Who was The Moors, The Berber, The Almohad and The Saracen ?

The Moors:

Moors are not a distinct or self-defined people,[3] and mainstream scholars observed in 1911 that "The term 'Moors' has no real ethnological value."[4] Medieval and early modern Europeans variously applied the name to Arabs, Berber North Africans and Muslim Europeans.[5] The term has also been used in Europe in a broader, somewhat derogatory sense to refer to Muslims in general,[6] especially those of Arab or Berber descent, whether living in Spain or North Africa.[7] During the colonial era, the Portuguese introduced the names "Ceylon Moors" and "Indian Moors" in Sri Lanka, and the Bengali Muslims were also called Moors.[8]



In 711, troops mostly formed by Moors from North Africa led the Umayyad conquest of Hispania. The Iberian peninsula then came to be known in classical Arabic as Al-Andalus, which at its peak included most of Septimania and modern-day Spain and Portugal.

Source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moors


The Berber:

Berbers or Amazighen (Berber: ⵉⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵏ Imaziɣen; singular: ⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖ Amaziɣ / Amazigh) are an ethnic group indigenous to North Africa. They are distributed in an area stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Siwa Oasis in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean Sea to the Niger River.

Historically, they spoke Berber languages, which together form the Berber branch of the Afro-Asiatic family. Since the Muslim conquest of North Africa in the seventh century, a large number of Berbers inhabiting the Maghreb have acquired different degrees of knowledge of varieties of the languages of North Africa. After the colonization of North Africa by France, "the French government succeeded in integrating the French language in Algeria by making French the official national language and requiring all education to take place in French."[25] Foreign languages, mainly French and to some degree Spanish, inherited from former European colonial powers, are used by most educated Berbers in Algeria and Morocco in some formal contexts, such as higher education or business.

Today, most Berber people live in North Africa, mainly in Libya, Algeria, and Morocco;[1] Small Berber populations are also found in Niger, Mali, Mauritania, Tunisia, Burkina Faso and Egypt, as well as large immigrant communities living in France, Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and other countries of Europe.[26][27]

The majority of Berbers are predominantly Sunni Muslim.[28] The Berber identity is usually wider than language and ethnicity, and encompasses the entire history and geography of North Africa. Berbers are not an entirely homogeneous ethnicity and they encompass a range of phenotypes, societies and ancestries. The unifying forces for the Berber people may be their shared language, or a collective identification with Berber heritage and history.

There are some twenty-five to thirty million Berber speakers in North Africa.[1] The number of ethnic Berbers (including non-Berber speakers) is far greater, as a large part of the Berbers have acquired other languages over the course of many decades or centuries, and no longer speak Berber today. The majority of North Africa's population is believed to be Berber in origin, although due to Arabization most ethnic Berbers identify as Arabized Berbers.[29][30]


Berbers call themselves some variant of the word i-Mazigh-en (singular: a-Mazigh), possibly meaning "free people" or "noble men".[26] The name likely had its ancient parallel in the Roman and Greek names for Berbers, Mazices.[31] Some of the best known of the ancient Berbers are the Numidian king Masinissa, king Jugurtha, the Berber-Roman author Apuleius, Saint Augustine of Hippo, and the Berber-Roman general Lusius Quietus, who was instrumental in defeating the major wave of Jewish revolts of 115–117. Dihya or Kahina was a religious and military leader who led a fierce Berber resistance against the Arab-Muslim expansion in Northwest Africa. Kusaila was a seventh-century leader of the Awraba tribe of the Berber people and King of the Sanhadja confederation. Yusuf ibn Tashfin was king of the Berber Almoravid empire; Tariq ibn Ziyad the general who conquered Hispania; Abbas Ibn Firnas, a prolific inventor and early pioneer in aviation; Ibn Battuta, a medieval explorer who traveled the longest known distances of his time.

