miscellaneous 14370720

In the Spirit of the Gracious and Compassionate
Creator of the Heavens and the Earth

I am a Moor. I was born in Brooklyn to African American parents and raised as a Christian. My ancestors (like many African American ancestors) came from Muslim nations in West Africa. They were literate in Arabic as well as in their own languages (such as Fula, Wolof, and Mandinka). Many of their ancestors were part of the Muraabitoon (“Almoravides”) who expanded north, established the city of Marrakesh (after which Morocco is named), and crossed into Spain to help their fellow Moorish Muslims fight against the Christian monarchs. Spain had been conquered by Moors (Black African Muslims) in 711. The word “Moor” is a European term which means a dark-skinned person. In European usage, it came to refer to Black African Muslims. After centuries of intermarriage, the Moors of Spain became light-skinned relative to their ancestors. After they were expelled from Spain and returned to Africa, this lighter-skinned population came to be known as “Moors” in Africa.

As for the slave-trade, the Europeans created an arms race in which firearms could be obtained only in exchange for people. Any nation that did not obtain firearms faced enslavement at the hands of their neighbors. Fulani people were being captured and sold by Mandinka people, and vice versa. People were not selling their own people. (When Germans killed French, we do not say they were killing their own people.) No one (south of the Senegal River) was being sold by the so-called “Moors”.

As for Muslims, West African peoples embraced Islam without ever being conquered by the so-called “Moors” or by Arabs. It would be more accurate to say that African Americans are Christians and have European Christian names as a result of their ancestors being enslaved by Christian Europeans. Such was not the case in West Africa, where the people embraced Islam freely of their own accord.

When the Christian monarchs reconquered Spain, they made bathing illegal — because it was considered a Muslim custom. Of course, Europeans knew how to bathe. Why would it be necessary to make it illegal? The unfortunate historical fact is that Europeans did not bathe. This is standard European history — not “Afro-Centric” or Black Nationalist or “Nation of Islam”. I studied European history at Harvard University and — to my absolute shock and amazement — this is what was taught. In the Middle Ages, Europe was dirty and disease-ridden, and it stank.

20 Rajab 1437
April 28, 2016