In 711 CE, Tariq ibn Ziyad crossed from North Africa into Spain with roughly 7,000 men, defeated the Visigothic King Roderic at the Battle of Guadalete, and within months had captured Toledo, the Visigothic capital. This campaign — often called the Andalus campaign, after Al-Andalus, the name given to Muslim-ruled Iberia — ended nearly 300…
According to legend, Tariq ibn Ziyad burned his own ships after landing in Spain in 711 CE, cutting off any possibility of retreat and forcing his troops to fight with everything on the line. It’s one of the most repeated stories about him — but the earliest surviving accounts of the conquest don’t mention it…
Tariq ibn Ziyad was the Berber military commander who led the Umayyad conquest of Spain in 711 CE, crossing from North Africa and defeating the Visigothic King Roderic at the Battle of Guadalete. His name lives on in the very geography of the region — Gibraltar comes from Jabal Tariq, Arabic for “Mountain of Tariq,”…
