50 Fun Facts About The Moors

Which rocky headland at the mouth of the Mediterranean is named after the Moorish general Tariq ibn Ziyad?

Gibraltar is a worn-down form of Jabal Tariq, Arabic for 'mountain of Tariq'. He landed at its foot in 711 to begin the Muslim conquest of Spain.

Which Shakespeare tragedy about a general's jealousy over his wife Desdemona is subtitled 'The Moor of Venice'?

Othello was written around 1603. Its hero is a Moorish commander serving the Venetian republic, and his own ensign Iago tricks him into doubting his wife.

Which hilltop palace-fortress of Granada's Moorish sultans is named for the reddish colour of its rammed-earth walls?

The Alhambra means 'the red one' in Arabic, short for 'the red fortress'. It was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984.

Which explorer waited in the royal camp as the Moors surrendered Granada, then won backing for a voyage west?

Christopher Columbus waited at King Ferdinand's camp until Granada fell in January 1492. With the long war won, Ferdinand and Isabella agreed to sponsor his journey.

Which 11th-century Spanish knight fought for both Christian kings and Moorish Zaragoza before capturing Valencia?

El Cid comes from the Arabic as-Sayyid, 'the Lord', an honour paid to Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar. He ruled Valencia from 1094 until his death in 1099.

Which Mediterranean island's flag shows a single black Moor's head, wearing a white bandana, on a plain white field?

Corsica adopted the flag under Pasquale Paoli in 1755. He had the bandana moved from over the eyes to the brow, as a sign of the island's liberation from Genoa.

A famous fountain in the Moorish sultans' palace at Granada is ringed by twelve marble statues of which animal?

Lions, twelve in all, ring a marble basin whose rim is carved with a twelve-verse poem by the vizier Ibn Zamrak.

The Spanish word ojalá, meaning 'I hope', is a Moorish-era borrowing of an Arabic phrase with what meaning?

If God wills, law sha'a Allah in Arabic, was worn down into a single Spanish word. Spanish also kept the idea in translation, in the phrase si Dios quiere.

Which English folk tradition, performed with sticks or handkerchiefs, has a name apparently derived from 'Moorish'?

Morris dancing was first recorded in the mid-15th century as 'Morisk dance'. Why it was called Moorish is unclear; the label may only have meant exotic costumes.

In which Asian country did Spanish colonisers call the local Muslims 'Moros', after the Moors they knew from home?

The Philippines has a Muslim minority centred on Mindanao that has since claimed the label. Many now call themselves the Bangsamoro, the 'Moro nation'.

Which Frankish mayor of the palace defeated a Moorish army from Spain at the Battle of Tours in 732?

Charles Martel, whose byname means 'the Hammer', beat an army whose commander, the governor Abd al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi, died in the fighting. The invaders withdrew south over the Pyrenees.

What Spanish name is given to the centuries of Christian campaigns that drove the Moors from Iberia, ending in 1492?

The Reconquista is traditionally dated from the Battle of Covadonga, around 722. The label is far younger than the wars: it first appeared in this sense in the 19th century.

Which last Moorish sultan of Granada is said to have sighed as he looked back on the city he had surrendered?

Boabdil is the European form of his Arabic name, Abu Abdallah. The spot where the story is set is still known as the Suspiro del Moro, the Moor's sigh.

By what Arabic name did the Moors know the parts of Spain and Portugal that they ruled from 711 to 1492?

Al-Andalus at its height covered nearly all of Spain and Portugal and reached into southern France. By the end it had shrunk to a single emirate in the far south.

Which arch shape, narrower at its foot than its middle, marks Moorish buildings such as Córdoba's Great Mosque?

Horseshoe arches carry a second tier of round arches in the mosque's prayer hall, striped in red brick and white stone. The shape is also called the keyhole arch.

The Giralda, a minaret built by the Moors and later topped with a belfry, towers over which Spanish city?

Seville's great tower has ramps instead of stairs, 35 of them, built wide enough for beasts of burden to climb.

Which product did Moorish Xàtiva pioneer in Western Europe, using a technology that the Arabs brought to the town?

