Were the Moors an Arab tribe or Blacks?

Question

Some black dude on here keeps saying the Moors are blacks. But I know the Spanish are mixed with the Moors and I've heard that they were Arabs, and I think its clear to me that they were by lookin at the Spanish.

Answer 1

The invading muslim army that conquered and settled in Spain for Islam in the 8th Century was composed of local north africans. Subsecuent waves of settlement were a combination of these north africans in the majority, with some semitic arab minority (like the fleeing Omeya court after the abasid coup and the settling of a Caliphate in Kurtuba - Cordoba).

Now, we know that these north african tribes are mediterranean and had a mixture of semitic and european blood with deep african roots. That is why their skin was very dark and would be considered as "black" today by white people. But they were not entirely "black" as a Zulu or a Watussi.

These invaders became the Moors (o Moros), which is LINKED and used to talk of black muslim populations.

Answer 2

Depends on your defintion of "Black"!

Moor as a word comes via French and Latin form Greek Maurus meaning an inhabitant of the province of the Roman empire called Mauretania!

It became a generic term for North Africans Muslims.

The North Africans who moved to Spain included people of Arab, Berber, and African descent. They mixed with descendants of Visigoths, Roman colonists, Celts, and Phoenicians who lived in Hispania.

As a result you get Spaniards who have red hair and blue eyes and others whose ancestors obviously came from Phoenicia or Arabia.

Some of the Moors had African ancestors from slaves taken from south of the Sahara.

Unless you define Arabs and Berbers as black I wouldnt say Moors were "black"!

Answer 3

The Moors are mixed black and Arab.

Answer 4

The Moors come from North West Africa from the area now called Morroco

Answer 5

The Moors were Berbers, Arabs, and Africans !

Answer 6

Depends on how you define "black". Moors are dark skinned but do not resemble someone from Kenya, for example. They have a mix of Latin, middle east, and African in them.

The moor was a name given to a person of seeming north African decent after the Muslim expanses.
Back in Shakespear's time

Answer 7

As a point of reference and fact, most Medieval European historians and playwrights (ie. Shakespear’s depiction of the character Othello) clearly advise us what the Moors phenotypically (racially) looked liked. The non-amalgamated (racially unmixed) Moors were clearly a very DARK BROWN, kinky haired people, whom most Europeans misnomer (misname) as so-called Blacks, which has a derogatory connotation, meaning the evil, soiled, dirty, physically and mentally dead/defeated people (read your dictionaries! especially dictionaries you can get your hands on written prior to the 1900's; to be black or a black person, was deemed by the Christian church, to be one without light, one who was cursed, a heathen). Regarding the Moorish soldiers, The Spanish Catholic monarch, Alfonso X of Castile, wrote: " their black faces were like pitch..." Scottish historian, David MacRitchie wrote: "...Many British People of fair complexion were accustomed to blacken their faces artificially 'that they may pass for Moors'". Beginning in the thirteenth century, after the defeat of the Moors in Al-Andalus or Andalusia (Moorish Spain), the Moors underwent severe subjugation and oppression at the hands of the Roman Catholic Church. Jose V. Pimienta-Bey writes, "Between 1322-1465, several laws were passed by Catholic Spanish authorities that prohibited Moorish surgeons, physicians and pharmacists from practicing their professions. In 1412, the Moors were denied access to mercantile enterprises. Moors could also no longer work in the fields of carpentry, shipbuilding, masonry, ceramics, dyeing, and tailoring". Note that this is the same subjugation and oppression that was waged against the Moors (so-called Black/mentally dead people) on these here shores across the Atlantic Ocean in North, Central, and South America. The history of what happened to the Moors is not a mystery for anyone who truly wishes to know the truth. The truth is told! And most of it is captured by scholars of European descent. The plain truth is there is no such thing as a Black or White person. In ancient times people were not classified by the color of their skin. All the ancient records prove this. The system of racial classification is a relatively new invention. In ancient times people (empires, kingdoms, nations) were identified by their ethnic or tribal characteristics. When Europeans came to power in the 15th/16th century (1401AD – 1600AD) they used the system of racial classification, which became prevalent in the 18th/19th century (1701AD – 2000AD) to denote a person's inferior or superior (class/caste/political) status. If we all exercise earnest due diligence and DO OUR RESEARCH the TRUTH reveals itself as plain as the light of day. Peace & Love.

Answer 8

I believe they were actually both, if this makes sense.

"Moor" comes from the Greek word mauros (plural mauroi), meaning "black" or "very dark", which in Latin became Mauro (plural Mauri). However, anthropologists have noted that these terms are very subjective. "In the Romance languages (Spanish, French, and Italian) of Medieval Europe, Moor was translated as Moro, Moir and Mor. Derivatives of the word Moor may be found even today in these same languages. In Spanish, for example, the word for blackberry is mora- a noun which originally meant Moorish woman. Also in Spanish, the adjective for dark-complexioned, which now means brunette, is moreno. We find similar legacy in the French language. In French moricaud means dark-skinned or blackamoor, while morillon means black grape. Again, as in Italian, mora means ***** or Moorish female. Also in Italian, mora means blackberry, while moraiola means black olive." In some, but certainly not all, cases, Moors were described as fuscus. Due to the relevance of this population in the Iberian peninsula during the Middle Ages, this term may have entered English—and other European languages less exposed to this group—via its Spanish cognate moro.

The Moors, during the Middle Ages and as late as the 17th century, were described as being black, dark skinned, or swarthy in complexion. Modern texts, such as Webster's New World Dictionary, groups all moors together under the terms Arab and Berber which has caused individuals to omit the association with Africans that are racially considered "black". Considering that Berbers were a mixture of various shades of diverse nomadic groups comprising East Africans, North Africans, West Africans and Sub-Saharan Africans the claims of racial heritage being of one specific group are at best dubious. Today, it is the lighter inhabitants of Morocco and Mauretania that are called "Moors".

In Spanish usage, "Moro" (Moor) came to have an even broader usage, to mean "Muslims" in general (just as "Rumi", "from the Eastern Roman Empire", came to mean "Christian" in many Arabic dialects); thus the Moros of Mindanao in the Philippines, and the Moriscos of Granada. Moro is also used to describe all things dark as in "Moor", "moreno" and it has led to many European surnames such as "Moore", "De Muaro", and so on. The Milanese Duke Ludovico Il Moro was so-called because of his swarthy complexion.

Answer 9

Everything I have ever seen or heard, the Moors have been represented as black!

Answer 10

They were North African. They are dark skinned but most are not black. Egyptians, Moroccans, Tunisians and Algerians are north African. Many people think that they were Arabs because they were Muslims.