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Post by Brandon S. Pilcher on Oct 6, 2024 20:11:50 GMT -5
I suspect early Islamic armies were fairly diverse in their makeup. We know that a lot of non-Arab ethnic groups would adopt Arabic language and culture with the spread of Islam, and while some of those groups would have been very dark-skinned, surely many of them had to have been olive- or bronze-skinned people from elsewhere in the Middle East. So whatever the original Saracens or Moors looked like, the soldiers in their armies must have varied in skin tone if we assume they were recruited from all the ethnic groups under the early Caliphate.
That being said, I absolutely do imagine the Mauri, or the original Moors, to have been Black North African people. The term had to have become the Greek word for "black" for some reason.
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Post by djehuti on Oct 6, 2024 20:49:37 GMT -5
^ The strange and funny thing is that these invasions into North Africa and Mediterranean Europe from West Asia were not called 'Islamic' in the historical annals of that time. All the contemporary texts mention nothing about Islam or Muslims. Stranger still is that the ethnic identity of the invaders was not even Arab but Saracen and these people were consistently described as tall and very dark or 'black' in complexion. This is in contrast to later actual Islamic sources which describe the progenitors of Islam as Arab and that these Arabs themselves including the alleged 'prophet' as being fair-skinned or 'white'. There has been quite a number of scholarly works written about this rather odd historical dilemma only recently. It's as if there is a huge historical conspiracy that was at work. Black Saracen invaders whose religion is described as monotheistic but no mention of Islam or Muslims vs. later Arabs who claim Islam as their religion and identify themselves as Muslims. I've actually discussed this topic with Dana on several occasions. She even told me that European and North African records even indicate that the Saracens would hold a banner depicting their prophet's head-- a black man wearing a fillet head band. This is in stark contrast to Islamic practice of not using images at all let alone those of Muhammad.
The only scholars I know of who've made sense of this is Dr. Jay Smith a Christian academic and evangelist, Irish researcher Mel a.k.a. 'Sneaker's Corner' in Youtube, and Jo a.k.a. Be Abidan or Red Judaism and Wikinoah. The consensus is that the Saracens represent one branch of a Judeo-Christian religion (a Western one) while Arabs represent an eastern branch which later became Islam and became the dominant form that took over.
The Greeks by the way also have a tradition of 'melanchroi Sarakenoi'
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Post by archaeologist on Oct 7, 2024 0:49:20 GMT -5
About St Maurice, in Basil Davidsons book Africa - History of a continent the author suggests that St Maurice also came to represent the Nubian kingdoms that fought against the Muslims in Sudan in Medieval times. He also writes that St Maurice in Magdeburg, Germany, before 1240 was depicted as an European man. But after the sixth crusade, where the German-Roman emperor Fredrik II participated, a new statue with a black St Maurice was erected.
Here is a lecture with Maryan Ainsworth, Curator, Department of European Paintings, at the Metropolitan museum about some depictions of Africans in European medieval and later art, including St Maurice. He also says that the statue in Magdeburg is the first depiction of St Maurice as a Black African.
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Post by djehuti on Oct 7, 2024 12:41:00 GMT -5
^ Not surprisingly, St. Maurice became conflated to many African Christian warriors in the eyes of many Europeans, as there were others in African Christendom who served that role. Also not surprising is that St. Maurice also became white-washed in his portrayals and depictions which is understandable since many Christian heroes and heroines including those of Bible were depicted by Europeans in their own image.
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Post by archaeologist on Oct 7, 2024 13:00:49 GMT -5
Here is what one can read about Moors in a reprint of an article by David Assouline in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World in the Oxford Islamic Studies Online. 'Moors' from Oxford Islamic Studies OnlineIn many European narratives Moors are seen as hostile, untrustworthy and cruel. One can see examples of this in for example book covers. Here is a cover from a 1952 Swedish translation of Mungo Parks travelogue Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa, from the early 1800s. The books Swedish name is I morernas händer (In he hands of the Moors). The cover plays on prejudices that still exist against muslims from North Africa and the Middle East.
