Conquistadors, average soldiers, Moors

[AZB]

PIB, this article is printed on the internet, not a chapter written for bible. Give the guy some slack for mis-using a word. You people are so quick to jump on something that you don't agree with; just becuase it was not written by your favorite writer it must have been written by some nut.
Instead of picking out small details why not try to do a research into this claim instead of acting like a smartass? You might find out that you probably don't know all that you think you know. hey, this just might be some original knowledge that you might be able to throw at your friends on the next gathering, instead of boring them with your lame feminist BS that we are all tired of hearing.

 

[AnnaC]

When in doubt attack the poster. Very affective.

 

[carlos]

I just finished reading the article and have to say that it is really what you want to believe.

religion is very touchy and causes division even among brothers..

 

[Criss Colon]

That explains EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I met this "Indian",I mean American Indian,I mean "Native American",I mean "Idigenous North American Person!!! Yea,THATS IT!!

Anyway!

I met a guy,whos name was "Akbar Ahmed Running Wolf Tikriti Great Buffalo Hunter"!!

He must be a direct descendent from those Arabs who were in South Dakota in 300 AD!

Cris"He Who Uses Forked Tongue,and Is Popular With Squaws!" Colon

 

[Chris]

So let me get it straight: in order for me to convince you I would have to bring you the ancient maps.

No AZB, just bring us a credible source to the ancient maps. Not the maps themselves - I'd really like to look further into this as I know very little.

let me ask you this: did the jews ever show you the soap bars the nazi made from human fat or did you ever see the gas generators which jews claim have killed 6 million jews to affirm your beliefs in the holocaust atrocities?
No, you just took their word for it because there is a new holocaust movie out every summer and you see many holocaust survivors crying on TV.

Not everyone's knowledge here is based on CNN. Before CNN 'created' the Gulf War, in the first 10 years of my professional career, I was a practising psychologist in South Africa. (Before I 'met' computers and decided they were much less destructive than people). During this period, I worked at a Jewish facility for the aged. Let me tell you what is real - the memories and the tattood numbers and the ration cards that some of these folks still carried in their luggage. The fear when they saw anyone, but anyone! in uniform. The dreams, these things are pretty real and they did not come from CNN. These old folks did not 'claim' anything, they lived during this horror.

Before you jump off the handle, we adopted a black son many years ago in South Africa. When this was highly illegal. He married a Muslim wife and converted. So, if you say anything against the Jewish people, you offend me - as I've seen this reality - and if you say anything against Muslim people, you offend me, as I have a devout son and daughter and two grandchildren of the Muslim faith, in South Africa.

Can we keep this thread clean please, so that we all could learn something? Instead of spouting retoric --- some of us are just plain tired of retoric and we are trying to learn something. I am really interested in what you can tell us of your history - please keep it clean without fingerpointing. This does not help anyone.

 

[AZB]

Instead of making smart remarks, why not do a research in to the historians which are mentioned in the article?
Is that too much to ask? Does anyone have the guts to deviate from the main stream thinking? remember, the history is written by the winners and it so happens the western countries have the biggest bombs (including the weapons of mass distructions). They make the wars, win them and rewrite the history from their advantage point. This has been going on for a long time.
Arab history is all ereased along with the mention of their inventions and advancements in various scientific fields. now we are only known as terrorists and women beaters, killers in the name of gods for the sake of having sex with 17 virgens, etc etc. See how we have taken a turn in history from being bad to worse to a level of a dog.

 

[AnnaC]

Being Sicilian I have become interested in finding out more about the Moors. This is what I found. Click here

 

[Porfio_Rubirosa]

Arab history is all ereased along with the mention of their inventions and advancements in various scientific fields. now we are only known as terrorists and women beaters, killers in the name of gods for the sake of having sex with 17 virgens, etc etc. See how we have taken a turn in history from being bad to worse to a level of a dog.

I don't understand this paranoia that is common among Moslems. Arab accomplishments in art, literature, mathematics, architecture, etc., are well known and indisputable. Arab traders were in Madegascar and Malaysia before the Europeans had skirted around the Cape. I was taught this throughout my "slanted", "victorious" "western" education. It's just that I'm highly doubtful about West African contact with the Americas prior to Columbus based on the well-documented base of knowledge available to Spanish mariners at the time (which AZB says came from the Arabs anyway).

My fear is that Moslems don't condemn the "West" for being economically and militarily exploitative today, but rather actually ENVY the west and long for the glorious days of Arab history and military might. I don't think this obsession with past military might is healthy. I see very little focus on improving the Arab condition that is not based on hatred for the West or the Jews or both.

