Moors

{{short description|Historical term used for various Muslim peoples}} {{About|a historical term for various groups of Muslims|other uses|Moor (disambiguation){{!}}Moor}} {{pp|small=yes}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2025}} [[File:MoorsinIberia.jpg|thumb|Depiction of Muslim army in Iberia, from ''The Cantigas de Santa Maria'']] 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.<ref name=":24" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Brann |first=Ross |url=https://brill.com/display/book/9789047441540/Bej.9789004179196.i-276_009.xml |title=Al-Andalus, Sepharad and Medieval Iberia: Cultural Contact and Diffusion |publisher=Brill |year=2009 |isbn=978-90-04-17919-6 |editor-last=Corfis |editor-first=Ivy |language=en |chapter=The Moors?}}</ref>

Moors are not a single, distinct or self-defined people.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Brann |first=Ross |url=https://brill.com/display/book/9789047441540/Bej.9789004179196.i-276_009.xml |title=Al-Andalus, Sepharad and Medieval Iberia: Cultural Contact and Diffusion |publisher=Brill |year=2009 |isbn=978-90-04-17919-6 |editor-last=Corfis |editor-first=Ivy |language=en |chapter=The Moors? |quote=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.}}</ref><ref name=":24">{{Cite book |last=Assouline |first=David |url= |title=The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2009 |isbn=9780195305135 |editor-last=Esposito |editor-first=John L. |location= |pages= |language=en |chapter=Moors |chapter-url=https://bridgingcultures-muslimjourneys.org/items/show/218 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180520183655/http://bridgingcultures.neh.gov/muslimjourneys/items/show/218 |archive-date=20 May 2018}}</ref> Europeans of the Middle Ages and the early modern period variously applied the name to Arabs, Berbers, Muslim Europeans, and black peoples.<ref>{{cite book|last=Blackmore|first=Josiah|author-link=Josiah Blackmore|title=Moorings: Portuguese Expansion and the Writing of Africa|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iRNFebS_mUIC&pg=PR16|year=2009|publisher=U of Minnesota Press|isbn=978-0-8166-4832-0|page=xvi, 18}}</ref><ref name=":24" /> The term has been used in a broad sense to refer to Muslims in general,<ref name="Menocal, María Rosa 2002 page 241">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</ref> especially those of Arab or Berber descent, whether living in al-Andalus or North Africa.<ref>{{cite book|title=Race|author=John Randall Baker|page=[https://archive.org/details/race00bake/page/226 226]|publisher=Oxford University Press|access-date=12 March 2014|url=https://archive.org/details/race00bake|url-access=registration|quote=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.|author-link=John Baker (biologist)|year=1974|isbn=9780192129543}}</ref> Related terms such as English "Blackamoor" were also used to refer to black Africans generally in the early modern period.<ref name=":0" /> The 1911 ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' observed that the term "Moors" had "no real ethnological value".<ref>{{cite EB1911|wstitle=Moors |volume=18 |page=812}}</ref> The word has racial connotations and it has fallen out of fashion among scholars since the mid-20th century.<ref name=":24" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Vernoit |first=Stephen |title=A Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture |publisher=Wiley Blackwell |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-119-06857-0 |editor-last=Flood |editor-first=Finbarr Barry |pages=1173 |language=en |chapter=Islamic Art in the West: Categories of Collecting |quote=Some terms such as 'Saracenic,' 'Mohammedan,' and 'Moorish' are no longer fashionable. |editor-last2=Necipoğlu |editor-first2=Gülru |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6YgpDwAAQBAJ&dq=companion+islamic+architecture+%E2%80%9CMoorish%E2%80%9D+are+no+longer+fashionable&pg=PA1173}}</ref>