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Post by djehuti on Oct 8, 2024 0:52:26 GMT -5
^ The topic of Moors has been beaten to death in Egyptsearch in so many threads which takes a good portion of that forum's data space. LOL But to be simplistic about it, 'Moor' as it's applied in Africa, is just the generic name for Berber tribes of the Western Sahara as opposed to those of the Central Sahara who are called 'Tuareg' and those of the Eastern Sahara called 'Desert Libyans'. The two main historical dynasties of Moorish descent that colonized Europe were the Almoravid Dynasty and Almohad Dynasty. al-Murabitun Empire (1050s–1147)al-Muwaḥḥidun Empire (1121–1269)Sahrawi elderThe Sahrawi tribe is heavily mixed with Arabs and it shows in their language. Another interesting historical fact is that in the late 18th Century the western Mediterranean especially Spain and Portugal were plagued by Moorish pirates called 'Barbary Pirates' the same way non-Muslims were victims of piracy around Aden and the Somali coasts. In fact not long after the independence of the 13 States from Great Britain, their first foreign enemy were these Moorish pirates who seized ship cargo and US citizens as hostages in exchange for ransom money (jizyah). For several decades the U.S. spent almost 10% of its budget in paying jizyah tribute to the Barbary Sultan until Thomas Jefferson had enough and sent a special unit of the Navy called the Marine Corps to aid the Europeans in the Barbary Wars which put an end to the piracy for good. This is why the Marine song has 'From the Halls of Montezuma (Mexico) to the Shores of Tripoli (Libya)'. The Marines were also nicknamed 'Leather-necks' because when they fought against the Barbary Pirates they wore extra thick, enforced, neck-guards and finger guards due to the pirates fulfilling the jihad mandate to strike infidels at their necks and fingers. Modern day Rif
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Post by archaeologist on Oct 8, 2024 4:46:47 GMT -5
There is a thread about the raids of the Barbary pirates against Iceland in 1627. One of the kidnapped was the priest Ólafur Egilsson, who managed to get back to Iceland and who wrote a book about what he seen and heard during his imprisonment and his journey back. The Barbary pirates raid on Iceland in 1627Ólafur Egilssons bookA captive pirate in the 1700s A former Algerian pirate taken prisoner and sentenced to the galleys of the French king. Engraving c1720.
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Post by archaeologist on Oct 8, 2024 5:05:41 GMT -5
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Post by djehuti on Oct 8, 2024 12:27:25 GMT -5
^ What does not get talked about much if at all is the white slave trade that during the Middle Ages was largely from Eastern Europe via the Slavs which we get the name slave from, but it wasn't just limited to them. You are correct that Ummayad and others in Northwest Africa also captured and sold thousands if not millions of slaves from the Iberian Peninsula and farther north. I remember reading that even the Sahelian kingdoms farther south and even the Guinea kingdoms in Nigeria purchased some of these white slaves which could explain the small percentage of European ancestry in that region. Of course so-called Western history only focuses on black slavery even though all the slaves taken into Africa were white Europeans!
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Post by ibis on Oct 9, 2024 18:13:50 GMT -5
About St Maurice, in Basil Davidsons book Africa - History of a continent the author suggests that St Maurice also came to represent the Nubian kingdoms that fought against the Muslims in Sudan in Medieval times. He also writes that St Maurice in Magdeburg, Germany, before 1240 was depicted as an European man. But after the sixth crusade, where the German-Roman emperor Fredrik II participated, a new statue with a black St Maurice was erected. Here is a lecture with Maryan Ainsworth, Curator, Department of European Paintings, at the Metropolitan museum about some depictions of Africans in European medieval and later art, including St Maurice. He also says that the statue in Magdeburg is the first depiction of St Maurice as a Black African. I know DJ already responded to this, but the earliest visual depiction doesn't always mean it's accurate. The earliest depiction we have of Mansa Musa depicts him as being white (which we know is impossible). We can merely look at depictions of the Egyptians by the Romans, and the fact that his name has "Maur" which means dark to support him being black.
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Post by ibis on Oct 9, 2024 18:17:33 GMT -5
^ The topic of Moors has been beaten to death in Egyptsearch in so many threads which takes a good portion of that forum's data space. What makes this thread unique is that the Moors are slowly becoming part of mainstream history (for all the wrong reasons). They've captured many people's interest as many people in the western world are fearful of Muslims taking over Europe. The idea is that by bringing up the Moors, people will adopt negative attitudes towards foreign muslim migrations.
