Talk:Moors

Moor from Mauri

I frankly don't understand why this article is separated from the one for Mauri, since the word Moor is originally from Mauri, which was used by Romans, and by the native Mauri (inhabitants of the Kingdom of Mauretania and the Roman provinces that ensued from them) to designate themselves, indicating as Gabriel Camps suggests that it may be originally a Berber word that went into Greek then Latin. The claim of the first paragraph of the article that it was an "exonym" in that sense, is not accurate, and much less is the claim that it was an equivalent of Muslim. The term was and remained much more strongly associated with Northwest Africa and its proxy regions (e.g. Andalusia) than any other place, and a cursory search in the literature is sufficient indication, that it was mainly a geographical term that was sometimes abused and generalized, but most often retained its original significance (check the number of hits for "Moorish Morocco" vs "Moorish Egypt" or any other region, on Google Books or Google Scholar for instance). --Ideophagous (talk) 10:23, 03 April 2021 (UTC+2)

Abu Yusuf and Abu Hafs Umar al-Murtada are named

Academic sources clearly name both Abu Yusuf of the Benimerines and al Murtada of the Almohades.

Can someone please label this image > Moors#/media/File:MoorandChristianBattle.png with Abu Yusuf's name? 'Abu Yusuf, the emir of the Benimerines, is defeated in Morocco by Christian knights bearing the banner of Holy Mary' >https://books.google.co.tz/books?redir_esc=y&id=7Q7tDcPIEgMC&q=abu+yusuf#v=snippet&q=abu%20yusuf&f=false

Rightfully restore the pictures of Umar al Murtada as well > https://books.google.co.tz/books?redir_esc=y&id=7Q7tDcPIEgMC&q=abu+yusuf#v=snippet&q=al-Murtada&f=false. 154.74.127.113 (talk) 04:55, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

idk why my previous edit request was deleted but. but I think the sources in it are relevant so I will post them again. to further prove it's al murtada

Please bring back the image that was removed here https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moors&oldid=1254751943

This image was removed after an Afrocentrist YouTube channel spread the baseless claim that this photo doesn't depict Almohad Sultan but rather Visigothic or Levantine scholars in Spain. Their only argument was the fact that the poems don't mention him by name.

I will provide the historical context and evidence to prove that this is false and the person depicted is indeed Almohad sultan Al-Murtada.

Cantiga 181 of the Cantigas de Santa Maria of Alfonso X is titled "The Banner of the Virgin Defeats the Moors at Marrakesh".

source:

The text goes as follows:

The King of Marrakech was at war with another king.

The other king had crossed the Morabe River with a huge army and had laid siege to the city.

The king of Marrakech was advised to go out from the city with his best warriors to do battle. He was to take the banner of Holy Mary and to be accompanied by Christians carrying crosses.

The King followed this advice, and when the banner of Holy Mary was unfurled, the army of the other king was defeated. Many of his men were killed and they lost their tents and possessions.

others, seeing the banner and crosses, fled in great haste.

In this way, the Virgin helped her friends, even though they were of another faith.

The poem talks about the battle between the Almohads and Marinids that took place near Marrakesh in the year 1262. When the Marinid sultan Abu Yusuf attempted to invade Marrakesh which was still held by the last Almohad sultan Abu Hafs Umar al-Murtada.

source: [1]

The historian Joseph F O'Callaghan talks about this event in his book. "Alfonso X and the Cantigas de Santa Maria: A Poetic Biography". In Chapter 7 "The Rise of the Benimerines" page 135 he says:

The invasion of the peninsula in mid-May 1275 by the Benimerines, a new Muslim dynasty from Morocco, dictated the urgency of the king’s movements. The Bani Marin or Marinids, whom the Castilians knew as the Benimerines, rose to power in Morocco on the ashes of the disintegrating Almohad empire. When Alfonso X sent his expedition to Salé in 1260, Abu Yusuf Ya‘qub b. ‘Abd al-Haqq (1258-1286), the emir of the Benimerines, was establishing his rule in that region and occupied Salé after the Castilians abandoned it.

CSM 169.53 described Abu Yusuf as lord of Salé—“o sennor de Cale.” His struggle to overthrow the Almohads extended over a period of years and was not completed until 1269.”