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.<ref>Pieris, P.E. ''[https://archive.org/stream/ceylonhollanders00pieruoft#page/n5/mode/2up Ceylon and the Hollanders 1658–1796]''. American Ceylon Mission Press, Tellippalai Ceylon 1918</ref> 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.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025}} In modern-day Mauritania, the terms "black Moors" and "white Moors" are used to refer to the Haratin and Beidane peoples, respectively.<ref>{{Cite book |last= |first= |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5z5PEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA431 |title=A Political and Economic Dictionary of the Middle East |publisher=Routledge |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-135-35562-3 |editor-last=Seddon |editor-first=David |pages=431 |language=en |chapter=Mauritania, Islamic Republic of}}</ref>

== Etymology == The etymology of the word "Moor" is uncertain, although it can be traced back to the Phoenician term ''Mahurin'', meaning "Westerners".<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://apc.aast.edu/ojs/index.php/ILCC/article/view/ilcc.2023.03.1.026/pdf_18 |journal=Insights into Language, Culture and Communication| volume=3| issue=1 |date=2023 |title=Maghrebians (or Mauri) speak Magharibi, not Arabic |last=Elimam |first=Abdou |pages=26–29 |doi=10.21622/ILCC.2023.03.1.026|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Va6oSxzojzoC&pg=PA560 |title=First Encyclopaedia of Islam: 1913-1936, Volume V |publisher=E. J. Brill |last1=Houtsma |first1=M. |display-authors=etal |date=1993 |isbn=9004097910 |pages=560}}</ref> From ''Mahurin'', the ancient Greeks derive ''Mauro'', from which Latin derives ''Mauri''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Skutsch |first=Carl |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yXYKAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA31 |title=Encyclopedia of the World's Minorities |date=7 November 2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-19388-1 |pages=31 |language=en}}</ref> The word "Moor" is presumably of Phoenician origin.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Va6oSxzojzoC&pg=PA560 |title=First Encyclopaedia of Islam: 1913-1936 |date=1993 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-04-09796-4 |pages=560 |language=en}}</ref> Some sources attribute a Hebrew origin to the word.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ditson |first=George Leighton |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dvLvJG3k7S0C&pg=PA122 |title=Adventures and Observations on the North Coast of Africa, Or, The Crescent and French Crusaders |date=1860 |publisher=Derby & Jackson |pages=122 |language=en}}</ref>

== Historical usage == === Antiquity === {{further|Mauri people|Mauretania}}During the classical period, the Romans interacted with, and later conquered, parts of Mauretania, a state that covered modern northern Morocco, western Algeria, and the Spanish cities Ceuta and Melilla.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Diderot|first1=Denis|title=Ceuta|journal=Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert – Collaborative Translation Project|date=1752|page=871|hdl=2027/spo.did2222.0000.555}}</ref> The Berber tribes of the region were noted in the Classics as ''Mauri'', which was subsequently rendered as "Moors" in English and in related variations in other European languages.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Moor&allowed_in_frame=0 |title=Online Etymology Dictionary |publisher=Etymonline.com |access-date=12 May 2014}}</ref> ''Mauri'' (Ancient Greek: Μαῦροι) is recorded as the native name by Strabo in the early 1st century. This appellation was also adopted into Latin, whereas the Greek name for the tribe was ''Maurusii'' ({{langx|grc|Μαυρούσιοι}}).<ref>{{lang|grc|οἰκοῦσι δ᾽ ἐνταῦθα Μαυρούσιοι μὲν ὑπὸ τῶν Ἑλλήνων λεγόμενοι, Μαῦροι δ᾽ ὑπὸ τῶν Ῥωμαίων καὶ τῶν ἐπιχωρίων}} "Here dwell a people called by the Greeks Maurusii, and by the Romans and the natives Mauri" Strabo, ''Geographica'' 17.3.2. [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3DMauri Lewis and Short, ''Latin Dictionary'', 1879 ''s.v.'' "Mauri"]</ref> The Moors were also mentioned by Tacitus as having revolted against the Roman Empire in 24 AD.<ref>Cornelius Tacitus, Arthur Murphy, The Historical Annals of Cornelius Tacitus: With Supplements, Volume 1 (D. Neall, 1829 ) [https://books.google.com/books?id=MEoWAAAAYAAJ&dq=Cinithians&pg=PA113 p114].</ref>