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Post by archaeologist on Oct 9, 2024 18:35:35 GMT -5
About St Maurice: There seems not to be any contemporary portraits of him, so people have probably now and then depicted him as someone of their own ethnicity, just as many Biblical figures are depicted (for example Jesus). It is interesting to see that he is still depicted in art: Saint Maurice, Saint Mauritius Greek Orthodox icon, St Maurice of Apamea, Mauritius of Apameia, St Mavrikos, (Christian Wood Wall Art)The wooden sculpture St. Mauritius (Demi art)Saint Maurice (Catholic Arts and Gifts)
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Post by archaeologist on Oct 9, 2024 18:45:59 GMT -5
He was the patron of the Brotherhood of Blackheads in Livonia (present-day Estonia and Latvia) and still is in Hamburg in Germany: Brotherhood of BlackheadsArms of the Brotherhood with Saint Mauritius
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Post by anansi on Oct 20, 2024 8:38:10 GMT -5
Kulamika dropped this repy to Metatron, remember when I said be careful of what he said, about him being shifty.
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Post by djehuti on Oct 20, 2024 16:11:22 GMT -5
^ Hey Anansi, are you able to contact Dana and let her know that ES is down so ES R is where to go? I emailed her about a month ago and haven't gotten a response yet. She has about two emails but she could be busy. What makes this thread unique is that the Moors are slowly becoming part of mainstream history (for all the wrong reasons). They've captured many people's interest as many people in the western world are fearful of Muslims taking over Europe. The idea is that by bringing up the Moors, people will adopt negative attitudes towards foreign Muslim migrations. I agree there is propaganda about Islamic invasions of Europe today which has truth to it, but few people bother to see who is behind it and it's not the Muslims. There are oligarchs in Europe who are not only allowing such immigrations but funding it-- and it's not just Muslims but even others from Sub-Sahara. This is part of a greater agenda using weaponized migrations. Look at what's happening in the U.S. with our broken borders (both northern and southern). About St Maurice: There seems not to be any contemporary portraits of him, so people have probably now and then depicted him as someone of their own ethnicity, just as many Biblical figures are depicted (for example Jesus). It is interesting to see that he is still depicted in art: Saint Maurice, Saint Mauritius Greek Orthodox icon, St Maurice of Apamea, Mauritius of Apameia, St Mavrikos, (Christian Wood Wall Art)The wooden sculpture St. Mauritius (Demi art)Saint Maurice (Catholic Arts and Gifts)The white-wash of not just biblical figures but even post biblical Christian saints who were not European was something that was very common in later Christendom. People forget that before al-Fatiha (the alleged Islamic invasions) the majority of Christendom was located outside of Europe in North and East Africa as well as the Middle East from whence it originated. In an ES thread on the Copts, I even brought up the fact that many (though not all) of the Coptic saints like St. Maurice were black, and that the majority of the black saints in the early Church were Egyptian, Nubian, or Abyssinian. Two more examples would be St. Paul the Anchorite a.k.a. St. Paul of Thebes who was the first of the 'Desert Fathers'-- great monks who lived in the desert. Hagiographic tradition even gives him the nick-name 'Paul the Black' because as a Theban Egyptian he was already dark-skinned but by following the monastic tradition of his saint John the Baptist and going into seclusion in the desert and spending hours of praying under the sun, his skin tanned even darker. Paul's successor was St. Anthony the Great from Koma (near Meidum). In fact virtually all of the Desert Fathers in Egypt were black. There were later Desert Fathers in Asia in the Syrian Desert who were not black but the ones in Africa (including Egypt) were. Yet if you do search on images of these desert saints they are ALL white-washed. Just to show one example, below is an icon of Saint Onuphrius! St. Onuphrius was known as Onuphrius the Ethiopian because he's actually from Nubia yet he's depicted no differently from other Egyptian Desert Fathers in iconography-- totally white! LOL By the way his name Onuphrius is a Hellenized version of the Coptic name Unnufer from the Egyptian word wnn-nfr meaning the perfect one. He studied under the same monastic school in Thebes as Anthony and Paul. I was first made aware of this travesty of white-washing Coptic saints from the old ES moderator Ausar and was enlightened more on the subject by Copts I met in college. Really this subject deserves a thread of its own. Perhaps the Afrocentrics debating Metatron can add these Coptic Saints as fuel to their fires.
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