Moor

Moor, in English usage, a Moroccan or, formerly, a member of the Muslim population of al-Andalus, now Spain and Portugal. Of mixed Arab, Spanish, and Amazigh (Berber) origins, the Moors created the Islamic Andalusian civilization and subsequently settled as refugees in the Maghreb (in the region of North Africa) between the 11th and 17th centuries. By extension (corresponding to the Spanish moro), the term occasionally denotes any Muslim in general, as in the case of the “Moors” of Sri Lanka or of the Philippines. Today, the term Moor is used to designate the predominant Arab-Amazigh ethnic group in Mauritania (which makes up more than two-thirds of the country’s population) and the small Arab-Amazigh minority in Mali.

The word derives from the Latin term Maurus, first used by the Romans to denote an inhabitant of the Roman province of Mauretania, comprising the western portion of present-day Algeria and the northeastern portion of present-day Morocco.

The term is of little use in describing the ethnic characteristics of any groups, ancient or modern. From the Middle Ages to the 17th century, however, Europeans depicted Moors as being black, “swarthy,” or “tawny” in skin colour. (Othello, Shakespeare’s Moor of Venice, comes to mind in such a context.) Europeans designated Muslims of any other complexion as “white Moors,” despite the fact that the population in most parts of North Africa differs little in physical appearance from that of southern Europe (in Morocco, for example, red and blonde hair are relatively common).

The term Moorish continues to be widely used to describe the art, architecture, and high culture of Muslim Andalusia and North Africa dating from the 11th century onward.