Moors

For the terrain type, see: Moor. For the figure in heraldry, see Maure. For the archaic racial category see Moors (meaning).

Moors is used in this article to describe the medieval Muslim inhabitants of al-Andalus (the Iberian Peninsula including the present day Spain and Portugal) and the Maghreb, whose culture is often called "Moorish".

Possible origins of the Name

The name derives from the ancient Berber tribe of the Mauri and their kingdom, Mauretania, which became a Roman province after its last king Bocchus II willed it to Octavian in 33 BC. Mauretania lay in present day Morocco and Western Algeria. The name of Mauri was applied by the Romans to all non-romanized natives of North Africa still ruled by their own chiefs, until the 3rd century AD. Some scholars propose that the characterization of the Islamic civilization in Iberia as "Moorish" is a misnomer which implies the predominance of Berber traits in the civilization, rather than Arab and Islamic ones. The Muslim conquest of Iberia was undertaken by Arab caliphates. The Arab Umayyad dynasty of Damascus was transplanted to Muslim Spain and was responsible for the incorporation of much of the culture and architecture from the old Umayyad capital. The soldiery of the first wave of invasions was derived predominantly from Berber peoples of North Africa.

The word Moors may have also evolved from the Greek 'Mauros' which means 'dark'. The Greeks were in Spain around 500 BC, 300 years before the Romans. The Romans probably pinched it from the Greeks, complete with its original connotation of 'dark'. This might explain why the Latin 'Maurus' translates literally into 'Moors', with no further definition. Borrowing directly from the Greek meaning, this would have been good enough for the Romans to describe the 'dark' skinned people of North Africa. This is all conjecture of course, but its close enough for me.

Circa 46 B. C., the Roman army entered West Africa where they encountered black Africans whom they called ‘Maures’ from the Greek adjective mauros, meaning dark or black. Chandler, Wayne B. "The Moor: Light of Europe's Dark Age." Golden Age of the Moor. Edited by Ivan Van Sertima. New Brunswick: Transaction Press, 1992: 151–81. The Webster's New World Dictionary identifies Moors as "a member of Moslem people of mixed Arab and Berber descent." This deletion of "black" or "Negro" from the term Moor is generally recent. Though the word "Moor" originally seems to have been meant to indicate Blacks, it in time came to be applied to Muslims in general, especially the Berbers.

Moorish Empire

In AD 711, some Moors in fact Arabs and Berbers, invaded Visigoth Christian Spain. Under their Berber leader Tariq ibn-Ziyad, they landed at Gibraltar on 711 April 30 and brought most of the Iberian Peninsula under Islamic rule in an eight-year campaign. They attempted to move northeast across the Pyrenees Mountains but were defeated by the Frank Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours in 732. The Moors ruled in Spain and Portugal, except for small areas in the northwest and largely Basque regions in the Pyrenees, and in North Africa for several decades. The Moorish state suffered civil conflict in the 750s.

The country then broke up into a number of mostly Islamic fiefdoms, which were consolidated under the Caliphate of Cordoba. Christian states based in the north and west slowly extended their power over Spain. Galicia, León, Navarre, Aragon, Catalonia or Marca Hispanica, Portugal and eventually Castile became Christian in the next several centuries. This period is known for the tolerant acceptance of Christians, Muslims and Jews living in the same territories. Although, the Caliphate of Córdoba collapsed in 1031 and the Islamic territory in Spain came to be ruled by North African Moors.

In 1212 a coalition of Christian kings under the leadership of Alfonso VIII of Castile drove the Muslims from Central Spain. However the Moorish Kingdom of Granada thrived for three more centuries. This kingdom is known in modern times for such architectural gems as the Alhambra. On January 2 1492, Boabdil, the leader of the last Muslim stronghold in Granada surrendered to armies of a recently united Christian Spain. The remaining Muslims were forced to leave Spain or convert to Christianity. These descendants of the Muslims were named moriscos. They were an important portion of the peasants in some territories, like Aragon, Valencia or Andalusia, until their systematic expulsion in the years from 1609 to 1614. Henre Lapeyre has estimated that this affected 300,000 out of a total of 8 million inhabitants at the time. The expelled Moors mostly went to Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, and helped to develop their culture; others became corsairs.

See also

• Al-Andalus
• Caliph of Cordoba
• History of Spain
• Islamic architecture
• Mezquita – an ancient Moorish mosque in Córdoba in Spain.
• Moorish Spain
• Alhambra – an ancient palace and fortress complex of the Moorish monarchs of Granada, in southern Spain.