Translated by A. THE Arabs carrying Islam westwards to the Atlantic Ocean first set foot on Spanish soil during July the leader of the raid, which was to prove the forerunner of long Moslem occupation of the Iberian Peninsula, was named Tarif, and the promontory on which he landed commemorates his exploit by being called to this day Tarifa.
The main invasion followed a year later; Tariq Ibn Ziyad, a Berber by birth, brought over from the African side of the narrows a comparatively small army which sufficed to overthrow Roderick the Visigoth and to supplant the Cross by the Crescent; he gave his name to that famous Rock of Gibraltar Jabal Tariq, the Mountain of Tariq , which has been disputed by so many conquerors down the ages, and over which the British flag has fluttered since the early years of the eighteenth century.
When Ibn Hazm, the author of the book here translated, was born on 7 November , Islam had been established in Andalusia for nearly three hundred years. Since Cordova, his birthplace, had been the capital of the Umaiyad rulers of this now independent kingdom;' for it was in the far West of the Moslem Empire that the remnant of the first dynasty of Caliphs found shelter and renewed greatness after being supplanted in Baghdad by their conquerors the Abbasids.
The two centuries which followed the inauguration of the Western Caliphate witnessed the rise of a brilliant civilization and culture which have left an ineradicable impress on the peninsula, embodied in so many fine Moorish buildings; the Cathedral Mosque of Cordova, founded in , mentioned several times in the pages of this book, was converted into a Christian cathedral by Ferdinand III in , but its familiar name " La Mesquita " still recalls the purpose for which it was originally erected.
It was during Ibn Hazm's own lifetime that the Umaiyad Caliphate was finally extinguished. His father was a high official in the service of al-Mansur, regent of Hisham II, and of his son al-Muzaffar; al-Mansur and al-Muzaffar were members of the Banu 'Amir who had succeeded in arrogating to themselves all the power and privileges of the Caliphate but its name.
