26. The Man After Whom Gibraltar is Named
The medieval general Tariq ibn Ziyad (died circa 720) was a Berber who led the Muslim conquest of Visigothic Hispania, today’s Iberian Peninsula. He was a trusted slave of North Africa’s Muslim governor, Musa bin Nusayr, who appointed Tariq governor of Tangier in 710. There, he was approached by a Visigoth nobleman from nearby Ceuta, incensed and out for revenge because the Visigoth King Roderic had raped his daughter. He allied with Tariq, and arranged to ship him and a small army of about 7000 men to Hispania.
In charge of that small army, Tariq crossed from North Africa into Spain in 711. There, he secured a beachhead in today’s Gibraltar – a Spanish derivation of “Jabal Tariq“, or “Mountain of Tariq” – which is named after him. After he secured Gibraltar, Tariq reportedly burned his fleet to drive home to his men that there was no possibility of retreat, and that the choices before them were either victory or death. Then, using Gibraltar as a base of operations, Tariq proceeded to subjugate the territory of today’s Spain and Portugal, which he sought to conquer on behalf of the Umayyad Caliphate.