Source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berbers


The Saracen

Saracen was a term widely used among Christian writers in Europe during the Middle Ages. The term's meaning evolved during its history. In the early centuries AD, Greek and Latin writings used this term to refer to the people who lived in desert areas in and near the Roman province of Arabia, and who were specifically distinguished as a people from others known as Arabs.[1][2] In Europe during the Early Medieval era, the term came to be associated with Arab tribes as well.[3] By the 12th century, "Saracen" had become synonymous with "Muslim" in Medieval Latin literature. Such expansion in the meaning of the term had begun centuries earlier among the Byzantine Greeks, as evidenced in documents from the 8th century.[1][4][5] In the Western languages before the 16th century, "Saracen" was commonly used to refer to Muslim Arabs, and the words "Muslim" and "Islam" were generally not used (with a few isolated exceptions).[6]

12th-century Reliquary of Saint Stanislaus in the Wawel Cathedral in Kraków is an exquisite example of Saracen art from Sicily or Palestine.
The term Saraceni might be derived from the Semitic triliteral root srq signifies "to steal, rob, plunder". The noun "sāriq - sariqīn" (Arabic: سارق - سارقين) means (thief - thieves, marauders, plunderers).[7]

Ptolemy's 2nd century work, Geography, describes Sarakēnē (Ancient Greek: Σαρακηνή) as a region in the northern Sinai Peninsula.[2] Ptolemy also mentions a people called the Sarakēnoi (Ancient Greek: οἱ Σαρακηνοί) living in the northwestern Arabian Peninsula (near neighbor to the Sinai).[2] Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical history narrates an account wherein Pope Dionysius of Alexandria mentions Saracens in a letter while describing the persecution of Christians by the Roman emperor Decius: "Many were, in the Arabian mountain, enslaved by the barbarous 'sarkenoi'."[2] The Augustan History also refers to an attack by "Saraceni" on Pescennius Niger's army in Egypt in 193, but provides little information as to identifying them.[8]

Both Hippolytus of Rome and Uranius mention three distinct peoples in Arabia during the first half of the third century: the "Saraceni", the "Taeni" and the "Arabes".[2] The "Taeni", later identified with the Arab people called "Tayy", were located around Khaybar (an oasis north of Medina) and also in an area stretching up to the Euphrates. The "Saraceni" were placed north of them.[2] These Saracens, located in the northern Hejaz, were described as people with a certain military ability who were opponents of the Roman Empire and who were classified by the Romans as barbarians.[2]

The Saracens are described as forming the "equites" (heavy cavalry) from Phoenicia and Thamud.[9] In one document the defeated enemies of Diocletian's campaign in the Syrian Desert are described as Saracens. Other 4th century military reports make no mention of Arabs but refer to as 'Saracens' groups ranging as far east as Mesopotamia that were involved in battles on both the Sasanian and Roman sides.[9][10] The Saracens were named in the Roman administrative document Notitia Dignitatum—dating from the time of Theodosius I in the 4th century—as comprising distinctive units in the Roman army. They were distinguished in the document from Arabs.[9]

Source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saracen


The Almohad:

The Almohad Caliphate (British English: /almə(ʊ)ˈhɑːd/, U.S. English: /ɑlməˈhɑd/; Berber: ⵉⵎⵡⴻⵃⵃⴷⴻⵏ (Imweḥḥden), from Arabic الموحدون (al-Muwaḥḥidūn), "the monotheists" or "the unifiers") was a Moroccan[6][7] Berber Muslim movement founded in the 12th century.[8]

The Almohad movement was founded by Ibn Tumart among the Berber Masmuda tribes of southern Morocco. Around 1120, the Almohads first established a Berber state in Tinmel in the Atlas Mountains.[8] They succeeded in overthrowing the ruling Almoravid dynasty governing Morocco by 1147, when Abd al-Mu'min al-Gumi (r. 1130–1163) conquered Marrakesh and declared himself Caliph. They then extended their power over all of the Maghreb by 1159. Al-Andalus followed the fate of North Africa and all Islamic Iberia was under Almohad rule by 1172.[9]

The Almohad dominance of Iberia continued until 1212, when Muhammad III, "al-Nasir" (1199–1214) was defeated at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in the Sierra Morena by an alliance of the Christian princes of Castile, Aragon, Navarre, and Portugal. Nearly all of the Moorish dominions in Iberia were lost soon after, with the great Moorish cities of Cordova and Seville falling to the Christians in 1236 and 1248 respectively.

The Almohads continued to rule in Africa until the piecemeal loss of territory through the revolt of tribes and districts enabled the rise of their most effective enemies, the Marinids in 1215. The last representative of the line, Idris al-Wathiq, was reduced to the possession of Marrakesh, where he was murdered by a slave in 1269; the Marinids seized Marrakesh, ending the Almohad domination of the Western Maghreb.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almohad_Caliphate