 

[Pib]

Give the guy some slack for mis-using a word.

What credibility does it have if he doesn't even know the difference between Arab, African and Islamic? And that is even as bad as the other choice (not knowing that the Islam did not exist before the very birth of its founder).

Instead of making smart remarks, why not do a research in to the historians which are mentioned in the article?

No, no. That is not how it works. His work should stand in his own merit. As Homer would say, "you can use facts to prove anything". He could have said that he consulted an impressive ammount of authors of indisputed reputation... it is still, er... not cutting it. His theory is flawed, even if he read every author there is to read.

Is that too much to ask? Does anyone have the guts to deviate from the main stream thinking? remember, the history is written by the winners and it so happens the western countries have the biggest bombs (including the weapons of mass distructions). [snip] Arab history is all ereased along with the mention of their inventions and advancements in various scientific fields.

I learnt in my Catholic school - the very same people that kicked the Moors (and Jews) from Spain and who fought in the crusades - about the impressive pool of knowledge that the Moors contributed to our culture. Mathematics, medicine, art, language, astronomy and others. As erasing or downplaying the loser's accomplishents go, they did a really lousy job.

now we are only known as terrorists and women beaters, killers in the name of gods for the sake of having sex with 17 virgens, etc etc. See how we have taken a turn in history from being bad to worse to a level of a dog.

And who keeps bringing this? We are talking about pre-Columbian America.

 

[Porfio_Rubirosa]

From "Muslim Spain and European Culture" (http://www.xmission.com:8000/~dderhak/index/moors.htm):


"The intellectual plunder of Toledo brought the scholars of northern Europe like moths to a candle. The Christians set up a giant translating program in Toledo ... These books included 'most of the major works of Greek science and philosophy... along with many original Arab works of scholarship.' (Digest, p. 622) ...

The subjects covered by the texts included medicine, astrology, astronomy pharmacology, psychology, physiology, zoology, biology, botany, mineralogy, optics, chemistry, physics, mathematics, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, music, meteorology, geography, mechanics, hydrostatics, NAVIGATION and history. (Burke, 1985, p. 42)."

Given the great storehouse of Arab learning found intact and exploited by the Christians, it seems highly unlikely that any such information documenting Arab contact with the Americas would have been overlooked. Yet we find no reference to it. Accordingly, West African contact with the Americas seems like just more ethnocentric dribble.

Isn't Arab history glorious enough without having to embelish it? This obsession with history rather than the present social and political conditions of the Arab world baffles me - except to recognize that it is part of the Arab political movement that gains populist strength from formenting hatred of the West. AZB, I'm afraid that you buy all of this hook, line and sinker.

 

[Pib]

Going back to the OP.

It is rather likely that there were Moors or Moorish descendants in the first trips to America. They had probably converted to Christianism. Likewise I don't doubt that there might be Jews of Spaniards of Jewish descent that participated in the early discovery and conquest of America.

All other theories about a pre-columbian discovery (other than that of the Indigenous Americans) has yet to be presented in any credible way, let alone prove it. I wouldn't be surprised if West Africans had wandered and ended up in America, but there is no proof of that and it doesn't seem there had been a regular trade since there is no trace of their influence in America. I am a scheptic, I even doubt what I believe on... bring me something credible and I'll consider it.

As Porfi said, there's no need to embellish what is a glorious history anyways.

 

[mkohn]

There is an interesting passage about Toledo, Spain, at http://www.etrav.com/pathways/html/toledo.asp
One thing it mentions is the Arab influence on the Spanish language...
[Linguistically, the language was turned upside down. Today, any word that begins with "al" in Spanish is really Arabic in origin. The popular Spanish saying "Ojala," meaning "I hope," actually is an Ode to Allah.]

mk

 

[Pib]

Ojala

Actually, the nuns told us that it means "God willing", I suppose that god was Allah. "Si dios quiere" is also common in our language, also inherited from the Moors.

http://www.alarde.com/revista/articulos/lenguaarabe/vocabulesporigenarab.html
http://www.arts-history.mx/2001/literatura/arabes/arabes1.html

 

[Keith R]

Ojala

Ojala (Spanish) = In-Sha-Allah (Arabic) = God Willing (English)

 

[Chirimoya]

As well as being pathetically ill-informed and deeply offensive both on a general and personal level, AZB's contributions are also completely off topic.

Texas Bill was asking whether the first Spaniards who came over were "pure Spanish" or whether some of the conquistadors/settlers were also of Moorish or Jewish origin. Not whether the indigenous peoples of the Americas were Muslims, or whether the Arabs came over first.