Paper-making was firmly established at Xàtiva by 1150. A later Christian king, Peter III, decreed a royal water-powered mill for the town.

Which crop, later planted across the Caribbean, did the Moors introduce to Spain along with rice, cotton and oranges?

Sugar cane arrived in Spain alongside lemons, apricots, spinach and saffron. The irrigated farms around Moorish cities were by far the most advanced in Europe.

Which Frankish king's invasion of Moorish Spain in 778 ended in the Pyrenees ambush retold in the Song of Roland?

Charlemagne's rear guard was in fact ambushed by Basques, in revenge for the wrecked walls of Pamplona. The poem, written three centuries later, turned the attackers into Muslims.

Which pope, a former Archbishop of Munich and Freising, carried a crowned Moor's head on his papal coat of arms?

Benedict XVI took the Moor's head from the ancient emblem of the Diocese of Freising. How it first came to be there is not entirely known.

Tariq ibn Ziyad's Moorish army of 711 was made up mostly of recent converts from which North African people?

Berbers formed the bulk of the invasion force, and many modern scholars hold that Tariq himself was one, a client of the Arab governor Musa ibn Nusayr.

Which Germanic people, who had sacked Rome in 410, ruled Spain until the Moors destroyed their kingdom in 711?

The Visigoths lost their king and many of their leading men in one battle beside the Guadalete, which opened the road to their capital.

Which Córdoba-born philosopher did medieval Christian scholars call simply 'the Commentator' for his work on Aristotle?

Averroes is the Latin form of Ibn Rushd. Besides writing more than 100 books, he served as a judge in his home city and as a court physician.

Which Jewish philosopher, whose family left Moorish Córdoba rather than convert, became physician to Saladin?

Maimonides was a boy when the Almohads took Córdoba in 1148 and his family went into exile. He settled in Egypt, and his Guide for the Perplexed went on to influence Christian scholastic philosophers.

Al-Zahrawi, the Moorish physician known in Latin as Abulcasis, kept which subject for the last of his thirty volumes?

Surgery came last because he held it to be the highest form of medicine, to be practised only after mastering the rest. He pioneered catgut for internal stitches.

Ziryab, the star musician of Moorish Córdoba's court, is said to have added a fifth pair of strings to which instrument?

The oud also got a new pick from him, an eagle's beak or quill in place of wood. He insisted that meals come in three courses too: soup, a main dish, then dessert.

Which American author moved into Granada's Moorish palace and published its legends in 1832?

Washington Irving was let into the palace because of his fame. A 17-year-old guide named Mateo Ximenes helped him gather the old stories.

Which Indian-born novelist titled a 1995 novel 'The Moor's Last Sigh' after a legend of Granada's fall?

Salman Rushdie set the novel in Bombay and Cochin, far from Spain. Its narrator, Moraes Zogoiby, is called 'Moor' throughout the book.

Which apostle is called 'Matamoros' after the legend that he rode a white horse against the Moors at Clavijo?

Saint James is Santiago in Spanish, and Matamoros means 'the Moor-slayer'. The battle is as legendary as the apparition, though it borrows from a real fight at Monte Laturce in 859.

Which city did the Moors capture in 831 after a year-long siege and make the capital of Muslim Sicily?

Palermo was renamed al-Madinah, simply 'the City', and became the base for conquering the rest of the island.

What name was given to Spain's former Muslims and their descendants after they were forced to become Christians?

Moriscos, a word that simply means 'Moorish', often kept practising Islam in secret while professing Christianity in public.

Which Spanish king decreed in 1609 that the converted descendants of the Moors must leave Spain for good?

Philip III issued the decree on April 9, 1609. Early estimates put the number expelled at 275,000 to 300,000 people, about 4% of Spain's population.

Which dynasty, overthrown in Damascus in 750, was revived in Moorish Spain by the fugitive prince Abd al-Rahman I?

The Umayyads were hunted by the Abbasids, but Abd al-Rahman, then twenty, got away and made for Spain. His house ruled from Córdoba from 756 to 1031.

Which Moroccan city, founded around 1070, was capital to both the Almoravids and Almohads who ruled Moorish Spain?

