HomeOld_PostsConquering black commanders

Conquering black commanders

Published on

WASTING no time to relish his victory, Tarik pushed on with his seemingly tireless Berber calvary to Toledo and seized the Visigoth capital. 

Within a month’s time, Tankibn Ziyad had effectively terminated Visigothic dominance of the Iberian Peninsula. Musa ibn Nusayr joined Tarik in Spain, and helped complete the conquest of Iberia with an army of 18 000 Arab and Berber troops. 

The two commanders met at Talavera. 

Here, Tarik and his Berbers were given the task of subduing the north-west of Spain. 

With vigor and speed, they set about their mission and within, three months, they had swept the entire territory north of the Ebro River as far as the Pyrenees and annexed the turbulent Basque country. 

There they left a small detachment of men under Munusa, a Berber lieutenant who was later to play a decisive role in the Muslim campaigns in southern France. 

In the aftermath of these brilliant struggles, Berbers by the thousand flooded into the Iberian Peninsula. 

So eager were they to come that some are said to have floated over on tree-trunks. 

Tarik himself, at the conclusion of his illustrious military career, retired to the distant East, we are informed, to spread the teachings of Islam.

While many modern historians refer to Tarik’s garrison as Berbers and Arabs, primary sources, such as Ibn Husayn (ca. 950), recorded that these troops were ‘Sudanese’, an Arabic word for black people. 

Arab writers, Ibn Hayyans and Ibn al-Athir (1160-1234), the authors of the Dhikr Bilad al-Andalus and the Akbar Majmu’ a respectively, both refer to Tarik’s invading force. 

The author of the Dhikr Bilad al-Andalus specifically refers to a force of at least 700 Sudanese in Tarik’s garrison. 

This suggests that some modern writers have attempted to place an artificial wedge between these early Berbers and blacks. 

References to these blacks have so puzzled some modern scholars that there have been vain attempts to explain away and discredit their very existence. 

For example, Norris writes:

“When some of the accounts tell of Negroes in Tarik’s army, that army which ascended the Rock of Gibraltar with its pack beasts, built a wall for defense and mastered the plain of Algeciras, then it is improbable that they were Nubians or Ethiopians.”

In discussing the status of these blacks, Taha suggests that they were probably slaves. 

An Arab legend describes these blacks as pseudo-cannibals: “The Sudanese (blacks) took captive some of the Goths. They slew them and pretended to eat them and this added to the fear and terror of them.” 

There is really no need to speculate on the ethnicity of these early invaders of the conquest period. 

Primary Christian sources relating to the conquest, particularly the Primera Cronica General of Alfonso X, make the following observation on the Moors: “Their faces were as black as pitch, the handsomest amongst them was as black as a cooking pot.” 

With the conquest and settlement of Spain, the Arabs developed patterns of racial bias towards the Berbers. 

This bias, sometimes blatant and other times more subtle, manifested itself in various ways, including disproportionate tax assessments and poor land allotments. 

For example, after founding the Almohad Dynasty, the Berber ruler Abd al-Mu’min offered the Granadan post of ‘able secretary’ to an Arab poet named Abu Ga’far. Scheduled to work with al-Mu’min’s

son, Abu Said, the Arab poet hesitated “…because the dark-skinned Berber seemed to him far below his own intellectual standards.” 

This kind of attitude often led to hostile feelings, open rebellions and shifting alliances between the Arab, Berber and Christian factions of the Iberian Peninsula.

In the 9th Century, in order to achieve commercial dominance in the region, Muslim powers in Tunisia launched an invasion of Sicily. 

The conquest was facilitated by “…large and well organised fleets…” coming from the east coast of Spain and the western Maghrib and manned chiefly by Berbers. 

It began in 827 and ended 10 years later with the storming of Palermo. 

The occupation of Palermo was followed by the occupation of Messina in 842 and Syracuse in 878. 

In 937, Ibn Hawkal noted that blacks were very common in Palermo. Regarding one of the city’s main entrances, Hawkal wrote that it was called the ‘Bab es Soudan’, or ‘Gate of the Blacks’, so named after its ebony-hued residents. 

Pope Leo III referred to these blacks variously as Moors, Agareni and Saracens. Islamic encroachment on the European mainland took place around 846, when ‘Saracens’ landed at the mouth of the Tiber River and besieged Rome. Of this invasion, the German historian Hincmar (ca.875) wrote that:

“The Arabs and Moors assaulted Rome on the Tiber and when they laid

waste to the basilica of the blessed Peter, the prince of the apostles, and

carried off all the ornaments and treasures, with the very altar which was

situated above the tomb of the famous prince of apostles, they occupied

strongly a fortified hill a 100 miles from the city.”

In the invasion of Rome, Pope John VII agreed to pay an annual tribute of 25 000 marks of silver to the Saracens to retreat. Frederick II (1197-1250), of the Hohenstaufen Dynasty, developed especially close relationships with the remaining blacks in Sicily and retained a Moorish chamberlain who was constantly in his presence. 

While admittedly breaking the Islamic powerbase, he also solicited the aid of the Moors from Palermo in his intense struggle with the papacy. 

After resettling conquered Muslims on the Italian mainland at Lucera, the monarch recruited an elite guard unit of 16 000 black troops. 

One of the independent sovereigns of Moorish descent, with whom Frederick II came into contact, was Morabit, a name whose attachment may be found with the Sanhadja Berber tribes known as Murabit. Growing conflicts and rebellion against the expansionist policies of Frederick II eventually led to the death of Morabit. 

In 1239, however, another black man, Johannes Maurus, attained a position of considerable authority at the Hohenstaufen royal court. 

“In South Italy and Sicily,” writes Paul Kaplan, “dark-skinned Moslems had already been visible for several centuries.”

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Latest articles

The contentious issue of race

 By Nthungo YaAfrika AS much as Africans would want to have closure to many of...

Musician pens seven books

By Fidelis Manyange CHITUNGWIZA-based musician, known in music circles as Gaban Kufemamoto Chebani Chedondo Chegwenzi...

A successful first quarter

THE first quarter of the year is done. As a people, we have not been...

FOZEU’s call for strike…an attempt at provoking anarchy

By Elizabeth Sitotombe IN an attempt to sow anarch across the country by calling for...

More like this

The contentious issue of race

 By Nthungo YaAfrika AS much as Africans would want to have closure to many of...

Musician pens seven books

By Fidelis Manyange CHITUNGWIZA-based musician, known in music circles as Gaban Kufemamoto Chebani Chedondo Chegwenzi...

A successful first quarter

THE first quarter of the year is done. As a people, we have not been...

Discover more from Celebrating Being Zimbabwean

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading