At a glance
Era 4- Dates
- Died c. 720 CE
- Who
- Berber commander who crossed into Iberia in 711
- Era
- Al-Andalus
ProfileTariq ibn Ziyad
Tariq ibn Ziyad was a Berber, a freed man in the service of Musa ibn Nusayr, the Umayyad governor of North Africa. Musa made him governor of Tangier.
In 711 Tariq led an army of a few thousand men, most of them Berbers, across the strait to Iberia. They landed beside a great rock that took his name: Jabal Tariq, the Mountain of Tariq, which became Gibraltar. Near the river Guadalete his army defeated the Visigothic king Roderic, who died in the battle. Tariq then marched north and took Toledo, the Visigothic capital. Musa followed with another army the next year, and within a few years most of the peninsula was under Muslim rule.
In 714 both men were called to Damascus by the caliph. Little is known of Tariq's life after that.
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