=== Medieval and early modern Europe === {{See also|Al-Andalus|History of North Africa}} [[File:ChristianAndMuslimPlayingChess.JPG|thumb|Christian and Moor playing chess, from ''The Book of Games'' of Alfonso X, {{Circa|1285}}]] [[File:Book_of_chess,_dice_and_boards,_0022R,_Berbers_playing_chess.jpg|thumb|Miniature from Alfonso X's ''Book of chess, dice and boards'', completed in 1283, showing Muslims playing chess. Europeans loosely called the Muslims ''Moors'', blending the name for both people of Arab, Berber, or other ancestry.<ref name="Randall">{{cite book |author=John Randall Baker |author-link=John Baker (biologist) |url=https://archive.org/details/race00bake |title=Race |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1974 |isbn=978-0-19-212954-3 |page=[https://archive.org/details/race00bake/page/226 226] |quote=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. |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref name="Blackmore">{{cite book |last=Blackmore |first=Josiah |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iRNFebS_mUIC |title=Moorings: Portuguese Expansion and the Writing of Africa |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-8166-4832-0 |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=iRNFebS_mUIC&pg=PR16 xvi], [https://books.google.com/books?id=iRNFebS_mUIC&pg=PA18 18]}}</ref><ref>{{cite thesis |last=Ramos |first=Maria Christina |title=LITERARY CARTOGRAPHIES OF SPAIN: MAPPING IDENTITY IN AFRICAN AMERICAN TRAVEL WRITING |date=2011 |publisher=Graduate School of the University of Maryland |url=http://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/1903/12049/1/Ramos_umd_0117E_12042.pdf |place=College Park, Maryland |page=42 |quote=Early in the history of al-Andalus, Moor signified "Berber" as a geographic and ethnic identity. Later writing, however, from twelfth-and thirteenth-century Christian kingdoms, demonstrates the "transformation of Moor from a term signifying Berber into a general term referring primarily to Muslims (regardless of ethnicity) living in recently conquered Christian lands and secondarily to those residing in what was still left of al-Andalus."}}</ref>]] During the Latin Middle Ages, ''Mauri'' was used to refer to Berbers and Arabs in the coastal regions of Northwest Africa.<ref name=":24" /> The 16th century scholar Leo Africanus (c. 1494–1554) identified the Moors (''Mauri'') as the native Berber inhabitants of the former Roman Africa Province (Roman Africans).<ref name="Leo">{{cite book |last1=Africanus |first1=Leo |url=https://archive.org/stream/historyanddescr03porygoog#page/n150/ |title=The History and Description of Africa |date=1526 |publisher=Hakluyt Society |pages=108 |quote=the Mauri – or Moors – were the Berbers |access-date=30 August 2017}}</ref>

