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Tuesday Jan 29
The word “MOOR” evolved from the Greek ‘Mauros’ which means ‘dark or black..During the European Renaissance explorers, writers and scholars began to apply the term Moor to Black Africans in general (Not arabs like they wanted us to believe, africans).

A case which shows the strong link that developed in Europe between the word “Black “ and “Moor” is that of non-Muslim Moors.

A host of non-Muslim figures are also described as Black and Moorish. These included the Black St. Maurice. Other non-Muslim Moors include the semi-legendary Sir Morien, known as “the Black Knight” of King Arthur fame and Sir Pallamedes. In 1501 one of the King’s Minstrels was Peter the Moryen or Moor who is described as Black.

According to the old versions of the Oxford English Dictionary, the Moors, as early as the Middle Ages and as late as the 17th Century, were “commonly supposed to be black or very swarthy, and hence the word is often used for Negro.

In the Arab literature there is little mention of the word Moor. Rather the term Berber is used to describe these non Arab peoples who occupied the Maghrib (Islamic North Africa west of Egypt). The term Berber may have been derived from the Latin “barbari,” a forerunner to the English “barbarian.”

Webster’s New World Dictionary states that the term Berber refers to, “any of a Muslem people living in North Africa. As berbers and Moors mixed, the word berber became replaced with moor or black, african, negro, ect. The Webster’s New World Dictionary identifies Moors as “a member of Moslem people of mixed Arab and Berber descent.”

This deletion of “black” or “Negro” from the term Moor is generally recent. Though the word “Moor” originally seems to have been meant to indicate only Black African only, it in time came to be applied to Muslims in general, especially the Berbers. The Berbers were thought to be Half European and Half African, while the Arabs were a people of their own. Some Moors were Christians and fought for Christianity and help Europeans. Some Moors were Muslims and fought for Islam and helped the Arabs.

The Berbers chose a side as well depending on what religion they were. Some historians think maybe the Arabs and Berbers that were dark skinned were called Moor as well. Since the word MOOR did evolve from the Greek ‘Mauros’ which meant dark. While the Arabs and Berbers who were light skinned were probably labeled white, mixed or semite. The word Semite is from semi which means half. Half what? True religiously Semite refers to the descendants of Shem, one of Noah’s sons. Yet the word originates from the Latin prefix semi which means half. “half Black and half White or half Asian”...