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For correct images of Moors playing chess look in book: The Golden Age of the Moors, Ivan van Sertima PG29
I think especially Americans from the Deep South can't handle the fact that Black people: were Europeans for 40,000 years; ruled and civilized major parts of Europe, i.e. Spain, Corsica, etc.; that they made it to the Americas before Columbus, and in many cases are the rightful owners of the land that they want to consider theirs. It is absurd to portray the Moors as white, when Moor or Moorish is a byword for Black. Where there 'white' Moors - not really. The Moors were mainly Berbers, and the Berbers were all Black (like the Senegalese) until they started mixing with their European slaves. 83.84.100.133 (talk) 10:59, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
You afrocentrists have to stop stealing north african history. North Africa never had been black. I'll just translate a reply from a french user about this :
"In their efforts to portray the ancient Maghreb as black, the Afrocentrists rely heavily on their misunderstanding of Greek and Roman literature, errors which are attributable to the ignorance of the historical use of terms relating to color .
In several cultures according to age, descriptions relating to the human complexion of the "white", "brown" and "black" type would correspond today to "pale", "tanned" and "brown".
This relative appreciation has been noted in many other cultures. Indeed, the Japanese for example used the terms "shiroi" (white) and "kuroi" (black) to describe their skin and its gradations in color.
The Igbos of Nigeria used the terms "ocha" (white) and "ojii" (black) in the same way, quite simply to mean that by "nwoko ocha" (white man), one meant an Igbo with a lighter complexion.
Similarly, the Greek words "melas" and "leukos" when applied to skin color were generally equivalent to "swarthy" and "pale" rather than the racial terms "black" or " white "as the Afro-centrists suggest, so the Greeks never called the Moors black.
There are many examples of this usage in Greek literature, an unequivocal example is described in Homer's Odyssey where Ulysses finds his youth.
"Minerva, by touching Ulysses with her golden wand, immediately covers him with a rich tunic, a superb cloak, and she gives back to her body all the vigor and all the youth which animated and embellished it formerly Suddenly the hero's features take on a brownish hue, his cheeks tighten, and a bluish beard shades his chin "
The brown complexion is translated from "μελαγχροιὴς γένετο" where μελαγχροιὴς is pronounced "melanchroiês"
And it is exactly the same word that the Greeks sometimes used to describe the Moors, and even the Egyptians and it is this same word which is at the source of the misunderstanding of the Afrocentrists.
This word, when taken literally means "black skin", however it is clear that when we put it in context, for example in the case of the Odyssey, we easily understand that it is a complexion tanned rather than any racial allusion. Tan complexion like that of the majority of North Africans today (and clear for others) and not black.
And in the same way, when the ancient writings describe the Moors with the term "melas" or "melanchroes", they certainly meant a swarthy complexion (which is still the case today)
We have the same case with the Egyptians.
Perhaps one of the passages most often taken up by Afrocentrists is that of the work, the Histories of Herodotus describing the Egyptians as well as the Colchids (inhabitants of the Caucasus, area which corresponds to current Georgia) as individuals with black skin and frizzy hair.
Common sense would like us to wonder about this passage since it is obvious that there was no black-skinned individual in Georgia but the Afrocentrists refuse to question themselves preferring to endorse anything that could go in their direction.
That the Maghrebis were slightly more mast than the Greeks is obvious, since it is still the case today, the description of the hair is on the other hand more problematic since on the one hand it is in contradiction with reality, knowing that 'there is no frizzy hair among the inhabitants of the Caucasus and on the other hand in the case of the Egyptians, the description made by Herodotus contradicts the mummies found.
The most likely explanation is undoubtedly to think that the description was relative and that Herodotus had wanted to mean that the Egyptian hair was much more wavy than that of the Greeks, which is still the case today
And it is all the more probable that Herodotus himself specified that the Ethiopians, in the south of Libya (Libya at the time corresponded to all of North Africa) and not the Egyptians had their hair more frizzy among men, so if the Egyptians had the Negroid characteristics that we know namely black skin and frizzy hair, why Herodotus does not assimilate them to the Ethiopians?
We can see that Herodotus uses the term frizzy to designate individuals with wavy hair like individuals with frizzy hair, he used the superlative to make the distinction but he used the same term, the language was probably not rich enough to the time to make the distinction.
An analogous example based on stereotypes and relative appreciation is that made by Ibn Butlan on Greek women since he described them as being blonde women with straight hair and blue eyes.