As it was Muslim Berbers and Arabs who conquered the Iberian Peninsula from North Africa in 711, the word has been applied to the inhabitants of the peninsula under Muslim rule (known in this context as al-Andalus).<ref name=":24" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Fletcher |first=Richard A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wrMG-LfuU7oC&pg=RA1-PA10 |title=Moorish Spain |publisher=University of California Press |year=1992 |isbn=978-0-520-24840-3 |pages=10 (and others) |language=en}}</ref> The term could also be applied to the Muslims of Sicily, who began to arrive there during the Aghlabid conquest of the 9th century.<ref>{{Cite book |last= |first= |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A7rOEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA355 |title=Encyclopedia of Blacks in European History and Culture |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-313-34449-7 |editor-last=Martone |editor-first=Eric |volume=2 |pages=355 |language=en |chapter=Moors}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Sousa |first=Lúcio De |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X5GFDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA18 |title=The Portuguese Slave Trade in Early Modern Japan: Merchants, Jesuits and Japanese, Chinese, and Korean Slaves |publisher=Brill |year=2019 |isbn=978-90-04-38807-9 |pages=18 (see footnote 25) |language=en}}</ref> The word passed into Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian as ''Moros'' or other cognates.<ref name=":24" /> The Emirate of Granada, the last Muslim state on the Iberian Peninsula, was conquered by the Spanish in 1492, resulting in all remaining Muslims in this area to pass under Christian rule. These Muslims and their descendants were thereafter known as ''Moriscos'' ('Moorish' or 'Moor-like') up until their final expulsion from Spain in 1609.<ref name=":24" />thumb|Illustration of Muslim musician (left) alongside a Christian musician (right) in a codice of the 13th-century ''Cantigas de Santa Maria''The word was more commonly also a racial term for dark-skinned or black people, which is the meaning with which it also passed into English as early as the 14th century.<ref name=":24" /> In medieval European literature, the term often denotes Muslim foes of Christian Europe in a derogatory manner. During the Renaissance and the early modern period, it became associated with more romanticized depictions, even when Muslims were otherwise depicted negatively. In works of this period, the "Moor" may appear as a courageous warrior, a sexually overt personality, or other stereotypes. Examples of such characters are found in the Spanish ''Poem of the Cid'' and in Shakespeare's ''Othello.''<ref name=":24" />

Since the early modern period, "Moors" or "Moorish" has also been used by western historians and scholars to refer to the history and heterogeneous people of Islamic North Africa and al-Andalus. Since the mid-20th century, however, this usage has declined, though it sometimes persists to denote related topics, such as "Moorish" architecture. The word otherwise retains some racial connotations.<ref name=":24" />

=== "White Moors" and "Black Moors" === The existence of both "white Moors" and "black Moors" is attested in historical literature from the late Middle Ages onwards.<ref name=":0">{{cite book |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1t8q92s.7 |title=Keywords of Identity, Race, and Human Mobility in Early Modern England |chapter=Blackamoor/Moor |date=2021 |publisher=Amsterdam University Press| editor-last1=Das |editor-first1=Nandini |display-authors=etal| pages=40–50|jstor=j.ctv1t8q92s.7 |last1=Das |first1=Nandini |last2=Melo |first2=João Vicente |last3=Smith |first3=Haig Z. |last4=Working |first4=Lauren |doi=10.2307/j.ctv1t8q92s.7 |isbn=978-94-6372-074-8 }}</ref> Late medieval Portuguese sources often referred to "Arabian" and "Turkish" Moors as ''mouros brancos'' ('white moors'), to North African Berbers as ''mouras da terra'' ('moors of the land'), and to sub-Saharan Africans as ''mouros negros'' ('black moors').<ref name=":0" />{{Reference page|page=40}} During the early modern period, the term "Blackamoor" was used in English to describe black Africans, alongside other racial terms.<ref name=":0" />

In the 1453 chronicle ''The Discovery and Conquest of Guinea'' the Portuguese chronicler Gomes Eannes de Azurara writes: "Dinis Diaz, leaving Portugal with his company, never lowered sail till he had passed the land of the Moors and arrived in the land of the blacks, that is called Guinea."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/35738/35738-h/35738-h.htm |title=The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea, by Gomes Eannes de Azurara |date=1453 |website=Project Gutenberg}}</ref> The 'land of the blacks' here refers to the regions south of the Sahara known as ''bilād as-sūdān'' in Medieval Arabic texts.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/the-empires-of-the-western-sudan |title=The Empires of the Western Sudan |website=metmuseum.org |date=October 2000 }}</ref> De Azurara also notes the existence of 'blacks' among the Moors, stating that "these blacks were Moors like the others, though their slaves, in accordance with ancient custom".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/35738/35738-h/35738-h.htm |title=The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea, by Gomes Eannes de Azurara |date=1453 |website=Project Gutenberg}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/bwb_P8-DFH-699/page/122/mode/2up |title=Black Morocco: A history of slavery, race, and Islam |date=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |last=El Hamel |first=Chouki |isbn=9781107025776 |pages=77}}</ref> In ''The First Book of the Introduction of Knowledge'' (1542) the English author Andrew Borde writes that "Barbary is a great country, and plentiful of fruit, wine and corn. The inhabitants be called the Moors; there be white Moors and black Moors; they be infidels and unchristened." Borde includes a poem about "a black Moor born in Barbary" who will be "a good diligent slave".<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aOueAAAAIAAJ |title=The First Book of the Introduction of Knowledge |last=Borde |first=Andrew |date=1542 |chapter=xxxvi, 'Chapter treateth of the Moors which do dwell in Barbary' |pages=212|publisher=Early English Text Society }}</ref> In his ''Description of Africa'' (1550) The Andalusi author Leo Africanus - described as a Moor by the English translator John Pory (1600) - refers to the Berber populations of Barbary and Numidia (e.g. North Africa) as "white Africans", translated by Pory as "white or tawny Moors".<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/historyanddescr03porygoog/page/n334/mode/2up? |title=The history and description of Africa, Volume I |date=1550 |first=Leo |last=Africanus |publisher=Hakluyt society |pages=205}}</ref>

