Tariq ibn Ziyad

  جب طارق بن زیاد دشمن کے قریب پہنچے تو انہوں نے اپنی فوج کے سامنے اللہ تعالیٰ کی حمد و ثنا کرتے ہوئے مسلمانوں کو جہاد اور شہادت کی ترغیب دلائی اور کہا :

اے لوگو! اب راہ فرار کہاں ہے؟ سمندر تمہارے پیچھے ہے اور دشمن تمہارے آگے۔
اللہ کی قسم ! تمہارے لئے صدق و صبر کے سوا اور کوئی چارہ نہیں۔ جان لو ! تم اس جزیرہ نما میں اس قدر بےوقعت ہو کہ کم ظرف لوگوں کے دسترخوان پر یتیم بھی اتنے بےوقعت نہیں ہوتے۔
تمہارے دشمن اپنے لشکر ، اسلحے اور وافر خوراک کے ساتھ تمہارے مقابلے میں نکلا ہے۔ ادھر تمہارے پاس کچھ نہیں سوائے اپنی تلواروں کے۔ یہاں اگر تمہاری اجنبیت کے دن لمبے ہو گئے تو تمہارے لئے خوراک بس وہی ہے جو تم اپنے دشمن کے ہاتھوں سے چھین لو۔

اگر تم یہاں کوئی معرکہ نہ مار سکے تو تمہاری ہوا اکھڑ جائے گی اور تمہاری جراءت کے بجائے تمہارے دلوں پر دشمن کا رعب بیٹھ جائے گا۔
اس سرکش قوم کی کامیابی کے نتیجے میں تمہیں جس ذلت و رسوائی سے دوچار ہونا پڑے گا اس سے اپنے آپ کو بچاؤ۔ دشمن نے اپنے قلعہ بند شہر تمہارے سامنے ڈال دئے ہیں۔ اگر تم جان کی بازی لگانے کو تیار ہو جاؤ تو تم اس موقع سے فائدہ اٹھا سکتے ہو۔
میں تمہیں ایسے کسی خطرے میں نہیں ڈال رہا جس میں کودنے سے خود گریز کروں ۔۔۔۔ اس جزیرہ نما میں اللہ کا کلمہ بلند کرنے اور اس کے دین کو فروغ دینے پر اللہ کی طرف سے ثواب (ان شاءاللہ) تمہارے لئے مقدر ہو چکا ہے۔
یہاں کے غنائم خلیفہ اور مسلمانوں کے علاوہ خاص تمہارے لئے ہوں گے۔ اللہ تعالیٰ نے کامیابی تمہاری قسمت میں لکھ دی ہے، اس پر دونوں جہانوں میں تمہارا ذکر ہوگا۔
یاد رکھو ! میں تمہیں جس چیز کی دعوت دیتا ہوں اس پر پہلے خود لبیک کہہ رہا ہوں۔ میں میدانِ جنگ میں اس قوم کے سرکش راڈرک پر خود حملہ آور ہوں گا اور ان شاءاللہ تعالیٰ اسے قتل کر ڈالوں گا۔
تم سب میرے ساتھ ہی حملہ کر دینا۔ اگر اس کی ہلاکت کے بعد میں مارا جاؤں تو تمہیں کسی اور ذی فہم قائد کی ضرورت نہیں رہے گی۔ اور اگر میں اس تک پہنچنے سے پہلے ہلاک ہو جاؤں تو میرے عزم کی پیروی کرتے ہوئے جنگ جاری رکھنا اور سب مل کر اس پر ہلہ بول دینا۔ اس کے قتل کے بعد اس جزیرہ نما فتح کا کام پایۂ تکمیل تک پہنچانا۔ راڈرک کے بعد اس کی قوم مطیع ہو جائے گی.

 Tariq ibn Ziyad ( died 720) was a Muslim, possibly Berber general who led the Islamic conquest of Visigothic Hispania in 711-718 A.D. He is considered to be one of the most important military commanders in Iberian history.

On Rajab 7, 92 / April 29, 711, the armies of Tariq ibn Ziyad, in command of an army of 10,000 men, landed at Gibraltar (the name Gibraltar is derived from the Arabic name Jabal al Tariq, which means mountain of (the) Tariq, or the more obvious Gibr Tariq, meaning rock of Tariq).

The 17th century Muslim historian Al-Maqqari wrote that upon landing, Tariq burned his ships and then made a speech, well-known in the Muslim world, to his soldiers.

“Oh my warriors, whither would you flee? Behind you is the sea, before you, the enemy. You have left now only the hope of your courage and your constancy. Remember that in this country you are more unfortunate than the orphan seated at the table of the avaricious master. Your enemy is before you, protected by an innumerable army; he has men in abundance, but you, as your only aid, have your own swords, and, as your only chance for life, such chance as you can snatch from the hands of your enemy. If the absolute want to which you are reduced is prolonged ever so little, if you delay to seize immediate success, your good fortune will vanish, and your enemies, whom your very presence has filled with fear, will take courage. Put far from you the disgrace from which you flee in dreams, and attack this monarch who has left his strongly fortified city to meet you. Here is a splendid opportunity to defeat him, if you will consent to expose yourselves freely to death. Do not believe that I desire to incite you to face dangers which I shall refuse to share with you. In the attack I myself will be in the fore, where the chance of life is always least.  Remember that if you suffer a few moments in patience, you will afterward enjoy supreme delight. Do not imagine that your fate can be separated from mine, and rest assured that if you fall, I shall perish with you, or avenge you. You have heard that in this country there are a large number of ravishingly beautiful Greek maidens, their graceful forms are draped in sumptuous gowns on which gleam pearls, coral, and purest gold, and they live in the palaces of royal kings. The Commander of True Believers, Alwalid, son of Abdalmelik, has chosen you for this attack from among all his Arab warriors; and he promises that you shall become his comrades and shall hold the rank of kings in this country. Such is his confidence in your intrepidity. The one fruit which he desires to obtain from your bravery is that the word of God shall be exalted in this country, and that the true religion shall be established here. The spoils will belong to yourselves. Remember that I place myself in the front of this glorious charge which I exhort you to make. At the moment when the two armies meet hand to hand, you will see me, never doubt it, seeking out this Roderick, tyrant of his people, challenging him to combat, if God is willing. If I perish after this, I will have had at least the satisfaction of delivering you, and you will easily find among you an experienced hero, to whom you can confidently give the task of directing you. But should I fall before I reach to Roderick, redouble your ardor, force yourselves to the attack and achieve the conquest of this country, in depriving him of life. With him dead, his soldiers will no longer defy you.”

 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.
• He was a member, or freedman of the Sadif clan of the Kindah.
• 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. The Berber tribes associated with these ancestries (Zenata, Walhāṣ, Warfajūma, Nafzā) were, in Tariq's time, all resident in Tripolitania.
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• • 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.
  • The 14th-century historian Ibn Idhari gives two versions of Tariq's ancestry. 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 .
  
  • Most historians, Arab and Spanish, seem to agree that he was a slave of the emir of Ifriqiya (North Africa), Musa bin Nusayr, who gave him his freedom and appointed him a general in his army.