User:Ahmedbabaesudan/sandbox

The term Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations, used principally in reference to the Berber people but also came to be used for converted Muslims of Iberian descent, and also for other Africans besides Berbers as well as Arabs and Persians who made up the populations of Islamic Spain. However, after the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, the term up to the 19th century was widely understood or accepted as reference to any dark skin person of African descent, including Christians. From their base in northern Africa, they came to conquer, occupy and rule territories in the Iberian Peninsula for varying periods in different regions, ranging from two decades in the north-west to nearly eight hundred years in the south-east. At that time they were Muslims, although earlier these people had followed religions other than Islam. They called the territory they controlled in Iberia Al Andalus, which at its peak comprised most of what is now Spain and Portugal. For a shorter period called Islamic Sicily, they controlled all of Sicily and Malta, as well as other smaller parts of southern Italy.

Although the encyclopedia Britannica in 1911 claimed "The term 'Moors' has no real ethnological value." , the term from the Greek and Roman era to the the 19th century has been commonly accepted as reference to dark skinned Africans.