I had hoped to learn something about a topic I am interested in. Instead I had to scroll through some very ugly rantings and ravings that in my opinion should have no place on this board. I am disappointed that the moderators did not see fit to delete the post about holocaust denial.

Please can we start again?

Chiri


Edited by moderator:
Right on the top of this page, first line, I invite all (including myself I suppose) to go back on topic. We had lost the DR connection. As for the holocaust denial... I'll let the rest of the post stand. It will give new readers some background on what some people beliefs are.

WARNING: ANY other post below this that is off topic will end up in DR1 trash bin. I frequent another message board that deals with almost anything. I can either invite you there for a discussion or we can just drop it. Email me your suggestions.

 

[Pavan]

Nuns Pib?

When you say nuns told you that Ojalla was God Willing .....true.

Also I found many Urdu words (urdu is not arabic), which are very close to spanish like:

Dos in Spanish is also Do (pronounced without the 's' in Urdu)
Camisa (shirt) in Spanish is Kameez in Urdu

Now to someone who is from India and a Hindu...the word Arab strictly means a person from Saudi Arabia......people from Pakistan are Pakistanis and from Iran, Iranis and Afghanistan are Afghans or if we know the blood line ....Pathans.

In the Dominican I am called Indu....although it seems correct because I am one....it may not be correct when a muslim man arrives at Santo Domingo airport with an Indian passport..

Perceptions change with distance.....which is really alarming in todays world but none the less exists....

With this little background....the real settlers in Spain were people from the now new Arab World who were a mix of Zorastrians (Parsis) and many other mixed clans of fire and idol worshippers. The architure in Spain which is said to be influenced by Arabs is really the old Arabian style architecture. The modern Arabian architecture is seen in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan....further west it goes back to the old fashioned way. One example is the domes of mosques which in the east are wide and short whereas in the West Middle east they are narrow and tall.

So after all these years I suppose it will be very difficult to follow a blood line clearly in the Dominican....where as I have seen the biggest mixup of blood line has occured over the years.......not to mention the dark skinned blue eyed kids who say "Papi" every time they see my brother Escott!!!

One fact is that the DR was settled - or re-settled if I may correct myself - was done mainly by people from Spain who were already christians. Now Spain was the Iberian peninsula.Christianity was also spread by the sword and the sword was much used to convert the Middle Eastern influenced religions in the Iberian Peninsula too....

The migration into Spain from the east forced the already existing Europeans also into the the Iberian peninsula and there was another mix before it was converted to Christianity and further pushed into the caribbean / latin american basin.

One thing we never mention is the English blood on the Dominican soil. All those pirates.....(Robert included).....viceroys, soldiers.... so there are some genuine english names there....boy I should not even mention the French.

The biggest jewish exodus happened to the DR, mainly to Sosua during the Second world war....there is a synagogue in Sosua also many Jewish people who are now obviously Dominicans.

The "moors" is a very broad based term. Migration happened in clans, sections, races, etc etc. So if you can imagine all these people leaving from different sections in boats/ horses at the same time, they were given a general categorical term of moors, even though one clan had nothing to do with the other.

When these different clans from the same general zone got together in a small foreign zone and mixed, they were given one general name..... like I am sometimes told "eres de alla.....que se yo". pisses me off..


My two cents!

 

[Pib]

It seems the consensus amongst authors I've read, and whose work I happen to still remember, that the word Moors really meant "them brown people". The people that invaded the Iberian peninsula were a mixture of Arabs, North Africans and assorted Muslims.

It's hard to know what exactly those "Moors" that might have come with the conquistadors were.

 

[Porfio_Rubirosa]

And to think, I was taught that "moros" were rice and beans.

 

[Pib]

All credit to Chirimoya (Aunt Ilana) for the paragraph below

The story behind the name ?moro?, meaning a dish of rice combined with beans, is that the full name was originally ?moros y cristianos? ? Moors and Christians: an un-PC reference to the white rice and the darker coloured beans, evoking the racial differences between the Moorish invaders of Spain and the Christians who drove them out.

 

[bob saunders]

Does it matter

my wife is a Mieses on one side and European Mieses are Jewish, mostly from Germany and Spain. The physical appearance of many Dominicans is (to me) simular to Semetic/arabic people; dark skin, thin noses,high cheekbones. One thing I've noticed is there are many very short people(under 5' 2'') Where does that characteric come from? What ever Texas Bill's original question asked it is obvious that the majority are now a blend of black and white, and it doesn't really matter where their ancesters came from.