# THE PARTICIPATION OF BERBER, NUBIAN AND SUDANESE SOLDIERS IN THE MUSLIM CONQUEST OF THE IBERIAN PENINSULA  
(Eighth-Twelfth Centuries)<br>Salah Trabelsi  
Unlike the long and exhausting war started by the Muslim armies against North Africa in $21 \mathrm{Al}-\mathrm{Hajri}(\mathrm{AH}) / 642$ of the Common Era (CE), the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula was epitomized by its ease and brilliance. It is undoubtedly important to remember that the capture of Carthage (Mubarram $78 \mathrm{AH} /$ March 697 CE ) by the Arabs, as well as that of the major regions of the extreme Maghreb (Dhul-Qa'dah $91 \mathrm{AH} /$ August 709 CE ) were only possible after fifty years of violent fighting and bitter defeats (Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam, 1974, pp. 135, 138; Ibn 'Idhārī, 1983, vol. I, pp. 34-5, 43). According to medieval documentary sources, the attack on the heart of southern Europe at the dawn of the eighth century was conducted with incredible daring and speed. This striking contrast between the two ventures surprised historians to the point that some saw the campaign against Visigothic Spain as a phenomenon contrary to the natural order of things (Lévi-Provençal, tome 1, 1999, p. 2).  
In fact, the breakthrough on the western shores of the Mediterranean seems to mask even more unusual realities. Arab and Latin chronicles, although often laconic and incomplete, agree that the raids, under the command of the Berber Tāriq ibn Ziyād, involved very few Arab fighters (Himyarī, 1937, p. 9). These fighters are said to have numbered only around three hundred ${ }^{1}$ and, if Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam and Ibn  
[^0]
[^0]:    1 1867.'Akhbār madjmī̄a fí fath al-Andalus wa dhikri 'umarā̄iba, E. Lafuente y Alcantara (ed. and Spanish translation), Colección obras aräbigas de bistoria y geografía que publica la Real academia de la bistoria, Tomo primero. Madrid, Rivadeneyra, p. 6.