Marrakesh gave Morocco its name. When the Almohads conquered the city in 1147 they made it their own capital and built the Kutubiyya Mosque.

Which city, taken from the Moors by Alfonso VI in 1085, became famous for translating Arabic learning into Latin?

Toledo's translators worked through the 12th and 13th centuries, turning Islamic philosophy and science into Latin that scholars across Europe could read.

Pelayo's victory over the Moors at Covadonga, around 722, is traditionally credited to which northern Spanish kingdom?

Asturias counts the battle as its founding event and Pelayo as its first monarch. He had set up his headquarters at Cangas de Onís and stirred up a revolt.

For most of its existence, Granada's Moorish emirate paid tribute to which neighbouring Christian kingdom?

Castile took the tribute and sometimes soldiers as well: Granada sent military help against its overlord's enemies, including Aragon in 1359.

Which southern region of Portugal keeps a Moorish name that comes from the Arabic for 'the west'?

The Algarve was the western end of the Moors' Iberian lands, hence the name. Its city of Faro is named after a local Muslim chieftain.

Which West African country still uses the terms 'white Moors' and 'black Moors' for its Beidane and Haratin peoples?

Mauritania borrows its name from the ancient land of the Mauri, though Roman-era Mauretania lay further north, in what is now Morocco and Algeria.

Who founded the Moorish Science Temple of America in Newark in 1913, teaching that all African Americans are Moors?

Noble Drew Ali's male followers wear a fez or a turban, and members add Bey or El to their surnames.

Aaron the Moor, secret lover of the captive queen Tamora, is the villain of which Shakespeare tragedy set in Rome?

Titus Andronicus has Aaron trick the title character into cutting off his own hand. Shakespeare probably took the scene from a popular tale about a Moor's vengeance.

Which Duke of Milan, an employer of Leonardo da Vinci, was nicknamed 'il Moro', the Moor, for his dark looks?

Ludovico Sforza had dark eyes, dark hair and a dark complexion from an early age. He used Leonardo almost more as an engineer than as an artist, building aqueducts to water dry land.

Which word, like 'Moor' a medieval European term for Muslims, became especially widespread during the Crusades?

Saracen at first meant someone living in or near Roman Arabia. In time European Christians used it for anyone and anything from the Muslim world, Arab or not.

Which glazed tiles, a Moorish legacy in Spain and Portugal, are named from an Arabic word meaning 'polished stone'?

Azulejos began in the 13th century as panels of cut-tile mosaic. The first idea was to imitate the mosaics of the Romans and Byzantines.

Spain's Guadalquivir, which flows through Córdoba, keeps a Moorish name built from Arabic words that mean what?

The great river is al-wadi al-kabir in Arabic. The same wadi begins Guadalajara, a name that means the river or canyon of stones.

When the Moorish warlord Almanzor sacked Galicia's great pilgrim shrine in 997, what loot did he take home to Córdoba?

The cathedral bells were reportedly turned into lamps for Córdoba's Great Mosque. The Christian king who took the city in 1236 is said to have sent them home to Galicia.

Which Moorish palace-city, begun by Abd al-Rahman III outside Córdoba in 936, is now a UNESCO-listed ruin?

Medina Azahara had a short life: it was sacked in a civil war between 1010 and 1013 and then abandoned. UNESCO listed the ruins in 2018.

Which 1212 battle, won by three allied Christian kings over the Almohad caliph, was a turning point for Moorish Spain?

Las Navas de Tolosa was reached, by tradition, with the help of a local shepherd, Martín Alhaja, who led the Christian army through a mountain pass that guarded the Almohad camp.

What name is given to the small rival Moorish kingdoms that emerged when Córdoba's caliphate collapsed in 1031?

Taifas comes from an Arabic word for a party or faction. The Almoravids swallowed them in the late 11th century, and many reappeared when that empire fell.

Which king of Spain was killed fighting Tariq ibn Ziyad's Moorish army at the Battle of Guadalete in 711?

Roderic is said to have been in the north fighting the Basques when the invaders landed. The Mozarabic Chronicle of 754 blames his defeat on rivals in his own army, who fled the field.