Now it is obvious today that the Greeks are Mediterranean and that the Nordic type is strongly in the minority, this is still visible today but why this generalization then?
Well the explanation is very simple, the Greeks as the Arabs noted the characteristics which were unusual for them in their own population and used these features to catalog the foreigners.
Another example in the Song of Aspremont (famous song of gesture of the Middle Ages), the author (anonymous) described the Turks "blacker than ink"
So if we follow this logic the Greeks would have a physique similar to that of the Vikings and the Turks a physique (skin color) similar to that of the Dravidians or Sub-Saharan Africans, it is obviously ridiculous.
Other descriptions:
"The black complexion of the Ethiopians forms in the universe a real variegation; they represent fairly well peoples who would always be enveloped in darkness. The Indians are less burnt; a less warm air only colors them halfway. Egypt, closer to our climate, and refreshed by the overflows of the Nile, gives its inhabitants an even less dark color. " - Manilius, Astronomical 4.724
Here Manilius clearly makes the distinction, which is in agreement with the representations that the Egyptians made of themselves and foreigners, it is more than clear that Manilius made this same distinction between the Nubians and the Egyptians
Other authors compared the Indians of the North with the Egyptians and those of the South (Dravidians) with the Ethiopians, it is the case of Arrien and Strabo
Arrien in Indica (6.9) said:
"The appearance of the people of India and Ethiopia is not that different: the South Indians look like the Ethiopians, they have black skin and black hair, they only differ in the fact that the Indians, they do not have a flat nose and frizzy hair like the Ethiopians; The North Indians look physically like the Egyptians "
As for Strabo, he confirms in Geography, Book XV, Chapter I, passage 13
"As for our species, it is represented by two types: the type of men from the South who resemble the Ethiopians by the color of their skin and the rest of humans by their physiognomy and the nature of their hair (the temperature of the India being too wet for the hair to become frizzy there, as they are in Ethiopia), and the type of the men of the North which recalls rather the Egyptian type. "
Thus Arrien and Strabo agree that the Maghrebians resembled the North Indians who have straight hair and who sometimes have the skin as clear as the Europeans of the South rather than the Dravidians of the South of India.
Another remark is that in the case of the analogy between the Egyptians and the Indians of the North, Strabo and Arrien do not seem to qualify by underlining the possible differences as they do for the Ethiopians and the Dravidians , which suggests that North Africans had (and still have) Caucasoid characteristics."Suksu7 (talk) 16:22, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
According to David Reich, the Eurasian component of today's North African population is major and recent: "Today, the peoples of North Africa owe most of their ancestry to West Eurasian migrants, making the deep genetic past in that region difficult to discern." Source: Who We are and how We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past By David Reich. 83.84.100.133 (talk) 23:02, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
The Moors were Africa voyagers who travelled the world educating other races on math, health, hygiene, fighting techniques, music, agriculture, fashion architecture and helping them restore order to their land. 2605:6000:101E:99DB:84A1:D399:C977:467A (talk) 04:35, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
Not done. It's not clear what changes you want to make. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 04:59, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 13 June 2020
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The following can be added the popular culture section:
In the seventh episode of the forth season of the popular 90's sitcom Seinfeld, the Moors are referenced in a game of trivial pursuit. George has an argument with a boy in a quarantine bubble because the answer to one of the questions is "The Moors", but there is a typo on the game card which stats the answer is actually "The Moops". Matthewberends (talk) 00:56, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
The above answer is extremely misleading. There were in fact Moors of different “colors”, including “white”. The Berbers of North Africa and other, earlier African groups were also derived from various populations. To suggest the Berbers are “black” is as incorrect as stating “Puerto Ricans” are “black”. Certainly some are darker than others, and some are lighter than others, just as you’d expect from a group of mixed descent. Or in the case of the Berbers, mixed Eurasian and North African descent. Modern North Africans are about 13% more sub-Saharan African today than they were. Going all the way back to antiquity, there was a “white” population jumping between Iberia and North Africa, as connected to the indigenous Canary Is,anders and very European Libyans depicted by various Egyptian dynasties.
What it originally meant to be a “Moor” was an invader from “Mauritania” into Iberia. Invaders that came in various skin tones including both “white” and “brown”. Perhaps in part derived from a North African population that had been heavily effected over the years by Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Goths, Greeks and Romans all conquering and intermixing in parts of North Africa at least 1500 years before the term “Moor” was coined. Certainly, later on, the word Moor was used more exclusively with brown skinned Muslims, because the population that made up North African Muslims had changed over time to include more Sub-Saharan admixture.
