquests AD 632–750. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014. pp. 64–65. ISBN 978-1-4728-1034-2.
6. Barth, Heinrich (1857). Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa: Being a Journal of an Expedition Undertaken Under the Auspices of H.B.M.'s Government, in the Years 1849–1855. Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts.
7. Sidi Yakhlef, Adel. "Approche Anthropo-biologique de la consanguinité sur les paramètres de fitness et de morbidité dans la population de Oulhaça dans l’Ouest Algérien." PhD diss., 2012.
8. Khelifa, Abderrahmane. "Oulhassa (Tribu)." Encyclopédie berbère 36 (2013): 5975–5977.
9. الأدب العربي لغير الناطقين بالعربية. الجزء الأول‬‎. Al Manhal, 2014.
10. Shākir, Maḥmūd. موسوعة اعلام وقادة الفتح الاسلامي‬‎. ‫دار أسامة للنشر والتوزيع‬‎, 2002.
11. Alternatively, he was left as governor when Mūsā's son Marwan returned to Qayrawan. Both explanations are given by Ibn Abd al-Hakam, p. 41 of Spanish translation, p. 204 of Arabic text.
12. Menon, Ajay (2021-04-17). "10 Interesting Facts About The Straits Of Gibraltar". Marine Insight. Retrieved 2023-01-12.
13. Molina 2000, p. 243.
14. Akhbār majmūa, p. 21 of Spanish translation, p. 6 of Arabic text.
15. Akhbār majmūa p. 8 of Arabic text, p. 22 of Spanish translation.
16. Collins, Roger (2004). Visigothic Spain 409–711. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons Ltd. p. 141. ISBN 978-1405149662.
17. According to some sources, e.g., al-Maqqari p. 269 of the English translation, Wittiza's sons by prior arrangement with Ṭāriq deserted at a critical phase of the battle. Roger Collins takes an oblique reference in the Mozarab Chronicle par. 52 to mean the same thing.
18. Reilly 2009, p. 52.
19. Rogers, Clifford J. (2010). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Medieval Warfare and Military Technology. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-533403-6.
20. Esposito, John L. (2000). The Oxford History of Islam. Oxford University Press. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-19-988041-6.
21. p. 365 of Hitti's English translation.
22. Falk, Avner (2010). Franks and Saracens: Reality and Fantasy in the Crusades. p. 47.
23. McIntire, E. Burns, Suzanne, William (2009). Speeches in World History. Infobase. p. 85. ISBN 978-1-4381-2680-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
24. Charles Francis Horne (1917). The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East: With Historical Surveys of the Chief Writings of Each Nation... Vol. VI: Medieval Arabia. Parke, Austin, and Lipscomb. pp. 241–242.
25. "Burton Nights: The city of Labtayt". Tales from the 1001 Nights. Retrieved 2024-09-03.

Sources

Primary sources

• Pascual de Gayangos y Arce, The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain. vol. 1. 1840. English translation of al-Maqqari.
• al-Baladhuri, Kitab Futuh al-Buldan, English translation by Phillip Hitti 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, 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, 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: Jaubert, Pierre Amédée (1836–1840). Géographie d'Édrisi traduite de l'arabe en français d'après deux manuscrits de la Bibliothèque du roi et accompagnée de notes (2 Vols). Paris: L'imprimerie Royale..
• Ibn Taghribirdi, 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, 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, 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

• Abun-Nasr, Jamil M. (1993). A History of the Maghrib in the Islamic Period. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521337670.
• Collins, Roger (1995) [1989]. The Arab Conquest of Spain: 710–797. Wiley. ISBN 978-0-631-19405-7.
• Djait, Hichem (2008). تأسيس الغرب الإسلامي (in Arabic) (2nd ed.). Beirut: دار الطليعة. ISBN 978-9953410876.
• Ivan Van Sertima (1992). Golden Age of the Moor. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 978-1412815369. Retrieved August 23, 2012.
• Kennedy, Hugh (1996). Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of al-Andalus. Routledge. ISBN 978-1317870418.
• Molina, L. (2000). "Ṭāriḳ b. Ziyād". In Bearman, P. J.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E. & Heinrichs, W. P. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Volume X: T–U. Leiden: E. J. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-11211-7.
• Nicolle, David (2009). The Great Islamic Conquests AD 632–750. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1846032738.
• Reilly, Bernard F. (2009). The Medieval Spains. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-39741-4.

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.
• Tarik's Address to His Soldiers, 711 CE, from The Breath of Perfumes. A translation of al-Maqqari'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 (download 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, rather outdated English translation in Medieval Sourcebook: The Islamic Conquest of Spain

New title

Governor of Al-Andalus 711–712

Succeeded by Musa ibn Nusayr