The terms "white Moor" and "Black moor" are still used in modern-day Mauritania, where the Moorish population is divided into the socially dominant 'white Moors' of Berber and Arab origin (also known as ''Beidanes''), and 'black Moors' (also known as ''Haratines'') who are former slaves''.''<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/afr38/003/2002/en/ |title=Mauritania: A future free from slavery |website=Amnesty International |date=2002 |pages=9}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/islamsblackslave00sega/page/204/mode/2up?q=white+moors |title=Islam's Black Slaves |date=2001 |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |pages=204 |last=Segal |first=Ronald}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://growup.ethz.ch/atlas/Mauritania |title=Ethnicity in Mauritania |website=ETH Zurich}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://mondediplo.com/2019/08/04mauritania |title=Mauritania remains stuck in the past |website=Le Monde Diplomatique |date=2019}}</ref>

{{quote |The Haratines are almost exclusively of black origin, but are closely associated with the Moorish population in terms of language and culture. In the words of Samuel Cotton: "[they] have lost virtually every aspect of their African origins except their skin color." Their Moorish culture and their language are the result of generations of enslavement by the Moors. They are also referred to as "black Moors" to differentiate them from the "white Moors" who enslaved them, and from black Mauritanians who have not been enslaved by the Moors.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/afr38/003/2002/en/ |title=Mauritania: A future free from slavery |website=Amnesty International |date=2002 |pages=9}}</ref>}}

== Modern meanings == Apart from its historic associations and context, ''Moor'' and ''Moorish'' designate a specific ethnic group speaking Hassaniya Arabic. They inhabit Mauritania and parts of Algeria, Western Sahara, Tunisia, Morocco, Niger, and Mali.<ref>{{Cite book |last= |first= |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A7rOEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA355 |title=Encyclopedia of Blacks in European History and Culture |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-313-34449-7 |editor-last=Martone |editor-first=Eric |volume=2 |pages=355 |language=en |chapter=Moors}}</ref> In Niger and Mali, these peoples are also known as the Azawagh Arabs, after the Azawagh region of the Sahara.<ref>For an introduction to the culture of the Azawagh Arabs, see Rebecca Popenoe, ''Feeding Desire — Fatness, Beauty and Sexuality among a Saharan People''. Routledge, London (2003) {{ISBN|0-415-28096-6}}</ref>

