TARIQ BIN ZIYAD

 TARIQ BIN ZIYAD

Musa ibn Nusayr, the Umayyad governor of Maghreb sent a force under the command of Tariq bin ziyad , a berber convert to islam , who in early 711 AD landed near a giant monolithic promontory on the south shore of spain. He established his camp near the mountain, which became known as jabal tariq ( the mountain of Tariq ) , anglicized as gibralter . From this base, Tariq led raiding parties throughout the south of spain, which proved to be generally successful – especially since rhoderic and the main bulk of the visigothic army was in the north of the peninsula dealing with a Basque rebellion. By the time Rhoderic was able to march his army south to meet the Muslim forces in the summer of 711 , Tariq had managed to bring over an army have numbers around 10000 soldiers from Muslim north Africa. As the decisive Battle of guadalete, tariq’s army crushed the amassed forces of rhoderic. Tariq advanced to take Roderic’s old capital city of Toledo within a few months of the battle, and soon afterwards, cities began to fall one by one to the invading  Muslims. Tariq’s  superior , Musa also crossed over into Spain to aid in the ongoing conquest . Tariq was the conqueror and Musa was the consolidator, as expeditionary forces under Tariq took cities as far north as the Ebro Valley. In the years from 711 to 715 AD , Tariq and Musa managed to bring the cast majority of the peninsula under Umayyad control.

Reference: Lost Islamic History - Firas Al Khateeb