The forgotten empire of the Moors
(In English)
Much has been said and written, about the Moors (Al Baladiyyun!) To the Spanish and
Christendom, they were seen as infidels. To their liberators and Islam, they were seen as
heroes. To the Christian, they were another tribe of heretics, who had no true religion. To
the Muslim, they were great ambassadors of a far away religion that came from the
Arabian peninsula, called Arabia! And followers of a distant prophet whose message was
the Qura'an and whose name was Muh'ammad! Full of a passionate zeal for this new
religion Islam, that swept into Northern Africa, the Moors would in the end for nearly
1000 years, come to rule from the Duero River of Northern Spain, to the edge of the
Niger River in Mali. From what was in the beginning a creation, by a band of humble
and devoted men, would in the end be recognized in Islamic history, as one of it's
greatest civilizations ever, Al Andalus! Everywhere they went, they would leave their
vestige behind in the form of the zajal, literature, mathematics, science, and as well in
their language. In Spain and Portugal itself they left behind, 4,000 words of Arabic and
Berber origen. The greatest secrets of the Moors laid within the art of the Arabic numerals,
which they introduced to the European.
The areas of anaesthetics, algebra, astrology and astronomy, that Europe would soon
embrace as it set off for it's conquest of the New World. Their architecture wonders would
be compared, to the likes of the Romans and Greeks. To the Christian Europeans abroad
who came to Spain and Northern Africa, they would marvel at the spectacular mosques,
citadels and madrasas, that the Moors had built. All of this created, by a group of Saharan
desert-dwelling people. Either town dwellers or simply nomads. Sadly enough many
Muslims, have long since forgotten the past of the Moors. The prestige of Al Andalus, to the
present day countries of Northern Africa. A Moorish scholar once said in a zajal he wrote,
"O where the winds of the desert blow, so shall the tide of the winds of Islam ride. And the
words of Laa ilaaha illilaah, wa Muh'ammadanar rasulilaah!"
Allah is great and Al Andalus is great always forever!
Allahu ekbar wel Andalus el ekbar edaima fel khair!