The authoritative dictionary of the Spanish language does not list any derogatory meaning for the word ''moro'', a term generally referring to people of Maghrebian origin in particular or Muslims in general.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://dle.rae.es/|title="Diccionario de la lengua española" – Edición del Tricentenario|first=RAE-|last=ASALE|website=«Diccionario de la lengua española» – Edición del Tricentenario}}</ref> Some authors have pointed out that in modern colloquial Spanish use of the term ''moro'' is derogatory for Moroccans in particular.<ref>{{cite book|last=Simms|first=Karl|title=Translating Sensitive Texts: Linguistic Aspects|year=1997|publisher=Rodopi|isbn=978-90-420-0260-9|page=144|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t4y7EHgCn8kC&pg=PA1}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Warwick Armstrong|first=James Anderson|title=Geopolitics of European Union enlargement: the fortress empire|year=2007|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-33939-1|page=83|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0pmkrY29qkIC}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Wessendorf|first=Susanne|title=The Multiculturalism Backlash: European Discourses, Policies and Practices|year=2010|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-0-415-55649-1|page=171|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wUaHVimJkT0C}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first1=Tariq|last1=Modood|author1-link=Tariq Modood|first2=Anna|last2=Triandafyllidou|first3=Ricard|last3=Zapata-Barrero|author3-link=Ricard Zapata-Barrero|title=Multiculturalism, Muslims and citizenship: a European approach|year=2006|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-35515-5|page=143|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7OAAV5eEmy4C}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Bekers|first=Elisabeth|title=Transcultural Modernities: Narrating Africa in Europe|year=2009|publisher=Rodopi|isbn=978-90-420-2538-7|page=14|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N4_on188WJwC}}</ref>

In the Philippines, a former Spanish colony, many modern Filipinos call the large, local Muslim minority concentrated in Mindanao and other southern islands ''Moros''. The word is a catch-all term, as ''Moro'' may come from several distinct ethno-linguistic groups such as the Maranao people. The term was introduced by Spanish colonisers, and has since been appropriated by Filipino Muslims as an endonym, with many self-identifying as members of the ''Bangsamoro'' "Moro Nation".{{Citation needed|date=June 2025}}

''Moreno'' can mean "dark-skinned" in Spain, Portugal, Brazil, and the Philippines. Among Spanish speakers, ''moro'' came to have a broader meaning, applied to both Filipino Moros from Mindanao, and the moriscos of Granada. ''Moro'' refers to all things dark, as in "Moor", ''moreno'', etc. It was also used as a nickname; for instance, the Milanese Duke Ludovico Sforza was called ''Il Moro'' because of his dark complexion.<ref>[http://www.bookrags.com/biography/lodovico-sforza/ Lodovico Sforza], in: Thomas Gale, Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2005–2006</ref> [[File:Filà Marraqueix.jpg|thumb|''Moros y Cristianos'' festival in Oliva.]]

In Portugal, ''mouro'' (feminine,'' moura'') may refer to supernatural beings known as enchanted ''moura'', where "Moor" implies "alien" and "non-Christian". These beings were siren-like fairies with golden or reddish hair and a fair face. They were believed to have magical properties.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=QA4vXSPmO3EC&dq=moura+encantada+rubios&pg=PA16 Xosé Manuel González Reboredo, ''Leyendas Gallegas de Tradición Oral'' (Galician Legends of the Oral Tradition)], Galicia: Editorial Galaxia, 2004, p. 18, Googlebooks, accessed 12 July 2010 {{in lang|es}}</ref> From this root, the name moor is applied to unbaptized children, meaning not Christian.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=uQ88AAAAIAAJ&q=PORTUGAL:+A+BOOK+OF+FOLK-WAYS Rodney Gallop, ''Portugal: A Book of Folkways''], Cambridge University Press (CUP), 1936; reprint CUP Archives, 1961, Googlebooks, accessed 12 July 2010.</ref><ref>[http://www.csarmento.uminho.pt/docs/ndat/rg/RG100_11.pdf Francisco Martins Sarmento, "A Mourama"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120314022725/http://www.csarmento.uminho.pt/docs/ndat/rg/RG100_11.pdf |date=14 March 2012}}, in ''Revista de Guimaraes'', No. 100, 1990, Centro de Estudos de Património, Universidade do Minho, accessed 12 July 2010 {{in lang|pt}}</ref> In Basque, ''mairu'' means moor and also refers to a mythical people.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www1.euskadi.net/morris/resultado.asp|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141104134318/http://www1.euskadi.net/morris/resultado.asp|url-status=dead|title=Morris Student Plus|archive-date=4 November 2014|website=www1.euskadi.net}}</ref>

