Customer Reviews

The Story of the Moors in Spain

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As a reply to the previous article, I am including this follow-up article to clarify the historical roots of the Moors. Although many Moors practice Islam, as a result of the Islam expansion into Africa, the Moors are not Arabian, as they are often identified (also, all Moors are not Muslims, which we will discuss in an upcoming Board). You can click on the title to go to the actual website.It should also be noted that the black Moors were not slaves but took white people as slaves after their expansion into Spain.


Moors and Arabs


When the Romans entered West Africa in 46 B.C., they saw Africans and called them Maures, from the Greek adjective Mauros, meaning dark or black. It is from Mauros and the Latin term Marues that the word Moor is derived. Since the inhabitants of North Africa were black, the Romans and later the Europeans called them Moors. It is no coincidence that the land inhabited by the Moors was called Mauritania and Morocco, meaning "Land of the Blacks."

In the beginning of the seventh century, the Arab prophet, Muhammad, began to preach the word of Islam. Consumed with religious fervor, the Arabs sought to spread Islam and conquer the world. By 708, the Arabs had overrun North Africa. Consequently, Moors in large numbers accepted Arabic as the national language and converted to their conqueror's religion, Islam. Interestingly, hundreds of years later, Africans who had been enslaved by Europeans would again convert to their conqueror's religion, Christianity.

After the fall of the Roman Empire (fifth century), Spain was held by a barbaric white tribe, the Visigoths. Though they were Christians, their brand of Christianity was cruel and unjust. For this reason, Spain's Jews, serfs, and slaves looked favorably upon the arrival of a new civilization in which they would be able to live free of persecution.

Tarik, a great African chief, was given the rank of general in the Arab army and sent to raid Spain. On April 30, 711, Tarik landed on the Spanish Coast with 7,000 troops. His troops consisted of 300 Arabs and 6,700 native Africans (Moors). An ancient source, Ibn Husayn (ca. 950, recorded that these troops were "Sudanese", an Arabic word for Black people.

The Moors were unstoppable, and Visigothic Spain ceased to be. The few resisting Visigoths fled to the caves of the Cantabrian Mountains. Later in the century, the cave dwellers would venture out of the Cantabrian Mountains and reclaim parts of northern Spain.

The Moors of Africa were the real conquerors. When the Arabs arrived, the hardest part of the job had been done. Instead of treating the Moors fairly, the Arab chiefs assigned themselves the most fertile regions. The dissatisfied Moors were not long in coming to blows with the Arabs. (The History of Spain by Louis Bertrand and Sir Charles Petrie - published by Eyre & Spottiswood, London, 1945, page 36). Ultimately, the Moors acquired two-thirds of the peninsula, which they named Al-Andulus.

Al -Andulus was obliged to pay tribute to the Arab Caliph (King) of Damascus. As Al-Andulus acquired its own identity, its bond with the Caliph began to weaken. In 756, Al-Andulus proclaimed itself an independent state. Thus, its only links to the Arabs would be the Islamic faith and the Arabic language.

The Moorish architectural remains in Cordoba, Seville, and Granada prove conclusively that these cities were more prosperous and artistically more brilliant than any Christian cities in Europe at the time. The Moors of Al-Andulus held the torch of leaning and civilization when the rest of Europe was plunged in barbaric ignorance.

If Moorish Spain had been an accomplishment of the Arabs it would have been called Arab or Arabic Spain. Instead it bears the name of its creators, the Moors, i.e., Moorish Spain. Moorish culture was black in origin, bright in Achievement, and powerful in its influence on the rest of Europe.

A debt of gratitude is certainly in order to the eminent historian Stanley Lane Poole for his voluminous literary contribution to Moorish/Islamic culture and history. Lane Poole was a pioneer whose works in his field not only carried the standard of the era, but were nonpariel in his day.

The Story of the Moors in Spain, written roughly a century ago, is of course, a classic work, and its resurrection today to a rife readership, along with Lane Poole's general body of work and other literary contributions from authors addressing Moorish history, coincides with the contemporary movement of conscious Moors to awaken the general masses to an almost obscured and "forgotten," but relevant history.

Lane Poole renders an outstanding educational retelling of the history of the rise and fall of the Moorish Empire's North African annexed rule in Spain, which is ultimately the account of the beginning of the end of a once powerful people and their empire. I am most pleased and impressed that the book hedges not to identify the Moors in subject, as an African phenotype, although some will insist otherwise. There is much included here for conscious readers to be thankful for; but then there is perhaps much omitted. We must consider that recording the truth about African civilizations and their viable contributions to the world was a daring academic initiative in the 1800's for any author (even before the ascent of anti-Arab prejudice), especially since European academia obsessed with the golden rule of proliferating copious volumes of repugnant canards about Africa in general.