I really don’t care what “color” they were, my only interest is academic and historic honesty in terms of population migration, settlement and genetic descent. Either way, the North African populations that were referred to as Moors have no connection to modern African Americans or other sub-Saharan groups pushing an illegitimate Afrocentric narrative on vast, totally unrelated historical populations, trying to connect them to unrelated modern populations based only on a theorized similarity in skin tone. It would be no more accurate to call these original Moors “black” in its modern context, meaning Sub-Saharan in origin, than it would be calling them “modern Europeans” or connecting them to modern European groups just because some had a similar “skin tone”.
Beware both Afrocentric and Eurocentric narratives, being forced upon historical populations that have little to nothing to do with modern concepts of “race” or even “ethnicity”. This would be like a modern Vietnamese person claiming all the glory of the Mongols for the modern Vietnamese population just because they both might share some similar aesthetic features. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JarbeeChesschi (talk • contribs) 09:55, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 9 December 2020
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2A02:1811:3480:5500:C07:1071:E435:DB71 (talk) 00:31, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
in the etymology section under the first paragraph : However, some believe that the term may have a local origin, with "Mahurim" meaning "Westerners" in Punic for the people living west of Carthage. Mahurim could have given rise to the Latin Mauri. Al-Maghrib the arab name of the region still mean The West
According to Salluste, the Moors are part of the army of Hercules from the Iberian peninsula , composed of Persians, Armenians and Medes. They mingle with the indigenous --Gaetuli (zeneta) --- populations of Maghreb. They settled in the mountains in Morocco, in the Aurès in Algeria and in Libya. The majority of the Aurès population is composed of Gaetuli (Zeneta).
ive got all the sources
Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Melmann 15:23, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Need to add information about the etymology
I need to add an explanation about the etymology of Moor made by Gabriel Camps, the french expert of the berbers. Here what I wrote :
According to Gabriel Camps, and referring to Pliny (V, 17), "among the tribes of Mauretania Tingitana, the main one was formerly that of the Mauri, whom wars would have reduced to a few families." Moors, derived from Mauri, would therefore have a local origin, that is, the name of a tribe. He adds: "The Spaniards of the Reconquista, and subsequently the Europeans, retained this name by giving it an even wider acceptance since it was used to refer to the Maghrebis or North Africans. [...] But the memories of classical antiquity, to which was added the connotation "dark" given by the Greek adjective "μανρος" (mauros), revived, in colonial times, the name of the Mauri and Mauritania (instead of Mauretania) to designate the nomadic populations, largely Arabized, and the country south of Morocco, the former Mauretania Tingitana".
Book ISBN : 978-2-7427-6922-3 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Suksu7 (talk • contribs) 19:21, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
Re: Omissions
The page on the Moors is very misleading in that it is trying to whitewash the true history of the Moors. I visited Morrocco and none of the artwork depicted fair-skinned moors only dark-skinned because that is how they looked. I would like to add the correct images to the page but it is locked from edits. This is how history is changed with lies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Guineverejackson (talk • contribs) 11:02, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
The only misleading person here is yourself. I myself am Moroccan, and I find it very hard to believe you considering Moroccans are Muslims and none of their traditional artwork depicts human beings. Since you visited Morocco, you should've noticed that Moroccans are a variety of skin colors, the majority of them tanned and fair-skinned, and very few can be called "black."