Muslims located in South Asia were distinguished by the Portuguese historians into two groups: Mouros da Terra ("Moors of the Land") and the Mouros da Arabia/Mouros de Meca ("Moors from Arabia/Mecca" or "Paradesi Muslims").<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-DZciX6WxgUC&q=sanjay+subrahmanyam+%22mappila%22|title=The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500–1700: A Political and Economic History|last=Subrahmanyam|first=Sanjay|date=30 April 2012|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=9780470672914|language=en}}</ref><ref name="Subrahmanyam2">Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. ''The Political Economy of Commerce: Southern India 1500-1650'' Cambridge University Press, (2002)</ref> The Mouros da Terra were either descendants of any native convert (mostly from any of the former lower or untouchable castes) to Islam or descendants of a marriage alliance between a Middle Eastern individual and an Indian woman.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025}}

Within the context of Portuguese colonization, in Sri Lanka (Portuguese Ceylon), Muslims of Arab origin are called ''Ceylon Moors'', not to be confused with "Indian Moors" of Sri Lanka (see Sri Lankan Moors). Sri Lankan Moors (a combination of "Ceylon Moors" and "Indian Moors") make up 12% of the population. The Ceylon Moors (unlike the Indian Moors) are descendants of Arab traders who settled there in the mid-6th century. When the Portuguese arrived in the early 16th century, they labelled all the Muslims in the island as Moors as they saw some of them resembling the Moors in North Africa. The Sri Lankan government continues to identify the Muslims in Sri Lanka as "Sri Lankan Moors", sub-categorised into "Ceylon Moors" and "Indian Moors".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.lankalibrary.com/cul/muslims/moors.htm|title=WWW Virtual Library:  From where did the Moors come?|website=www.lankalibrary.com}}</ref>

The Goan Muslims—a minority community who follow Islam in the western Indian coastal state of Goa—are commonly referred as ''Moir'' ({{langx|knn|मैर}}) by Goan Catholics and Hindus.{{Ref label|a|a|none}} ''Moir'' is derived from the Portuguese word ''mouro'' ("Moor").{{Citation needed|date=June 2025}}

==In heraldry== {{Main|Moor's head}}

[[File:Escudo d'Aragón.svg|thumb|upright=0.5|left|Coat of arms of Aragon with Moors' heads.]] [[File:Canynges arms on the tomb of William II Canynges and Joan Burton, St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, UK - 20101015.jpg|thumb|upright=0.6|right|Arms of the wealthy Bristol merchant and shipper William II Canynges (d.1474), as depicted on his canopied tomb in St Mary Redcliffe Church, showing the ''couped'' heads of three Moors wreathed at the temples]]

Moors—or more frequently their heads, often crowned—appear with some frequency in medieval European heraldry, though less so since the Middle Ages. The term ascribed to them in Anglo-Norman ''blazon'' (the language of English heraldry) is ''maure'', though they are also sometimes called ''moore'', ''blackmoor'', ''blackamoor'' or ''negro''.<ref name=JParker>{{cite web | title=Man | work= A Glossary of Terms Used in Heraldry | last=Parker | first=James | url=http://www.heraldsnet.org/saitou/parker/Jpglossm.htm#Man | access-date=23 January 2012}}</ref> Maures appear in European heraldry from at least as early as the 13th century,<ref name=VAM>{{cite web | title=Africans in medieval & Renaissance art: the Moor's head | url=http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/a/africans-in-medieval-and-renaissance-art-moors-head/ | publisher=Victoria and Albert Museum | access-date=23 January 2012| date=13 January 2011 }}</ref> and some have been attested as early as the 11th century in Italy,<ref name=VAM /> where they have persisted in the local heraldry and vexillology well into modern times in Corsica and Sardinia.

