MOORS

MOORS, a general term for tribes in North Africa descended from Arab and Berber stock; they were Christians for several centuries, but on their conquest by Arabs in 647 embraced Mohammedanism; the town Moors do not hold before European settlers, but the nomad tribes show more vitality; Moorish peoples seized and settled in Spain early in the 8th century, and, introducing a civilisation further advanced than that in Europe generally with respect to science, art, and industry alike, maintained a strong rule till the 11th century; then the Spaniards gradually recovered the peninsula; Toledo was taken in 1085, Saragossa in 1118, Valencia in 1238, Seville in 1248, Murcia in 1260, and Granada in 1492; Turkish successes in the East came too late to save the Moors, and the last were banished from the country in 1609.