BBC - h2g2 - Gibraltar

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It is said by some ¹ that Saudi Arabia is the only nation on Earth which is named after a person ². There is another: Gibraltar.

So sit right back and you�ll read the tale, the tale of a fateful delegation decision, which started in 711 on the coast of North Africa.

The Visigoths of Spain held a portion of North Africa, Ceuta ³ which in 710 was governed by Count Julian. Julian was one of many powerful Visigoth leaders who had nowhere near enough power to run all of the Iberian peninsula. On the contrary, when the previous Visigoth ruler had died, King Rodrigo took over. He quickly enamoured himself to the gentry by ravishing the daughter of Count Julian. Not a great move.

Julian and kin moved base to Ceuta and hooked up with Mousa, the Muslim Umayyad governor of North Africa. The Umayyads had just conquered all of North Africa after a long battle to convert the Berbers and were still in a convert-by-the-sword sort of mood. Julian and Mousa cooked up a little scheme. Julian was not strong enough to kick out Rodrigo but with Mousa�s Umayyad forces behind him they could conquer Iberia and split the spoils.

The plot was conveyed to Caliph Walid ibn Abd al-Malik in Baghdad where political and religious opponents inside and outside the nation beleaguered the ever-weakening dictatorship ⁴. Caliph Walid I thought prudence would be a good idea. �Send over an expedition to test the waters.�

Mousa decided that, like any executive, he was too important to be involved in an experimental process open to failure ⁵ so he decided to send over a subordinate: Tariq ibn Ziyad. Supported by 400 soldiers, 100 horses and attended by Count Julian and other Visigothic noblemen � Tariq crossed the Straits of Gibraltar⁶ which divided Africa from Europe ⁷.

In those days the rulers of Iberia had trouble in the Basque country⁸. Rodrigo was off killing separatists when Tariq popped in for a visit and missed him. Tariq did a little duty-free shopping � well, purchase-free looting � with the assistance of his Visigoth allies (who actually lived there!) and went home to report to Mousa that there wasn�t a whole lot of opposition to be had.

Meanwhile Rodrigo was heading north again, viewing the alliance of several lords in the region as a threat to his rule, as did they� for twas dethroning Rodrigo they were after. Mousa ordered Tariq to go into Iberia with over twelve thousand men. Tariq landed on Mons Calpe (as the Rock was called) and secured it as the site for a fortress, which he began constructing almost immediately. Tariq�s forces moved northwards quickly � and Rodrigo (having received word that this was no shopping trip) quickly turned his forces south. The armies clashed near Jerez in Andalusia. Rodrigo�s forces were not totally committed to dying for their less than popular king and many deserted to join the Visigoth allies of Tariq. Tariq was in control of almost the entire bottom half of the Iberian peninsula in a few weeks⁹

The Umayyads, the Arabs, the Saracens, the Moors, the Moops (call them what you will) flooded across the Herculean Straits to the Rock upon which Tariq�s fortress now stood. He was a hero to the folk of North Africa who renamed Mons Calpe. The new name was the Rock of Tariq or in Arabic �gibr al-Tariq.� In time the world called the Rock - Gibraltar ¹⁰. And in a boo-boo of Shellian proportions, people make the tautological error of calling it the Rock of Tariq�s Rock.

Gibraltar remained in Arab hands until 1573 (except for 1309-1333 when the Spanish briefly regained it). For his part in the hands-off conquest of Iberia, Mousa was recalled to Baghdad and severely reprimanded for making his boss, the Caliph, look like he wasn�t the centre of the universe¹¹. The Umayyad dynasty collapsed with a few decades and neither the Caliph nor Mousa had countries named after them.