The Real Moors

Early inhabitants of the central Maghrib have left behind significant remains. Early remnants of hominid occupation in North Africa, were found in Ain el Hanech, near Saïda Algeria (ca. 200,000 B.C.). Later, Neanderthal tool makers produced hand axes in the Levalloisian and Mousterian styles (ca. 43,000 B.C.) similar to those in the Levant. According to some sources, North Africa was the site of the highest state of development of Middle Paleolithic flake-tool techniques. Tools of this era, starting about 30,000 B.C., are called Aterian (after the site Bir el Ater, south of Annaba) and are marked by a high standard of workmanship, great variety, and specialization.

The amalgam of peoples of North Africa coalesced eventually into a distinct native population that came to be called Berbers. Distinguished primarily by cultural and linguistic attributes, the Berbers lacked a written language and hence tended to be overlooked or marginalized in historical accounts. Roman, Greek, Byzantine, and Arab Muslim chroniclers typically depicted the Berbers as "barbaric" enemies, troublesome nomads, or ignorant peasants. They were, however, to play a major role in the area's history.

When you think of European culture, one of the first things that may come to your mind is the renaissance. Many of the roots of European culture can be traced back to that glorious time of art, science, commerce and architecture. But did you know that long before the renaissance there was a place of humanistic beauty in Muslim Spain? Not only was it artistic, scientific and commercial, but it also exhibited incredible tolerance, imagination and poetry. Moors, as the Spaniards call the Muslims, populated Spain for nearly 700 years. As you'll see, it was their civilization that enlightened Europe and brought it out of the dark ages to usher in the renaissance. Many of their cultural and intellectual influences still live with us today.

Way back during the eighth century, Europe was still knee-deep in the Medieval period. That's not the only thing they were knee-deep in. In his book, "The Day The Universe Changed," the historian James Burke describes how the typical European townspeople lived:

"The inhabitants threw all their refuse into the drains in the center of the narrow streets. The stench must have been overwhelming, though it appears to have gone virtually unnoticed. Mixed with excrement and urine would be the soiled reeds and straw used to cover the dirt floors.

This squalid society was organized under a feudal system and had little that would resemble a commercial economy. Along with other restrictions, the Catholic Church forbade the lending of money - which didn't help get things booming much. "Anti-Semitism, previously rare, began to increase. Money lending, which was forbidden by the Church, was permitted under Jewish law." (Burke, 1985, p. 32) Jews worked to develop a currency although they were heavily persecuted for it. Medieval Europe was a miserable lot, which ran high in illiteracy, superstition, barbarism and filth.

During this same time, Arabs entered Europe from the South. ABD AL-RAHMAN I, a survivor of a family of caliphs of the Arab empire, reached Spain in the mid-700's. He became the first Caliph of Al-Andalus, the Moorish part of Spain, which occupied most of the Iberian Peninsula. He also set up the UMAYYAD Dynasty that ruled Al-Andalus for over three-hundred years. (Grolier, History of Spain). Al Andalus means, "the land of the Vandals," from which comes the modern name Andalusia.

In Iberia, many of the ousted White nobles took refuge in the unconquered north Asturian highlands. From there they aimed to reconquer their lands from the Moors: this war of reconquest is known as the Reconquista. It began in about 900 A.D. when a small Christian enclave of Visigoths in northwestern Spain, named Asturias; initiated conflicts between Christians and Muslims. Soon after, Christian states based in the north and west slowly; in fits and starts, began a process of expansion and reconquest of Iberia over the next several hundred years. The end for the Moors came on January 2, 1492: the leader of the last Moorish City "Granada" (located in southern Spain) - surrendered to armies of a recently united Christian Spain (after the marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile). This ended the 800 year reign of the Moors in Iberia.

 By some historical accounts: In 1491, Muhammad XII was summoned by Ferdinand and Isabella to surrender the city of Granada, and on his refusal it was besieged by the Castilians. Eventually, on 2 January, 1492, Granada was surrendered. In most sumptuous attire the royal procession moved from Santa Fe to a place a little more than a mile from Granada, where Ferdinand took up his position by the banks of the Genil. A private letter written by an eyewitness to the bishop of León only six days after the event recorded the scene.

