Medieval Arabic historians give contradictory accounts of Ṭāriq's origins and ethnicity. Some conclusions about his personality and the circumstances of his entry intoal-Andalus are surrounded by uncertainty.[1] The vast majority of modern sources state that Ṭāriq was aBerbermawla ofMusa ibn Nusayr, the Umayyad governor ofIfriqiya.[1][2][3][4]
According toIbn Khaldun, Tariq Ibn Ziyad was from a Berber tribe in what is nowAlgeria.[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 theBéni Saf region inAlgeria.[8] According to David Nicolle, Tariq Ibn Ziyad is first mentioned in historical records as the governor ofTangier.[5] Additionally, as per David Nicolle, it is traditionally believed that he was born in Wadi Tafna (a region in present dayTlemcen).[5][9] He had also lived there with his wife prior to his governance of Tangier.[10]
According toIbn Abd al-Hakam (803–871), Musa ibn Nusayr appointed Ṭāriq governor ofTangier after its conquest in 710–711,[11] but an unconquered Visigothic outpost remained nearby atCeuta, a stronghold commanded by a nobleman namedJulian, Count of Ceuta.
AfterRoderic 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 toQayrawan) 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 recentBerber converts to Islam, was landed on the Iberian peninsula (in what is now Spain) by Julian.[a] 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 ofWittiza, whom Roderic had brutally deposed.[17] Ṭāriq won a decisive victory when Roderic was defeated and killed on July 19 at theBattle of Guadalete.[1][18]
Map Conquest of Iberian Peninsula.
Ṭāriq Bin Ziyad split his army into four divisions, which went on tocaptureCórdoba under Mughith al-Rumi,Granada, and other places, while he remained at the head of the division which capturedToledo. Afterwards, he continued advancing towards the north, reachingGuadalajara andAstorga.[1] Ṭāriq wasde 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 toDamascus by the Umayyad CaliphAl-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]
Ṭāriq appears in one story of theOne 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.[27]
^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 geographeral-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 laterKitāb 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.
^Nafḥ al-ṭīb min ghuṣn al-Andalus al-raṭīb wa-dhikr waziriha Lisān al-Dīn ibn al-Khaṭīb (نفح الطيب من غصن الأندلس الرطيب وذكر وزيرها لسان الدين بن الخطيب 'The Breath of Perfume from the Dew-Laden Branch of al-Andalus and Mentions of its VizierLisan ad-Din Ibn al-Khatib')
^Alternatively, he was left as governor when Mūsā's son Marwan returned toQayrawan. Both explanations are given by Ibn Abd al-Hakam, p. 41 of Spanish translation, p. 204 of Arabic text.
^Akhbār majmūa, p. 21 of Spanish translation, p. 6 of Arabic text.
^Akhbār majmūa p. 8 of Arabic text, p. 22 of Spanish translation.
^Collins, Roger (2004).Visigothic Spain 409–711. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons Ltd. p. 141.ISBN978-1405149662.
^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 theMozarab Chronicle par. 52 to mean the same thing.
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.
Ibn Abd al-Hakam,Kitab Futuh Misr wa'l Maghrib wa'l Andalus. Critical Arabic edition of the whole work published byTorrey, 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.
Tarik's Address to His Soldiers, 711 CE, fromThe Breath of Perfumes. A translation ofal-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 (downloadthe 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."
