Moors

The term Moor is an exonym used in European languages to designate primarily the Muslim populations of North Africa (the Maghreb) and the Iberian Peninsula (particularly al-Andalus) during the Middle Ages.[1][2]

Moors are not a single, distinct or self-defined people.[3][1] Europeans of the Middle Ages and the early modern period variously applied the name to Arabs, Berbers, Muslim Europeans, and black peoples.[4][1] The term has been used in a broad sense to refer to Muslims in general,[5] especially those of Arab or Berber descent, whether living in al-Andalus or North Africa.[6] Related terms such as English "Blackamoor" were also used to refer to black Africans generally in the early modern period.[7] The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica observed that the term "Moors" had "no real ethnological value."[8] The word has racial connotations and it has fallen out of fashion among scholars since the mid-20th century.[1][9]

The word is also used when denoting various other specific ethnic groups in western Africa and some parts of Asia. During the colonial era, the Portuguese introduced the names "Ceylon Moors" and "Indian Moors" in South Asia and Sri Lanka, now official ethnic designations on the island nation, and the Bengali Muslims were also called Moors.[10] In the Philippines, the longstanding Muslim community, which predates the arrival of the Spanish, now self-identifies as the "Moro people", an exonym introduced by Spanish colonizers due to their Muslim faith. In modern-day Mauritania, the terms "Black moors" and "white Moors" are used to refer to the Beidane and Haratin peoples, respectively.[11]

  1. ^ a b c d Assouline, David (2009). "Moors". In Esposito, John L. (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195305135. Archived from the original on 20 May 2018.
  2. ^ Brann, Ross (2009). "The Moors?". In Corfis, Ivy (ed.). Al-Andalus, Sepharad and Medieval Iberia: Cultural Contact and Diffusion. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-17919-6.
  3. ^ Brann, Ross (2009). "The Moors?". In Corfis, Ivy (ed.). Al-Andalus, Sepharad and Medieval Iberia: Cultural Contact and Diffusion. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-17919-6. Andalusi Arabic sources, as opposed to later Mudéjar and Morisco sources in Aljamiado and medieval Spanish texts, neither refer to individuals as Moors nor recognize any such group, community or culture.
  4. ^ Blackmore, Josiah (2009). Moorings: Portuguese Expansion and the Writing of Africa. U of Minnesota Press. p. xvi, 18. ISBN 978-0-8166-4832-0.
  5. ^ Menocal, María Rosa (2002). Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain. Little, Brown, & Co. ISBN 0-316-16871-8, p. 241
  6. ^ John Randall Baker (1974). Race. Oxford University Press. p. 226. ISBN 9780192129543. Retrieved March 12, 2014. In one sense the word 'Moor' means Mohammedan Berbers and Arabs of North-western Africa, with some Syrians, who conquered most of Spain in the 8th century and dominated the country for hundreds of years.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Moors" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 812.
  9. ^ Vernoit, Stephen (2017). "Islamic Art in the West: Categories of Collecting". In Flood, Finbarr Barry; Necipoğlu, Gülru (eds.). A Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture. Wiley Blackwell. p. 1173. ISBN 978-1-119-06857-0. Some terms such as "Saracenic," "Mohammedan," and "Moorish" are no longer fashionable.
  10. ^ Pieris, P.E. Ceylon and the Hollanders 1658–1796. American Ceylon Mission Press, Tellippalai Ceylon 1918
  11. ^ Seddon, David, ed. (2013). "Mauritania, Islamic Republic of". A Political and Economic Dictionary of the Middle East. Routledge. p. 431. ISBN 978-1-135-35562-3.
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