With the royal banners and the cross of Christ plainly visible on the red walls of the Alhambra: …the Moorish sultan with about eighty or a hundred on horseback very well dressed went forth to kiss the hand of their Highnesses. According to the final capitulation agreement both Isabel and Ferdinand will decline the offer and the key to Granada will pass into Spanish hands without Muhammad XII having to kiss the hands of Los Royes, as the Spanish royal couple became known. Muhammad XII indomitable mother insisted on sparing his son this final humiliation. The Moorish sultan was received with much love and courtesy and there they handed over to him his son, who had been a hostage from the time of his capture, and as they stood there, there came about four hundred captives, of this who were in the enclosure, with the cross and a solemn procession singing the Te Deum Laudamus, and their highnesses dismounted to adore the Cross to the accompaniment of the tears and reverential devotion of the crowd, not least of the Cardinal and Master of Santiago and the Duke of Cadiz and all the other grandees and gentlemen and people who stood there, and there was no one who did not weep abundantly with pleasure giving thanks to Our Lord for what they saw, for they could not keep back the tears; and the Moorish sultan and the Moors who were with him for their part could not disguise the sadness and pain they felt for the joy of the Christians, and certainly with much reason on account of their loss, for Granada is the most distinguished and chief thing in the world…

 Muhammad XII was given an estate in Láujar de Andarax, Las Alpujarras, a mountainous area between the Sierra Nevada and the Mediterranean Sea, but he soon crossed the Strait of Gibraltar to Fez, Morocco. The Spanish royal secretary Fernando de Zafra mentions in his letter of 9 December 1492 that Muhammad XII and his followers leave Andarax which left one month to go to Tlemcen, where he stayed little longer. He left in September or October 1492. He explained that his wife died in Andarax and was buried in Mondújar.

The remaining Muslims and Turkish Khazar Jews (not Hebrews) of Iberia were forced to leave Iberia or die; or convert to Roman Catholic Christianity. Many of the Khazar Jews who were expelled from Spain and Portugal immigrated to Holland, where they set up the Dutch West Indies Company, a prime mover in the Atlantic slave trade. Ironically, eight months after the last Moorish city fell: it was in the nearby town of Palos, on the evening of August 3, 1492. That Christopher Columbus would depart from Palos on his journey to the Americas. One result of which, would be the Spanish and Portuguese Atlantic Slave trade.

The story of Black slavery in the Americas, of course begins with Christopher Columbus. It is alleged that his voyage to the Americas was not financed by Queen Isabella, but rather by the Khazar Jew Luis de Santangelo, who supposedly advanced the sum of 17,000 ducats to finance the voyage. Columbus was accompanied by five 'Maranos' (Jews who had forsworn their religion and supposedly became Catholics) Luis de Torres - the interpreter, Marco - the surgeon, Bemal - the physician, Alonzo de la Calle and Gabriel Sanchez, and a Black navigator, Pedro Alonso Niño (1468 – 1505). It is not known if Pedro Alonso Niño was a Moor or a native Gaul of Iberia. While in the Americas, it was Gabriel Sanchez, who convinced Columbus to capture 500 American Indians and sell them as slaves in Seville, Spain.

After the Moors were gone; In 1480, Isabella and Ferdinand instituted the Inquisition in Spain, as one of many changes to the role of the church instituted by the monarchs. The Inquisition was aimed mostly at Jews and Muslims who had overtly converted to Christianity but were thought to be practicing their faiths secretly — called respectively marranos and moriscos. The Inquisition also attacked heretics who rejected Roman Catholic orthodoxy, including alumbras (native people) who practiced a personal mysticism or spiritualism. They represented a significant portion of the peasants in some territories, such as Aragon, Valencia or Andalusia. In the years from 1609 to 1614, these people were systematically expelled from the country. However many of them were converted to Christianity. This is clearly indicated by a "high mean proportion of ancestry from North Africa (10.6%)" that "attests to a high level of religious conversion (whether voluntary or enforced).

At the end of the Reconquista, it is estimated that about a third of the Moorish population had been killed or enslaved, another third immediately left; while a third tried to live in Christian Spain. However, for most Moors, the persecution and forced conversion to Catholicism of the Muslim population during the time of the Christian Reconquista, caused a mass exodus. Many found life under Christian rule intolerable and passed over into north Africa. This is considered the main reason why the number of Muslims had shrunk to a relatively small fraction of the total population by 1500.

The Berbers have since fallen on hard times, even to loosing their identity; for today, as is the case with all of the ancient Blacks, the mixed-race people, and even the Whites, now call themselves Berbers. So here are the "Real" Berbers.