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THE EMPIRE OF THE MOORS
John G. Jackson
Compiled, with an Appendix, by Runoko Rashidi
Page 85, Section 1:
The Moors were people who lived in Morocco. That's the reason they called it that. The word Moor meant Black. It meant Black people. In ancient times all Africans were called Ethiopians or Kushites. And in Middle Ages the Africans were called Moors. The word Moor literally means Black, so the Moorish people were the Black people. In medieval times the name Moor was not restricted to the inhabitants of Morocco, but it was customary to refer to all Africans as Moors.
By Brunson and Rashidi
Page 56, Section 2: The Moorish Occupation of Spain
The occupation of Palermo was followed by the occupation of Messina in 842 and Syracuse in 878. In 937, Ibn Hawkal noted that Blacks were very common in Palermo. Regarding one of the city's main entrances, Hawkal wrote that it was called the "Bab es Soudan," or "Gate of the Blacks," so named after its ebony-hued residents. 65 Pope Leo III referred to these Blacks variously as Moors, Agareni, and Saracens.66 Islamic encroachment on the European mainland took place around 846, when "Saracens" landed at the mouth of the Tiber River and besieged Rome.
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By John G. Jackson
Page 86, Section 2:Foundations of a New Civilization
The Moors went into Spain and there laid the foundations of a new civilization. The country was immeasurably enriched by their labors. They, for instance, introduced the silk industry into Spain. In the field of agriculture they were highly skilled, and introduced rice, sugar cane, dates, ginger, cotton, lemons, and strawberries into the country.
The Spanish city of Cordova, in the tenth century, was very much like a modern city. Its streets were well paved and there were raised sidewalks for pedestrians. At night, one could walk for ten miles by the lights of lamps, flanked by an uninterrupted extent of buildings. This was hundreds of years before there was a paved street in Paris, France, or a street lamp in London, England. The population of Cordova was over a million. There were 200, 000 homes, 800 public schools, and many colleges and universities. Cordova possessed 10,000 palaces of the wealthy, besides many royal palaces, surrounded by beautiful gardens. There were even 5,000 mills in Cordova at a time when there was not even one in the rest of Europe. There were also 900 public baths, besides a large number of private ones, at a time when the rest of Europe considered bathing as extremely sinful, and to be avoided as much as possible. Cordova was also graced by a system of over 4,000 public markets.
The Great Mosque of Cordova, another grand structure, had a scarlet and gold roof, with 1,000 columns of porphyry and marble. It was lit by more than 200 silver chandeliers, containing more than 1,000 silver lamps burning perfumed oil. Education was universal in Moorish Spain, being given to the most humble, while in Christian Europe ninety-nine percent of the people were illiterate, and even kings could neither read nor write. You had Moorish women who were doctors and lawyers and professors. Jewish scholars studied under the Moors, and then went to England and set up a scientific school at what later came to be Oxford University. The Moors were a very tolerant people. The Moorish rulers lived in sumptuous palaces, while the monarchs of Germany, France, and England dwelt in big barns, with no windows and no chimneys, and with only a hole in the roof for the exit of smoke.
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Page 88, Section 1:
The Mahdi Appeared in Morocco in 1147
After the conquest of Morocco in 1147, when the last Almoravide king was
dethroned and executed, the Almohades seized the reigns of government,
and then invaded Europe. By 1150 they had defeated the Christian armies
of Spain and placed an Almohade sovereign on the throne of Moorish Spain;
and, thus, for the second time a purely African dynasty ruled over the
most civilized portion of the Iberian Peninsula. Under a great line of
Almohade kings, the splendor of
Moorish Spain was not only maintained but also enhanced; for they erected
their Castile of Gibraltar in 1160 and began the building of the great
Mosque of Seville in 1183. The Geralda of Seville was originally an astronomical
observatory constructed in 1196 under the supervision of the mathematician
Geber. The Almoravides had established a Spanish court in Seville. The
Almohades set up an African court in the city of Morocco; and Ibn said
in the thirteenth century describes Morocco as the "Baghdad of the West,"
and says that under the early Almohade rulers, the city enjoyed its greatest
prosperity.
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