Moors
This article is about a historical group of Muslims. For other uses, see Moor. Castillian ambassadors attempting to convince Moorish Almohad king Abu Hafs Umar al-Murtada to join their alliance (contemporary depiction from the Cantigas de Santa María ) The term " Moors " refers primarily to the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and Malta during the Middle Ages. The Moors initially were the Berber autochthones of the Maghreb. [1] The name was later also applied to Arabs. [2] [3] Moors are not a distinct or self-defined people, [4] and the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica observed that "The term 'Moors' has no real ethnological value." [5] Medieval and early modern Europeans variously applied the name to Arabs, North African Berbers, and Muslim Europeans. [6] The term has also been used in Europe in a broader, somewhat derogatory sense to refer to Muslims in general, [7] especially those of Arab or Berber desce...