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Updated: May 27, 2025
On the intelligence of this rapid success, the applause of Musa degenerated into envy; and he began, not to complain, but to fear, that Tarik would leave him nothing to subdue.
Not long after this, the flag of the crescent was waving from the Pyrenees to the Chinese mountains. In 711 the Saracens under General Tarik crossed the straits between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, and landed on the rock which has since been called after him, "the hill of Tarik," Jebel el-Tarik or Gibraltar. Spain was invaded and captured by the Moslems.
However the case may have been, Mousa, the Berber chieftain, sent his bravest sheik, Tarik, with a goodly following, to lead the invasion. The white-turbaned warriors crossed the strait between what had always been called the Pillars of Hercules, and landed upon that great rock which has ever since borne that leader's name, Gebel-al-Tarik Gibraltar the "rock of Tarik."
Nine centuries before, the African king, Moses son of Nuzir, and his lieutenant, Tarik son of Abdallah, had crossed that strait and burned the ships which brought them. Black Africa had conquered a portion of whiter Europe, and laid the foundation of the deadly mutual repugnance which nine hundred years of bloodshed had heightened into insanity of hatred.
No sooner had Tarik defeated the Christian army on the fatal field of Sidonia than he sent out detachments of horsemen in all directions, hoping to win the leading cities of Spain before the people should recover from their terror. One of these detachments, composed of seven hundred horse, was sent against Cordova, an ancient city which was to become the capital of Moslem Spain.
Subsequently, having received re-enforcements from Africa, Tarik vanquished Roderick himself at the battle of Xeres, where that unfortunate monarch perished during the general flight in which the conflict terminated, A.D. 714, Heg. 96.
Ninety thousand there were, as Arab historians tell us, while Tarik had but twelve thousand, Musa having sent him five thousand more. But the large army was a mob, half-armed, and lacking courage and discipline; the small army was a compact and valorous body, used to victory, fearless, and impetuous.
A hostile lion has it almost invariably proved to Spain, at least since it first began to play a part in history, which was at the time when Tarik seized and fortified it. It has for the most part been in the hands of foreigners: first the swarthy and turbaned Moor possessed it, and it is now tenanted by a fair-haired race from a distant isle.
He is described as a tall man, with red hair and a white complexion, blind of one eye, and with a mole on his hand. The Spanish historians call him Tarik el Tuerto, meaning either "one-eyed" or "squint-eyed." Such was the man whom Musa sent to begin the conquest of Spain. The army of invasion consisted of seven thousand men,—a handful to conquer a kingdom.
While the sovereigns fulfilled this pious duty, the Count de Tendilla, the new governor of Grenada, elevated the triumphant cross, and the standards of Castile and St. James, on the highest towers of the Alhambra. Thus fell this famous city, and thus perished the power of the Moors of Spain, after an existence of seven hundred and eighty-two years from the first conquest of the country by Tarik.
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