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I just got done watching a special about the dark ages and in the reenactments they show the moors that invaded Spain and Italy as looking Mediterranean or Arab. I've always been under the belief that the moors started out more black than Arab looking from the paintings and other art work I've seen.
Yes, I have seen the photo Abd el Tarik, the man that disembarked in Gib al Tarik or Gibraltar. He was very similar to Sanford, from Sanford and son. When he landed, he said "ijktla mwnlik aljjak" (Elizabet, I'm coming to you).
I just got done watching a special about the dark ages and in the reenactments they show the moors that invaded Spain and Italy as looking Mediterranean or Arab.
Part of the arabs were blonde, blue eyes, mainly in the omeya dinasty, like the first omeya caliph, Abderrahmán al Nasir.
Tempranillo
Most of the Emirs, Caliphs, etc, of "muslim Spain" were either Arabs (Syria, Yemen, Arabia and Irak) or Visigoth turncoats. But we can't call Visigoth "turncoats" because they were Arrians (even after the conversion of Recared). I believe that Arrians were close to Islam (I'm not an expert).
Al Andalus, or muslim Spain, had the same ethnic composition that today except that you had Dimnis (Jews and Christians (Mozarabs) that paid a tax, and Muladies (Christians that became muslims to enjoy advantages and not to pay the tax). Muladies were more than 90 percent of the population after Mozarabs left after the IX and Xth Century (they made Reconquest possible).
North Africans were scarce and not very different to the Spanish population back then, and entirely diferent to modern Moroccan population, that received and mixed with black slaves in the XVIIth Century.
In fact, an observation for racists, Al Andalus was more Germanic back then than today. All mercenaries (called "slavs and franks" by Arab sources), that fought in the wars between Arabs and North Africans and in fraticidal wars among Muslims were North Europeans or Northen Spanish. For example, there were more than 100.000 Catalans and French captured by Almanzor or Almansur (from a family from Yemen) that were called Franks by Arab sources and which were mostly Goths and Franks in origin, that preferred to stay and work as mercenaries than return to their land after paying ransom. In fact, their families did not have money to pay for ramsom since at that time at the Marca Hispanica (current day Catalonia and by then part of the Carlomagne or Frankish empire, there was no coinage, people used Roman coins, bear hams or mortgaged their sword, and Muslims wanted gold and silver coinage that was non-existent.
So the former "kidnapped Franks" not only paid ransom, but many returned bringing silver coinage. In fact, minting came back to current day Catalonia and Aragon thanks to them.
As to the common language at Al Andalus was a romanesque language very similar to the language spoken in Christian Spain. (Jarchas).
Last edited by Pizarro; 11-23-2012 at 05:17 AM..
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