With some satisfaction CSM 181, without mentioning his name, relates the story of a major defeat that Abu Yusuf suffered when he besieged Marrakech—“na cidade de Marrocos que e mui grand’ e fremosa” (6)—at an unknown date, perhaps in 1262 or 1264.?” This richly

illuminated cantiga shows the encampment of the turbanned and bearded Benimerines, armed with shields, lances, and pennants (panel 1). Abu Yusuf’s opponent, presumably al-Murtada, the last of the Almohad caliphs (d. 1268), is depicted with turban and beard and sitting crosslegged as his counselors urge him to give battle, but first to order the Christians of the city to bring out the banner of the Virgin Mary and the crosses from the church:

E porend’ os de Marrocos al Rei tal conssello davan que saisse da cidade con béa gent’ esleuda

D’armas e que mantenente cono outro rei lidasse

e logo fora da vila a sina sacar mandasse

da Virgen Santa Mana, e que per ren non dultasse que os logo non vencesse, pois la ouvesse tenduda;

Demais, que sair fezesse dos crischdos o concello conas cruzes da eigreja (17-26).

In the panels (3-6) portraying the confrontation of the two armies, a body of mounted warriors dressed in mail and bowled helmets carries two crosses and a red banner showing the Virgin Mary seated on a gold throne with her Child in her lap.*® Clearly these are Christian soldiers in the service of the Almohad caliph. Filled with great fear when they saw the Christian symbols, the enemy fled in disorder, leaving their tents behind. “Many of that ugly and bearded people died there”—“‘e morreu _y muita gente dessa fea e barvuda’” (33). The poet concluded triumphantly that Mary helps her friends, even those of another faith, who appealed to her:

E assi Santa Maria ajudou a seus amigos,

pero que d’ outra lei eran, a britar seus éemigos

que, macar que eran muitos, nonos pregaron dous figos, e asst for ssa mercee de todos mui connoguda (40-43).

(text might have errors because it was copied from a pdf)

source:

As you can see. the panel does indeed depict Almohad sultan al-Murtada consulting his counselors including christian ones from Castille as the Merinids were shared enemies for both Almohads and Castille. Castille was allied with the Almohad sultan Al-Murtada. And this poem talks about how the christians convinced him to let the christian soldiers carry the banner of Holy Virgin Mary. Which according to Castillian was the reason the Almohad army defeated the Marinid army.

I hope the image is brought back as I have provided extensive evidence. And please be careful with Afrocentric vandalization of such articles. AdamElMerini (talk) 12:49, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Was a consensus reached? As a bot cleared and archived the previous topic for some reason? 154.74.127.126 (talk) 08:29, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Consensus with the melanated Anglo-Saxons with inferiority complex, a.k.a. Afrocentrists? Are you kidding? The We Wuz Kangz live in a parallel universe. A very WASP one, hilariously. C'mon, Wikipedia shouldn't depend on the whims, biases and cynical lies of an Afrocentrist YT channel like "The King's Monologue", the guy who believes that the Moors from the Cantigas are Visigoths (lol, lol, lol) or Levantines, and that the Fayum portraits are 500 years old ( lol, lol, lol). If the Moors being black is an Afrocentrist tenet, that's not Wikipedia's problem. 85.84.57.60 (talk) 11:57, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

References

The person who made Unsourced Claim

The user https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/2001:1C00:1E20:D900:D108:E292:4ECE:682B who created topic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Moors#Unsourced_Claim, was stopped for 1 year, because of "Persistent long-time pushing of unreliable sources, bludgeoning of talkpages, block evasion and egregious personal attacks". Therefore should be disregarded, and the picture which was removed on https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moors&diff=prev&oldid=1254751943 to be restored. 154.74.127.126 (talk) 08:37, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

unsourced statement under 'moors of iberia' paragraph

the author, seemingly out of the blue, inserts the following claim, without source or reference, as if just factual: "Despite racial tensions, Arabs and Berbers intermarried frequently.', which sound both potentially agenda driven, and contradictional on its merits, never mind, based on what verified research, if any.. 12.146.12.12 (talk) 02:11, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

looked searched for 'marry, married, marriage', in the multipaged source. none, ime, mentions marriage between ethnicities, such as between berbers and arabs, only individual marriages.. 12.146.12.12 (talk) 03:41, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

There is no greek source referring to blacks as moors in entire literature

where is this claim coming from it clearly doesn't exist in the first source and I couldn't find it in any Greek writing, the only word for "black people" was Ethiopian which meant burnt face, why are we letting black supremacist control the narrative 68.9.255.238 (talk) 11:25, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

Why is the DNA evidence not shown

DNA evidence clearly shows moors were not black and there is not a single example of ancient Greeks referring to blacks as moors, the word Ethiopia is clearly a Greek word and how they referred to blacks 68.9.255.238 (talk) 11:29, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

What is this article about?

