MoriscoMoriscos (moˈɾiskos, muˈɾiskus; mouriscos moˈɾiʃkuʃ; Spanish for "Moorish") were former Muslims and their descendants whom the Roman Catholic Church and the Spanish Crown commanded to convert to Christianity or face compulsory exile after Spain outlawed the open practice of Islam by its sizeable Muslim population (termed mudéjar) in the early 16th century. The Unified Portuguese and Spanish monarchs mistrusted Moriscos and feared that they would prompt new invasions from the Ottoman Empire after the Fall of Constantinople.
AlgeriaAlgeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in North Africa. Algeria is bordered to the northeast by Tunisia; to the east by Libya; to the southeast by Niger; to the southwest by Mali, Mauritania, and Western Sahara; to the west by Morocco; and to the north by the Mediterranean Sea. It is considered part of the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has a semi-arid geography, with most of the population living in the fertile north and the Sahara dominating the geography of the south.
MoorsThe term Moor is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim populations of the Maghreb, al-Andalus (Iberian Peninsula), Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a single, distinct or self-defined people. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica observed that the term had "no real ethnological value." Europeans of the Middle Ages and the early modern period variously applied the name to Arabs, Berbers, and Muslim Europeans.
BerbersBerbers (بربر) or the Berber peoples, also called by their contemporary self-name Amazigh (æməˈzɪɡ) or Imazighen (ⵉⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵏ, ⵎⵣⵗⵏ; singular: Amaziɣ, ⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖ ⵎⵣⵗ; أمازيغ), are a diverse grouping of distinct ethnic groups indigenous to North Africa who predate the arrival of Arabs in the Arab migrations to the Maghreb. Their main connections are identified by their usage of Berber languages, most of them mutually unintelligible, which are part of the Afroasiatic language family.
