Question about the Moors who ruled Iberia.

Originally posted by viola76 dragonza berbers are a different coloured group of tribes, you can look them up. if you prove to me i said otherwise on this thread fair play to you, if not, stop lying about what i said.

Edited by pinguin - 20-Jan-2008 at 05:39

Originally posted by gcle However, if there were some blacks with the invading army in the 8th century, either slaves or freed after conversion, they would be much more likely to have originated from slaves taken in the East African slave trade, which began much earlier.

It is highly probably there were a few 'black' soliders in the invading armies, and in the latter rule. The slave trade from both west and east Africa to the Maghrib and the middle east is long established by that period.
There are many notable 'Black' (ex)slaves in the early muslim period (eg Bilal)

'Blackamoor' specifically meant a sub-Saharan African, but Shakespeare notably does not call Othello a 'blackamoor' but only a 'Moor'.

Shakespere uses both black moor and Tawney moor. London also received ambassadors from Morocco during his adulthood. So he must have been aware of the differences in skin colour.

Edited by gcle2003 - 20-Jan-2008 at 11:32

Viola please give it up, in addressing me within the context of the Lagos-Oslo research it is obvious you do not understand the material. When one speaks of archaic lineages, you are addressing  sub-Saharan Africa, but none of it speaks of skin-color! Besides, the emphasis on 16175, in L1b lineages, when speaking of North Africa is employed in terms of archaic composites not reflected in present day populations within a sub-Saharan context!

Moroccians Algerians: Libians

Yes, let us look at a generalization such as "the Moors who ruled Iberia" and apply the close lens of history.

Edited by drgonzaga - 20-Jan-2008 at 17:25

Originally posted by gcle I don't think that's true in West Africa for 710 or the eighth century as a whole, though it was in the east, which is what I said.   I've been searching around for any indications of early trade between the Arab world and the West African populations (south of the Sahara), and I don't find anything in the first millenium.

Unfortunately I no longer have the book, but it spent a chapter on (west) sudanese-maghrib trade before the rise of the kingdom of Ghana.
I have found a wiki quote for you though:

The domestication of the camel allowed the development of a cross-Saharan trade with cultures across the Sahara, including Carthage and the Berbers; major exports included gold, cotton cloth, metal ornaments and leather goods, which were then exchanged for salt, horses, and textiles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Africa

The west sudanese have had trade routes with the north long before islamic times. Trade with the maghrib was a major income source for Ghana (8th - 11 centuries)

Originally posted by drgonzaga and there was scant Sub-Saharan contact in the Niger valley in terms of Islam. Such does not take place until centuries later while under the Almoravid, incursions into Black Africa came within the context of conquest.

The sentence neatly ignores the fact that when the Almoravids invaded Ghana, it was already ruled by muslims with a substantial number of muslim subjects. See above, trade with the Maghrib was very important to Ghana, and Islam came on these routes long before the almoravids.

But let no-one think that I am in anyway defending the idea that moors are sudanese. I'm just pruning your arguments.
 

Edited by Omar al Hashim - 21-Jan-2008 at 07:33

Omar, I believe you are confusing the history of Mali and Songhay for the Wagadou of the Ghana. Placing aside the questionable geneaology of the Mandinka Keita dynasty as descendants of Bilal, Arab sources leave no doubt that the Ghana was not Muslim even at the time (1062-1076) of the Almoravid destruction of Kumbi Saleh by Abu Bakr in 1076. Yes, the trans-Sahara trade can be supposed, if not firmly documented, to at least the 5th century since the camel in North Africa predates Islam, and the archaeology of Djenne-jeno implies contact between the Mediterranean and the Sahel. Not to puff our locals here in Houston, but there is a sound essay on the topic on-line.

Originally posted by drgonzaga Omar, I believe you are confusing the history of Mali and Songhay for the Wagadou of the Ghana.

No I'm not. Mali was muslim from the beginning, it rose at the expense of the declining Ghana.

Placing aside the questionable geneaology of the Mandinka Keita dynasty as descendants of Bilal,

Irrelevent and clearly wrong.

Arab sources leave no doubt that the Ghana was not Muslim even at the time (1062-1076) of the Almoravid destruction of Kumbi Saleh by Abu Bakr in 1076

Ghana was not majority muslim certainly. Mali had substantial non-muslim populations too. Islam was in Ghana, it was slowly spreading south. Some tribes were converting, others weren't.

Yes, the trans-Sahara trade can be supposed, if not firmly documented, to at least the 5th century since the camel in North Africa predates Islam, and the archaeology of Djenne-jeno implies contact between the Mediterranean and the Sahel.

Thank you, that is the bulk of my point. (If I wanted to be really picky I'd mention that before the trade routes switched to camels they were on horse back, although the drying of the sahara was making the horse based trade virtually impossible by 5th century)

Consequently, one can not suppose the Islamicization of the Sahel prior to the 11th century. Al-Bakri, writing in that century, leaves no doubt as to that fact and the research done at Djenne-jeno confirms this time line.

IIRC, Djenne was not a muslim city, so it is not surprising that you can't find evidence of muslims there.

Be that as it may, such contact between the Berbers and the Sahel does not support the notion of Black Berber tribes.

Certainly true. Although one wonders exactly what 'black' means. I mean, the Tuareg can be pretty dark.

It is for the reasons set forth above that in terms of the 8th through 11th centuries I dismiss contact in terms of Islam and acculturation, and your supposition of a peaceful Islamic absorption in the Sahel prior to the completion of the process with the Berbers themselves. Principally, the argument here maintained is also an assault on the glib interpretation of an overwhelming Islam sweeping all before it in North Africa between the years 639 and 788. Interestingly enough it also carries another corollary, it was the advent of jihād in the Sahel that introduced the slave trade into the older commercial contacts of the Trans-Sahara consequent to the full conversion of the Berber peoples. It is only then that you note a Black component to the Muslim presence in Iberia as reflected in Spanish art of the 12th and 13th centuries.

Completely unsubstatiated speculation. I never suggested that the sudanese started converting before the Berbers did. All I said was that the sudanese started converting before the almoravids attacked. The slave trade in the western sudan has nothing to do with the almoravid invasion, the major loot they were after was gold and salt - prompting the Ghanians to abandon & hide their mines so the northerns couldn't find them.

Originally posted by gcle Yes, there had been sporadic contacts before then, but no migration of peoples northward and, as far as I can find out, no slave trade.

Certainly.
The wiki quote you provided also mentions that the trade routes were established several centuries before the Arabs, which was the point I was trying to make.

Edited by Omar al Hashim - 21-Jan-2008 at 23:20