Armigers bearing moors or moors' heads may have adopted them for any of several reasons, to include symbolizing military victories in the Crusades, as a pun on the bearer's name in the canting arms of Morese, Negri, Saraceni, etc., or in the case of Frederick II, possibly to demonstrate the reach of his empire.<ref name=VAM /> The arms of Pope Benedict XVI feature a moor's head, crowned and collared red, in reference to the arms of Freising, Germany.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/elezione/stemma-benedict-xvi_en.html |author=Mons. Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo |title=Coat of Arms of His Holiness Benedict XVI |publisher=The Holy See |access-date=25 January 2013|archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20100114230936/https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/elezione/stemma-benedict-xvi_en.html|archive-date=2010-01-14}}</ref> In the case of Corsica and Sardinia, the blindfolded moors' heads in the four quarters have long been said to represent the four Moorish emirs who were defeated by Peter I of Aragon and Pamplona in the 11th century, the four moors' heads around a cross having been adopted to the arms of Aragon around 1281–1387, and Corsica and Sardinia having come under the dominion of the king of Aragon in 1297.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/fr-co.html |last=Sache |first=Ivan |date=14 June 2009 |title=Corsica (France, Traditional province) |publisher=Flags of the World |access-date=25 January 2013}}</ref> In Corsica, the blindfolds were lifted to the brow in the 18th century as a way of expressing the island's newfound independence.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.vaguelyinteresting.co.uk/?tag=flag-of-sardinia |last=Curry |first=Ian |date=18 March 2012 |title=Blindfolded Moors – The Flags of Corsica and Sardinia |publisher=Vaguely Interesting |access-date=25 January 2013|archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20131203005635/http://www.vaguelyinteresting.co.uk/?tag=flag-of-sardinia|archive-date=2013-12-03}}</ref>

The use of Moors (and particularly their heads) as a heraldic symbol has been deprecated in modern North America.<ref>In his 15 July 2005 blog article [https://archive.today/20120708120756/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1252/is_13_132/ai_n27858944/ "Is that a Moor's head?"], Mathew N. Schmalz refers to a discussion on the American Heraldry Society's website where at least one participant described the moor's head as a "potentially explosive image".</ref> For example, the College of Arms of the Society for Creative Anachronism urges applicants to use them delicately to avoid causing offence.<ref>{{cite web | title=Part IX: Offensive Armory | work=Rules for Submissions of the College of Arms of the Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc. | url=http://heraldry.sca.org/laurel/rfs.html#9 | date=2 April 2008 | access-date=23 January 2012}}</ref>

==Notes== {{Refbegin}} *{{note label|a|a|none}}...''Hindu Kristao '''Moir''' sogle bhau''- Hindus, Christians and Muslims are all brothers...<ref name=moir>{{cite book|last=Furtado|first=A. D.|title=Goa, yesterday, to-day, tomorrow: an approach to various socio-economic and political issues in Goan life & re-interpretation of historical facts|year=1981|publisher=Furtado's Enterprises|pages=254 pages(page xviii)}}</ref> {{Refend}}

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== {{Wiktionary|Moor|Moorish}} {{Wikiquote}} {{commons category}} * [https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1037&context=pomona_fac_pub The "Moors" of West Africa and the Beginnings of the Portuguese Slave Trade] Published from Pomona Faculty Publications and Research from Claremont Colleges * [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/secret/famous/ssecretum1.html Secret Seal: On the image of the Blackamoor in European Heraldry], a PBS article. * Sean Cavazos-Kottke. [https://web.archive.org/web/20080419095235/http://www.folger.edu/eduLesPlanDtl.cfm?lpid=573 Othello's Predecessors: Moors in Renaissance Popular Literature]: (outline). Folger Shakespeare Library, 1998.

Category:Exonyms Category:Al-Andalus Category:Arab people Category:Arabs in Portugal Category:Arabs in Spain Category:Berbers Category:Berbers in Portugal Category:Berbers in Spain