Moors

The term Moor is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim populations of the Maghreb, al-Andalus (Iberian Peninsula), Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages.

[4] The term has also been used in Europe in a broader sense to refer to Muslims in general,[5] especially those of Arab or Berber descent, whether living in al-Andalus or North Africa.

The Iberian Peninsula then came to be known in Classical Arabic as al-Andalus, which at its peak included most of Septimania and modern-day Spain and Portugal.

[9] The etymology of the word "Moor" is uncertain, although it can be traced back to the Phoenician term Mahurin, meaning "Westerners".

[13] During the classical period, the Romans interacted with, and later conquered, parts of Mauretania, a state that covered modern northern Morocco, western Algeria, and the Spanish cities Ceuta and Melilla.

[14] The Berber tribes of the region were noted in the Classics as Mauri, which was subsequently rendered as "Moors" in English and in related variations in other European languages.

Apart from these historic associations and context, Moor and Moorish designate a specific ethnic group speaking Hassaniya Arabic.

In the Philippines, a former Spanish colony, many modern Filipinos call the large, local Muslim minority concentrated in Mindanao and other southern islands Moros.

The term was introduced by Spanish colonisers, and has since been appropriated by Filipino Muslims as an endonym, with many self-identifying as members of the Bangsamoro "Moro Nation".

In the late 7th and early 8th centuries CE, the Islamic Umayyad Caliphate, established after the death of Muhammad, underwent a period of rapid growth.

In 647 CE, 40,000 Arabs forced the Byzantine governor of northern Africa to submit and pay tribute, but failed to permanently occupy the region.

[35] After an interlude, during which the Muslims fought a civil war, the invasions resumed in 665, seizing Byzantine North Africa up to Bugia over the course of a series of campaigns, lasting until 689.

Although a Kharijite rebellion would later push out Umayyad rule from the western Maghreb and form temporarily independent Arab, Berber and Persian dynasties, that effort failed to dislodge the usage of the collective term.

[citation needed] In 711 the Islamic Arabs and Moors of Berber descent in northern Africa crossed the Strait of Gibraltar onto the Iberian Peninsula, and in a series of raids they conquered Visigothic Christian Hispania.

Abd al-Rahman I, who was of Arab-Berber lineage, managed to evade the Abbasids and flee to the Maghreb and then Iberia, where he founded the Emirate of Córdoba and the Andalusian branch of the Umayyad dynasty.

The Muslims were resisted in parts of the Iberian Peninsula in areas of the northwest (such as Asturias, where they were defeated at the battle of Covadonga) and the largely Basque Country in the Pyrenees.

On 2 January 1492, the leader of the last Muslim stronghold in Granada surrendered to the armies of a recently united Christian Spain (after the marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragón and Isabella I of Castile, the "Catholic Monarchs").

[47] The remaining Jews were also forced to leave Spain, convert to Roman Catholic Christianity, or be killed for refusing to do so.

The Inquisition was aimed mostly at Jews and Muslims who had overtly converted to Christianity but were thought to be practicing their faiths secretly.

In the meantime, Spanish and Portuguese expeditions westward from the New World spread Christianity to India, the Malay Peninsula, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

By 1521, the ships of Magellan had reached that island archipelago, which they named Las Islas Filipinas, after Philip II of Spain.

The first Muslim conquest of Sicily began in 827, though it was not until 902 that almost the entire island was in the control of the Aghlabids, from their capital Kairouan (Tunisia), with the exception of some minor strongholds in the rugged interior.

[citation needed] Four years later, the Fatimid governor was ousted from Palermo when the island declared its independence under Emir Ahmed ibn-Kohrob.

"[55] The Muslim problem characterized Hohenstaufen rule in Sicily under Holy Roman Emperors Henry VI and his son, Frederick II.

This resulted in a rebellion by Sicilian Muslims, which in turn triggered organized resistance and systematic reprisals and marked the final chapter of Islam in Sicily.

[56] The remaining population of Sicilian Muslims converted to Catholicism due to the incentives put in place by Fredrich II.

During the reigns of Frederick II as well as his son, Manfred, a large amount of Muslims were brought, as slaves, to farm lands and perform domestic labor.

[58] The trend of importing a considerable amount of slaves from the Muslim world did not stop with the Hohenstaufen but was amplified under the Aragonese and Spanish crowns, and was in fact continued until as late as 1838[59][60][61] The majority of which would also come receive the label 'Moors'[62][63] Moorish architecture is the articulated Islamic architecture of northern Africa and parts of Spain and Portugal, where the Moors were dominant between 711 and 1492.

The term ascribed to them in Anglo-Norman blazon (the language of English heraldry) is maure, though they are also sometimes called moore, blackmoor, blackamoor or negro.

[71] For example, the College of Arms of the Society for Creative Anachronism urges applicants to use them delicately to avoid causing offence.