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subjects as the Europeans did when, centuries later, they carried 'White man's Burden" in
their Asian colonies: a wolf is proud of any pretense to maim, murder and mutilate, no
matter how paltry, puerile and precarious it may be.

The mosque of Abu Ayub became the proud and pious choice of the Turkish
sultans for holding "martial inaugurations" which carried divine succor for crumbling,
humbling and jumbling the non-Muslims.

Since the campaign led by Yazid was attended by Abu Ayub, who had been a
"friend and follower of All", glorifies it considerably, one is inclined to reconsider the
status of Yazid, who was raiding the center of Christianity to uphold reverence of the
Prophet's word. Though the campaign failed to execute the expectations of the hadith, it
cleverly interpreted Constantinople as the entire Christendom, thus sowing the seeds of
the Battle of Tours, which sought to threaten the followers of Jesus with perpetual
humiliation.

Islam entered Europe via Africa when Musa Ibn Nusir came to hold the Arabian
territories directly under the Caliph in Damascus. His father was one of the Christian
captives, who had fallen in the hands of Khalid bin walid, the famous Arab general.

In Africa, the Arabs came in contact with another racial group, the Berbers, who
once belonged to the Semitic stock. Though they had embraced Christianity, they were
not Romanised, and mentally stood closer to their distant Arab cousins owing to their
nomadic and semi-nomadic way of life. Their ethnic tendencies were aroused by the
Islamic principle of Jehad, which promised rewards of wealth, women and wine through
aggressive wars waged for "the glory of Allah"! They readily accepted Islam and became
clients of their Arab masters. Their ferocity and fighting skills made a considerable
contribution to the Arab Imperial expansion.

The conquest by Musa of the North African coast, as far as the Atlantic, prepared
the way for the Arab advance into Europe. A freedman of Berber origin, called Tariq Ibn
Ziyad, was appointed by Musa as his lieutenant. In 711, he crossed into Spain with an
army of 7,000 men, mostly of Berber origin but had no commission to conquer Spain. It
was purely a marauding expedition for seeking booty. He landed near a mount, which
history immortalized after his name as the Jabal-Al-Tariq, later corrupted as Gibraltar.

On July 19, 711, when he met the armies of King Roderick at the mouth of the
Barbate River, his forces had been supplemented to 12,000. Though Roderick had 25,000
soldiers at his command, their superiority of numbers was not good enough to
compensate for their inferiority of spirit: he had deposed his predecessor, the son of
Witiza, and thus, was looked upon as a usurper, having no legitimate authority to rule. In
those days, it was a sin for a Christian to obey the laws of such monarchs. Again, robbing
non-Muslims was an act of great piety for the followers of Islam. The Berber invaders
dazed by the expectations of untold plunder, which also promised entry into paradise, in
case of fiasco, were emboldened beyond measure and felt crazy for a battle. Defeat of the
half-hearted Visigothic army was made sure by the political enemies of the King headed