AD 710

Umayyad conquest of Hispania

The disputed 710 prelude to the Umayyad invasion of Iberia

The force most clearly attached to 710 was not an invasion army but a 400-man scouting party under Tarif — a different man from Tariq.

A 400-man raid

The best-defined event attached to 710 is a reconnaissance raid. A detachment of 400 men under Tarif ibn Malluk reportedly crossed to the southern Iberian coast in Ramadan 91 AH, obtained booty without serious resistance, and returned.

July is the conventional conversion of that month. Other reconstructions place Ramadan 91 in August or September, because calendar conversions differ.

Tarif ibn Malluk is not Tariq ibn Ziyad, who commanded the much larger expedition of spring 711.

What the sources say about Julian

A ninth-century account by Ibn Abd al-Hakam says Musa ibn Nusayr left Tariq in command at Tangier with 1,700 men. It was written roughly a century and a half after the events and explicitly mixes legendary and historical material.

The same late narrative has a ruler called Julian exchange gifts with Tariq, offer to help him enter Iberia, and later ferry his men across. It does not describe an Arab army being invited into Ceuta.

Hugh Kennedy concludes that neither Julian's existence nor the truth of the story can be determined.

How the 711 expedition was decided

Musa's forces had reached the Strait of Gibraltar and wanted information about the opposite coast. In the conventional account, Tarif's raiders came back with booty and favourable news, and that persuaded Musa to entrust Tariq with the larger crossing.

The later story that Julian invited them in to avenge his daughter may preserve some memory of Visigothic discontent, but it cannot be treated as the established cause.

The daughter story is legendary: the surviving early Arabic version says Roderic made an unnamed daughter pregnant, and the name Florinda la Cava is much later.

Sources

Researched 24 Aug 2026 5 sources not yet audited Date disputed

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →

Date disputed. Sources disagree; the research places it at ~0710.

What the sources leave uncertain

The listed event combines several different claims: Tariq's Tangier command, Julian's alleged alliance and the separate 710 reconnaissance raid by Tarif.
There is no secure day for Tariq's appointment or for any supposed invitation at Ceuta. Even the 1,700-man report is dated only to 92 AH/710–711 in a much later source.
Julian's earliest substantial surviving narrative is in Ibn Abd al-Hakam, who died in 870 or 871. Hugh Kennedy concludes that neither Julian's existence nor the truth of the story can be determined.
The rape-or-seduction story about Julian's daughter is legendary. The surviving early Arabic version says Roderic made an unnamed daughter pregnant; the name Florinda la Cava is much later.