Does anyone know anything about the Moors?

Question

Who they were and what they did in the 16th century?

Answer 1

The Moors were the medieval Muslim inhabitants of al-Andalus (the Iberian Peninsula including present day Spain and Portugal) as well as the Maghreb and western Africa, whose culture is often called Moorish. The word was also used more generally in Europe to refer to anyone of African Muslim descent. The name Moors derives from the ancient tribe of the Maure and their kingdom Mauretania. This image is not consistant with the observations of many historians and writers of the time who witnessed first hand what the Moors looked like.

History
In 711, the Moors invaded Visigoth, Christian Hispania. Under their leader, a black African Berber general named Tariq ibn-Ziyad, the namesake for the "Rock of Gibraltar". They 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 Moorish state suffered civil conflict in the 750s. The Moors ruled in the Iberian peninsula, except for areas in the northwest (such as Asturias, where they were stopped at the battle of Covadonga) and the largely Basque regions in the Pyrenees, and in North Africa for several decades. Though the number of "Moors" remained small, they gained large numbers of converts. According to Ronald Segal, author of "Islam's Black Slaves", some 5.6 million of Iberia's 7 million inhabitants were Muslim by 1200, virtually all of them native inhabitants.

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 the rest of Iberia. The Kingdom of Asturias, Navarre, Galicia, León, Portugal, Aragón, Catalonia or Marca Hispanica, and Castile started a steady process of expansion and internal consolidation during the next several centuries under the flag of Reconquista. The initial rule of the Moors in the Iberian peninsula under this Caliphate of Cordoba is generally regarded as tolerant in its acceptance of Christians, Muslims and Jews living in the same territories, though Jews were expelled in various periods and Christians relegated to 2nd class status under Muslims. The Caliphate of Córdoba collapsed in 1031 and the Islamic territory in Iberia came to be ruled by North African Moors of the Almoravid Dynasty. This second stage started an era of Moors rulers guided by orthodox Islam leaving behind the more tolerant practices of the past.

Moorish Iberia excelled in city planning; the sophistication of their cities was astonishing. According to one historian, Cordova "had 471 mosques and 300 public baths … the number of houses of the great and noble were 63,000 and 200,077 of the common people. There were … upwards of 80,000 shops. Water from the mountain was distributed through every corner and quarter of the city by means of leaden pipes into basins of different shapes, made of the purest gold, the finest silver, or plated brass as well into vast lakes, curios tanks, amazing reservoirs and fountains of Grecian marble." The houses of Cordova were air conditioned in the summer by "ingeniously arranged draughts of fresh air drawn from the garden over beds of flowers, chosen for their perfume, warmed in winter by hot air conveyed through pipes bedded in the walls." This list of impressive works includes lamp posts that lit their streets at night to grand palaces, such as the one called Azzahra with its 15,000 doors.[1] Without a doubt, during the height of the Caliphate of Córdoba, the city of Córdoba proper was one of the major capitals in Europe and probably the most cosmopolitan city of its time.

In 1212, a coalition of Christian kings under the leadership of Alfonso VIII of Castile drove the Muslims from Central Iberia. However, the Moorish Kingdom of Granada thrived for three more centuries in the southern Iberian peninsula. This kingdom is known in modern time for architectural gems such as the Alhambra. On January 2, 1492, the leader of the last Muslim stronghold in Granada surrendered to armies of a recently united Christian Spain (after the marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile). The remaining Muslims were forced to leave Iberia or convert to Christianity. In 1480, Isabella and Ferdinand instituted the Inquisition in Spain, as one of many changes to the role of the church instituted by the monarchs. The Inquisition was aimed mostly at Jews and Muslims who had overtly converted to Christianity but were thought to be practicing their faiths secretly -- known respectively as morranos and moriscos -- as well as at heretics who rejected Roman Catholic orthodoxy, including alumbras who practiced a kind of mysticism or spiritualism. 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. Henri Lapeyre has estimated that this affected 300,000 out of a total of 8 million inhabitants of the peninsula at the time.[2]

In the meantime, the tide of Islam had rolled not just westward to Iberia, but also eastward, through India, the Malayan peninsula, and Indonesia up to Mindanao-—one of the major islands of an archipelago which the Spanish had reached during their voyages westward from the New World. By 1521, the ships of Magellan had themselves reached that island archipelago, which they named the Philippines, after Philip II of Spain. On Mindanao, the Spanish also named these kris-bearing people as Moros, or 'Moors'. This identification of Islamic people as Moros persists in the modern Spanish language spoken in Spain. See Reconquista.

You could get more information from the link below...

Answer 2

The Moors were the medieval Muslim inhabitants of al-Andalus (the Iberian Peninsula including present day Spain and Portugal) as well as the Maghreb and western Africa, whose culture is often called Moorish. The word was also used more generally in Europe to refer to anyone of Arab or African descent. The name Moors derives from the ancient tribe of the Maure and their kingdom Mauretania.

On January 2, 1492, the leader of the last Muslim stronghold in Granada surrendered to armies of a recently united Christian Spain (after the marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile). The remaining Muslims were forced to leave Iberia or convert to Christianity.

Answer 3

Owned white slaves and taught euros math and science as well as how to civilize themselves

Answer 4

it's the moops

Answer 5

They were mostly blacks!!!