Tariq ibn Ziyad

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Tariq ibn Ziyad : biography

unknown – 720

On the advice of Julian, Tariq split his army into various divisions which went on to capture Cordoba, Granada and other places, while he remained at the head of the division which captured Toledo and Guadalajara. Tariq was de facto governor of Hispania until the arrival of Musa a year later.

Both Tariq 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.

Origin

Most medieval historians give little or no information about Tariq’s origins or nationality. Ibn ‘Abd al-Hakam, Ibn al-Athir, Al-Tabari and Ibn Khaldunal-Maqqari, p. 255 of English translation by Gayangos, states that Ibn Khaldun referred to Tariq as al-Laythī but this does not appear in modern editions of Ibn Khaldun’s works. do not say anything, and have been followed in this by modern works such as the Encyclopedia of Islam and Cambridge History of Islam. There are three different accounts given by a few Arabic histories which all seem to date from between 400 and 500 years after Tariq’s time. These are that:

  • He was a Persian from Hamadan.Akhbār majmūa, p. 20 of Spanish translation, p. 6 of Arabic text. al-Maqqari, see p. 266 of English translation by Gayangos.
  • He was an Arab member, or freedmanAkhbār majmūa, p. 20 & 21 of Spanish translation, p. 6 of Arabic text. of the Sadif clan of the Kindah.See also Ibn Taghribirdi, p. 278 of French translation, and Ibn Khallikan, vol. 3 p. 476 of English translation (which also refers to him as a Berber). Also mentioned by al-Maqqari, p. 253 & 266 of English translation, together with a possible Lakhmid origin.
  • He was a Berber from North Africa. Even here there are several different versions, and modern workers who accept a Berber origin tend to settle on one version or another without giving any reason for so doing.e.g. M. De Slane, in an editorial note to the French translation of Ibn Khaldun’s Kitab al-Ibar, vol. 1 p. 215 opines that he belonged to the Walhāṣ tribe. Numerous more recent works give his tribe as Warfajūma, e.g. van Sertima’s Golden Age of the Moor p. 54. Both these opinions derive from Ibn Idhari, whose text (quoted above) does not single out one tribe. The Berber tribes associated with these ancestries (Zenata, Walhāṣ, Warfajūma, Nafzā) were, in Tariq’s time, all resident in Tripolitania.Yves Modéran, Les Maures et L’Afrique Romaine (IVe-VIIe Siècle). Ecole Française de Rome, 2003. ISBN 2-7283-0640-0.
    • The earliest reference seems to be the 12th-century geographer al-Idrisi, who referred to him as Tariq bin Abd ‘Allah bin Wanamū al-Zanātī, without the usual bin Ziyad.al-Idrisi, Arabic text fasc. 5 p. 539-540; vol. 2 p. 17 of French translation. "Wanamū" is uncertain, as the various manuscripts differ in spelling this name.
    • The 14th-century historian Ibn Idhari gives two versions of Tariq’s ancestry (the differences may be caused by copyist errors). He is referred to as Tāriq bin Zīyād bin Abd ‘Allah bin Walghū bin Warfajūm bin Nabarghāsan bin Walhāṣ bin Yaṭūfat bin Nafzāw () and also as Tāriq bin Zīyād bin Abd’ Allah bin Rafhū bin Warfajūm bin Yanzghāsan bin Walhāṣ bin Yaṭūfat bin Nafzāw ().Ibn Idhari, Arabic text vol. 1 p. 43 & vol. 2 p. 5 respectively.

Most historians, Arab and Spanish, seem to agree that he was a slaveIbn Khallikan, vol. 3 p. 81 of English translation, even refers to him as "Târik Ibn Nusair", but as De Slane says in a footnote, this is probably caused by accidental omission of the words "freedman of Musa". of the emir of Ifriqiya (North Africa), Musa bin Nusayr, who gave him his freedom and appointed him a general in his army. But his descendants centuries later denied he had ever been Musa’s slave.

The earliest reference to him seems to be in the Mozarab Chronicle, written in Latin in 754, which although written within living memory of the conquest of Spain, refers to him erroneously as Taric Abuzara.Para. 34 of the Chronicle. There is some confusion with Tarif ibn Malik, as noted by al-Maqqari. For a recent discussion see the article by Enrique Gozalbes Cravioto cited below.