Readers will perhaps shed a tear or two (as I initially did and still do) ingesting Lane Poole's account of the final stand of the Moors; the fall of Granada. From the fierce resistance in the alpajarras, where vivid descriptions of battle read like Tolkien; to the gallant charge and final battle of Musa, who deserves much more ink in any historian's account of this time period; to the disgrace of King Boabdil as he relinquishes the throne he hastened to obtain through viciously selfish motives, and foolishly squandered through cowardice and ignorance; and finally, to the sad exile of the Moors, "You may weep like a woman for what you could not defend as a man."

So, this work certainly earns its place in the firmament of Moorish history literature (a sky which, unfortunately, doesn't necessarily teem with stars), and students of history will find it a great read and perfect Moorish History consultation. It is a monumental work for the ages, beautiful in that while holding a firm position on the tapestry of scholarly and academic merit, Lane Poole writes in a style that even children can comprehend and appreciate. An overall great and wonderful read.

And while it is unlikely that lane Poole could have predicted his work would one day find profound appreciation with a reading constituency that didn't exist as such when he wrote, he must be pleased today, for his contribution extends well beyond his grave.

This book initially grew in popularity over a decade ago through Ivan Van Sertimas book on the Moors in which this book was well quoted. Stanley Lane Poole was one of those unique writers who could write an accurate historical book in a style that was easy to read. This book covers the hstory of Andalusia or Muslim Spain from the initial conquest to the downfall of Granada and the expulsion of the Muslims from their homeland.

Its almost comical these days that a book like this would be considered 'politically corretc' Thing is, it was published over a century ago in an age much less tolerant than our own when Britain and the was in conflict with a declining Ottoman Turkey and almost at the peak of European colonialism. Yet still, we could find scholars of this quality.

Highly recomended.

Stanley Lane Pool's book is a classic example of the Reinhardt Dozy school of scholarship in the field of Hispano-Arabic studies. However, the introduction by Stanley Jackson is extremley misleading. The term Moor is not meant to denote black Africans, it was a term used by Christians to describe the Muslim inhabitants of Iberia not any specific racial group. The Arabs which crossed the straits of Gibralter into Iberia were originally from the Arabian peninsula. Also, they did not make up the majority of the troops who invaded Spain. The majority of the Islamic peoples who came to Iberia were north African Berbers of what anthropologists classify as the Hamitic branch of the caucasoid race. Furthermore, the indigenous Iberians always outnumbered the Arab, Berber and black African contingent. The Indigenous Iberians were simply islamized, adopted the Arab culture and were thus called Moors by the Christians. It was not until the coming of the Almoravid empire which arrived in Iberia in the 12th Century, where large numbers of black Africans came to Iberia, being that the Almoravids (al-murabitun) originated from present day Senegal and southern Morocco. Black Africans did make very important contirbutions to Iberian history, such as the great medieval, Spanish linguist Juan Latino who helped unify the Castillian language, however, he was a freed slave and a Christian not a Moor. To say that the Moors were of any specific racial group as Stanley Jackson posits is misleading and irresponsible pseudo-scholarship.

...despite some of the criticisms, the book is a good read and introduction into an interesting period of history. For those who have never traveled to Morocco, the Berbers are a mixed race and do not consider themselves 'white'. Likewise, the man who lead the so-called Army into what is today southern Spain was from Syria and the sole descedent of an Arab family that had been massacred by a rival group (Abbasid vs the Umayyads). As one local Moroccan legend goes, upon arriving in Tangier the [Christian] head of the city lured Abd al-Rahman to leave the city in search of gold and riches just across the Straits. Fast forwarding, they later set up model cities of tolerance and learning centuries ahead of their European neighbors to the north. Their downfall was hastened by not only the Christians but also Islamic extremists from the southern Berber regions of Morocco who viewed them as too moderate. This is a fascinating period of history and there are other good books on the subject out there that I recommend those interested in the topic read. Two of which I highly recommend are "The Ornament of the World" by Maria Rosa Menocal and a new one recently out called "White Gold". Enjoy.

Regardless of what the naysayers on this site postulate, this book is very useful in describing the moors, and their historical legacy. This book deals in specifics, whereas those criticizing this book, is dealing in generalizations.