Hyacinte de Icarus (talk) 22:59, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
Guineverejackson, if you are referring to the Muslims of Spain, then you are wrong. Most of them were native Spanish converts to Islam therefore most of the so-called “Moors” of Spain and Portugal were indeed white. Keep in mind that the term “Moor” was never used by Andalusian Muslims but rather by the northern Christians. TheNewLetters (talk) 17:39, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
TheNewLetters, if you want to put this forward you need reliable sources. Doug Wellertalk 19:35, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 14 January 2021
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So I am proposing we change the flag to the one provided above. Bjmadsopk0806 (talk) 17:36, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
Not done. They're practically the same, based on the creator's interpretation of the coat of arms description. Don't see a clear rationale to change. ◢ Ganbaruby! (Say hi!) 00:46, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 15 January 2021
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Under "Notable Persons," the first entry, Tariq ibn Ziyad, lacks a hyperlink to his own page, which is particularly jarring because pretty much every other person and proper noun in this section possess one. Thanks! Hthundercroft (talk) 03:35, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
This paragraph should be deleted, as it is completely wrong, and the Arabs were not Syrians and Yemenis, but rather there were what are known as the Qaysiya tribes and the Qahtani tribes, and they are not Yemenis and Syrians !! As for most of them were Berbers, Mali and Morocco, this is also Not true. This paragraph needs to be deleted, just as Abd al-Rahman inside is not a berber, but rather an Arab only, as well as the placement of wars and the use of Moors name to make it a civilization or culture and architecture, this is also wrong. The article must be made clearer, as this name is what was used by Muslims, regardless of their ethnicity, before the word "Muslim" entered the English language Sarazxs123 (talk) 04:16, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
It is pretty well established that the majority of Muslims in Andalusia were of Berber or Iberian origin, simply due to the geographical proximity. There was just not enough Arabs to populate Iberia or North Africa, areas that are manyfold way larger than Arabia, nor was there any incentive for Arabs to migrate in large numbers to those regions. The strong influence of Arabs and Arabic is mainly due to the high social status of its representatives in politics and administration. As for Abd al-Rahman, according to Arabic sources, he was Arab on his father's side and Berber on his mother's side. Concerning the etymology and meaning of "Moor", check the section "Moor from Mauri" that I just added. Have a good day! --Ideophagous (talk) 10:31, 03 April 2021 (UTC+2)
Othello
We say:
In popular culture --- The title character in William Shakespeare's play Othello, and the derived title character in Verdi's opera Otello, is a Moor. The character has been played by various actors in different forms of entertainment.
I have not traced the development of the last sentence, but I imagine it could be a watered down version of a statement about Othello being played blackface. As it stands, it is a pointless statement - it could be said about any character in any often performed play. Should we simply remove it - or should we venture into a statement of the troublesome facts (requiring someone to find suitable sources)?--Nø (talk) 09:58, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
@Nø: It is indeed a pointless statement that won't be missed if removed. M.Bitton (talk) 15:04, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
"Had they not heard him call upon God no man had dared face him, deeming that he was the devil or one of his fellows out of hell, for that his steed was so great, and he was taller even than Sir Lancelot, and black withal, as I said afore…"
"When the Moor heard these words he laughed with heart and mouth (his teeth were white as chalk, otherwise was he altogether black)…" 2001:1C00:1E31:5F00:EC1C:118F:D2FA:95F8 (talk) 03:32, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
MOS:INTRO says: the lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article. Is what you're adding to the article an important point covered in the article?
Template:About says: ((About)) is a commonly used hatnote template on Wikipedia. The purpose of a hatnote is to help readers locate a different article if the one they are at is not the one they're looking for. The article already has such hatnote template to the Moor which covers what you're adding and more. M.Bitton (talk) 19:01, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
MOS:INTRO says: "the lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article. Is what you're adding to the article an important point covered in the article?" Answer: South-Eastern Asian populations who were called "Moors" have as less to do with the North-African Moors as Afro-American populations. If they can get a part in the lead of why they are called by this term, the same should be applied to Afro-Americans, (which is in my opinion even more relevant since most of the traffick on this page comes from Black-American movements with a heavy online pressence). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Flesek (talk • contribs) 19:12, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
@Flesek: you are confusing two different topics. This article is about usage of the term Moor towards certain historic Muslim peoples around the Mediterranean. There are other meanings of the term Moor that are covered at Moor, including the Moorish Science Temple of America. VRtalk 22:19, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
In fairness, in Moors#Modern meanings this article describes the term's application to peoples of the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Goa and South Asia more generally (our heading "modern" here meaning post-medieval). The third paragraph of the lead currently provides a useful summary. In that light, Flesek's last version, adding to that section and that third paragraph of the lead, was arguably appropriate in principle. I haven't checked the citations, which of course shouldn't be bare URLs, but I think we often accept SPLC as an RS and of course many more sources are cited in Moorish Science Temple of America. NebY (talk) 22:42, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
This article should be about the term "Moors" (Moros, etc.) and how it has been used. I should not be about any actual group(s) of people, for which there are better names. Srnec (talk) 21:08, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
"In 711, troops mostly formed by Moors from northern Africa led the Umayyad conquest" ...