The first two paragraphs of the lead make it clear that this article is about the word "Moor", which makes sense. But then it turns to the history of Muslim Sicily and Al-Andalus, artificially forcing bizarre wording like "Aghlabid Moors" (which is entirely unattested in WP:RS), with sections below about the "Moors of the Maghreb", "Moors of Iberia", and "Moors of Sicily".

Considering that there is no defined "Moorish people", as the article makes clear to begin with, I don't see why we're including a selection of not-strictly-related topics in Muslim/Mediterranean history that are already covered by dedicated articles elsewhere. The inclusion of Sicily is especially odd: the term "Moors" is old-fashioned but common when speaking of the Iberian Peninsula, but I don't think the same is true of Sicily. The "Notable Moors" section is likewise very questionable; how can one be a notable member of an undefined group?

If the article's scope is to make sense, then it needs to be an article about a word (WP:WORDISSUBJECT), which would mean cutting most of the rest. It would make sense to keep a short overview about "Moors" in the Iberian Peninsula as a WP:SUMMARYSTYLE linking to al-Andalus (and maybe Moriscos), given common usage of this term in that context until recently. But not much more. A useful benchmark for comparison might be the "Moors" entry in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World ([2], free copy accessible here) R Prazeres (talk) 03:57, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

I just noticed that seemingly the same issue was brought up in this discussion a few years ago, with apparent agreement by three editors, but nothing happened. Courtesy ping to Nø, Carlstak, and Srnec, who were part of that discussion. If there is agreement again here, maybe we can discuss practical implementation (e.g. should we delete, condense, transfer material?). Cheers, R Prazeres (talk) 05:30, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

As is clear from my earlier involvement, I support the view that this article should be about a word and its connotations. If there is need to discuss actual groups that are properly designated (or self-identify as) "Moors", that should be relegated either to a separate section on that use, or a separate article.

To maintain this balance, it will probably be necessary to be very explicit about the focus in the lead.

But I am far from an expert; I have not perused the various sources; I am not going to make radical changes. I came to this article through interest in Shakespeare's Othello (and its ambiguity on "race" or ethnicity), and I merely react on internal evidence: The article is a mess, and something should be done, and it seems to me the way to bring order is to make it as an article on a word, not on one or more groups of people. Nø (talk) 07:59, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

PS. Earlier discussion posts touching on this:

• Talk:Moors/Archive 9#"In 711, troops mostly formed by Moors from northern Africa led the Umayyad conquest" ...
• Talk:Moors/Archive 9#This should be an article about a word, not about a people
• Talk:Moors/Archive 9#Any reason dark skinned moors are not mentioned or depicted?
• Talk:Moors/Archive 9#Moor Means Black

(there are probably more).

I'd like to add: I think that what this article should be, can be compared to what the article Nigger should be: An article on a word that generelly expresses prejudice, though there may in the past have been instances where it was used neutrally, and though it today as an act of empowerment has been adopted by some of the people it could refer to.Nø (talk) 08:23, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

R Prazeres, I agree with your points. As you say: "artificially forcing bizarre wording", "there is no defined "Moorish people", and "it needs to be an article about a word".

I think these points made by the ECB article you (R Prazeres) cite speak to User Nø's comment that "a word that generally expresses prejudice" and its use as as an act of empowerment:

In Spain, the term is still used, inaccurately and often disparagingly, in reference to Arabs or Muslims of diverse origin.

More commonly, however, it was a racial designation for dark-skinned or black peoples, as in its English usage

Since the mid-twentieth century, the term has fallen out of use and carries racial connotations. More commonly, however, it was a racial designation for dark-skinned or black peoples, as in its English usage.

R Prazeres is well-qualified by editing experience and knowledge of the subject to make the changes he suggests, and I would support them. Carlstak (talk) 17:36, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

I still see the word sometimes used as a straightforward anglicization of the Latin Mauri ([3][4]), so I don't necessarily agree that it generally expresses prejudice. There are comments on this talk page concerned that the article whitewashes the Moors! Of course, on the substantive point about the article itself, I agree. It should be about the history of terminology, but not like Nigger. More like Vlachs or Saracen. —Srnec (talk) 03:19, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

N.B. We have Blackamoor (decorative arts) and Moor's head, but Blackamoor is a dab page. Srnec (talk) 03:21, 10 April 2025 (UTC)