It's funny how the critics of this book, refer to the moors as "white", when it is convenient, whereas many of their brethren, refer to the moors as a non-white, mixed group, when it suits their racial purposes, by displaying the history of non-white invasions into Europe, and how the steadfast will of the European people eventually staved off such invasion, by reclaiming and conquering their original lands: vis-a-vis the Moors being driven out of Spain, France, etc.

Todays many (not all)Arabs are primarily non-white: they're not pure white, seeing as how many of them, especially the North Africans, possess black genetic strains; which makes the statement that Arabs across the board are categorically white-ludicrous (unless you consider semites, as classically a "white" people).

Again, this book is brilliant in its' documentation of the Moors, and their racial make-up, and those that oppose it, only wish that what they were saying was the truth, as opposed to how it really was-and what they probably don't want to believe.

The Muslims came straight from the deserts of North Africa and Arabia and transformed the Iberian Peninsula into an area off high learning and brought cultivation to the people of Andalusia. Andalusia became the envy of Europe.

The question of how these Muslims were able to make this transformation is not explored here. Instead, Mr. Lane-Poole presents the historical facts from the moment Tarik (the Moor) landed in Gibraltar in 711 to the fall of Granada in 1492. He covers the significant Caliphas of the Umayyad dynasty, the reign of the Almoravides and Almohades followed by the kingdom of Granada. Because the history covered here covers about 1000 years in about 270 pages, Mr. Lane-Pool is not able to go into details of any specific era. The reader will have to look elsewhere for that level of detail.

The Story of the Moors in Spain provides a good general overview of the history of Muslim rule in Andalus for the period from 711 to 1492.

Final Note:

The introduction is ignoring the central role Islam played in developing Andalusia. This is not a question of whether the Blacks of North Africa or the Arabs of the Middle East created Andalusia but this is a story of how Islam entered into the hearts of people, liberating their minds which propelled them to heights they had never imagined.

If the achievements in Andalusia were due to the tribes of North Africa, then these achievements would have been localized to Andalusia only but this is not the case. The same achievements stretched from India in the East to Morocco & Spain in the West and only one civilization inhabited this vast area and that was the Islamic Civilization.

Many modern day scholars (at least from my limited reading) ignore the role Islam played in shaping the minds of the peopling in the region dominated by Islam and this is an unfortunate fact.

Readers should be aware that this is a merely reprint of a book published in the last century. The date on the book is the date of the reprinting. It hardly represents the latest scholarship! If you really want to learn something about the moors, I suggest looking elsewhere.

This book was written by a Brit, Stanley Lane-Poole in the 1880's and has been published in many editions since then. Unfortunately it seems to have been adopted as required reading in many "Black Studies" departments in recent years mostly on the mistaken belief that the Moors of Spain were black Africans who are normally associated with the tribes in the sub-Sahara rather than the North African tribes which are a mixture of Berbers, Arabs, Semites, and numerous other categories.
The book is really a mishmash of fantasy and fact that is so intertwined that it is impossible to know which is which unless you have read some more serious scholarship on the history of Iberia from the invasion of the peninsula in the 8th century until the Moors and Jews were banished from Spain by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1492.
The introduction by John Jackson of this edition is really beyond dumb. It shows a complete lack of understanding of what nonsense the original book was, and compounds them with even bigger heaps of poor scholarship.
The history of the Moors in Spain was very complex, and the blending of the various Mohammedan dynasties and their very different approaches to their rule of the "infidels" of Iberia's vastly complex tribal subdivisions in this book makes it pretty close to worthless as history.
If you are looking for a book on this fascinating region that does a much better job than this one, you could do worse than start with Reilly's The Medieval Spains (Cambridge Medieval Textbooks).

This is not at all a critical overview of the Muslim influence in Spain. However, much of the work that has been done on the Moors in Spain in the twentieth century has been more or less a re-writing of al-Maqqari's history in absolutely deathless prose.

Stanley Lane-Poole was descended from Edward Lane, author of the famous Lane's Lexicon, which is an invaluable source for students of Medieval Islam. And Lane-Poole worked on the lexicon (which is still unfinished) for some years. However, he was more inclined to popular history than philology.

_The Moors in Spain_ is not necessarily accurate, but it is a wonderfully written book, full of the romance and adventure that made the historical supplements of Victorian magazines like Harper's monthly such a treat. It's full of Asiatic bombast and dramatic vignettes. If you're offended by all historical authors preceding the advent of the Post-Modernist era, then you will hate this book. However, if you are a fan of 19th century history and travelogues, then you will probably enjoy the book.