We say, e.g.,
In 711, troops mostly formed by Moors from northern Africa led the Umayyad conquest ...
Considering the inaccuracy of the term Moor, I think we should refrain from using the term this way. We can quote examples of sources that do, but in a sentence in Wikipedia that intends to say that certain people did certain things, we should identify those people as accurately as possible, and not as "Moors" (but possibly as "people identified by contemporary European sources as Moors", or the like).--Nø (talk) 17:19, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
What is the source for this? Because it's misleading.
Tariq bin Ziyad's army consisted of 12,000 berbers and 300 Arabs, in 711.
Musa bin Nusayr's army consisted of 32,000 Arabs, in 712. This was the actual main force.
Balj ibn Bishr al-Qushayri's army consisted of 20,000-30,000 Arabs, in 741. After the Berber revolt they were excluded and in 742 destroyed.
Can someone please direct me to what the lede was referencing in the article? Because I couldn't find it.Julia Domna Ba'al (talk) 00:00, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 16 December 2021
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The Europeans did not give that name & this article is spreading that misconception. Our name did not come from nor was it given to us by Europeans. 63.143.116.123 (talk) 15:27, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:36, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
This should be an article about a word, not about a people
COnsidering the dubiousness of this word as a deignation of a specific group of people, I don't think this article should contain statements like
In 711, troops mostly formed by Moors from northern Africa...
We can quote sources saying thing like that; we can say "according to so-and-so mostly formed by moors", etc. but writing as if it is a well-defined group makes no sense.
My example of improper use from the article is just one of many.--Nø (talk) 11:13, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
I agree that this should be an article about a word (or a family of related words: Mauri, moros, Moors, etc.). Srnec (talk) 20:39, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
I also agree. Carlstak (talk) 00:07, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
Serious errors in the Article
The assumption that the sicilians were mere slaves in italy is wrong,plus some sources are Wrong and are Talking about the Slavery of sub-saharan Africans not the moors from Sicily and tunisia Osmar.aka (talk) 10:17, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
Not only that. The article says "...the Bengali Muslims were also called Moors."
Where is this from? This implies they spoke Bengali or what?
This also doesn't come from the source it claims (the SL Moors during colonial times). The Moors were in Calcutta before the British. --George Hadley. A short grammar of the Moors language. London, 1779. Ngelo95 (talk) 05:41, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
End the old agenda
The term stems from more than one word, and for at least two of those:
Firstly, the Berbers are from the Northern African region. They were there, long before some of them were moved (spiritually & culturally) by Islam. They represent an advanced, educated, and highly skilled culture that has had both strong and fragmented alliances and/or reunions with various notable (and acclaimed) empires. Instead of the precarious North African description, the Berbers are simply from the Highlands or Lowlands. These people spanned from East to West throughout the Northern region, and as such Berbers had conflicting alliances (or simply, autonomously chose their own opportunities). By Spain's account, Moors were Tariq-led Berbers who had become Muslims (the purveyors of Count Julian's payback). One has to deliberately, creatively, and deceptively misconstrue the complexion of who the people of Spain were identifying as Moors. Secondly, the Berbers are descendants of the people of Canaan. It's ridiculous when artifacts depict one thing, yet it is either conveniently passed-over, subtly not shared/promoted, and/or generously altered. The "Vanquished Libyan" is an Egyptian statuette of a Berber. Considering the prominence of both the pre-Islamic and Islamic Berber people in the descriptive term - Moors; the selection of images either ignores the empowering and noble depictions (that I have seen) by accident or purposely contributes to an agenda.
ASIDE:
Does Religion & History suffer if the physical features and complexion inconsistencies are somewhat resolved? 155.135.55.231 (talk) 02:14, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
It's true. This article reads like a bad piece of propoganda. Ngelo95 (talk) 05:42, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
Learn some history, dude. Also this is not a forum.
Who was moors
Who was moors 58.181.103.85 (talk) 11:14, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure how to rewrite it in an appropriate way. We should not propagate the identification of anyone as "a moor". Nø (talk) 12:38, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
What about the Boy in the Bubble episode of Seinfeld, where George refers to the Moors as the "Moops" after reading a typo on a Trivial Pursuit playing card?
Shouldn't that deserve a mention in this section? 104.246.120.160 (talk) 11:11, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
No. That's a good example of trivia that tells us nothing about the subject of the article. Carlstak (talk) 14:22, 1 September 2023 (UTC)