Moors in the context of "Washington Irving"

The Maghreb (/ˈmɑːɡrəb/; Arabic: ْاَلْمَغْرِب, romanized: al-Maghrib, lit. 'The place where the sun sets' [ælˈmaɣrɪb] ), also known as the Arab Maghreb (Arabic: اَلْمَغْرِبُ الْعَرَبِيُّ, romanized: al-Maghrib al-ʿArabi, lit. 'the Arab west') or the Greater Maghreb (Arabic: المغرب الكبير al-Maghrib al-Kabīr), and Northwest Africa, is the western part of the Arab world. The region comprises western and central North Africa, including Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. The Maghreb also includes the disputed territory of Western Sahara. As of 2018, the region had a population of over 100 million people.

The Maghreb is usually defined as encompassing much of the northern part of Africa, including a large portion of the Sahara Desert, but excluding Egypt and Sudan, which are considered to be located in the Mashriq—the eastern part of the Arab world. The traditional definition of the Maghreb—which restricted its scope to the Atlas Mountains and the coastal plains of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya—was expanded in modern times to include Mauritania and the disputed territory of Western Sahara. During the era of al-Andalus on the Iberian Peninsula (711–1492), the Maghreb's inhabitants—the Muslim Maghrebis—were known by Europeans as the "Moors". The Greeks referred to the region as the "Land of the Atlas", referring to its Atlas Mountains.

The history of Islam is believed, by most historians, to have originated with Muhammad's mission in Mecca and Medina at the start of the 7th century CE, although Muslims regard this time as a return to the original faith passed down by the Abrahamic prophets, such as Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, and Jesus, with the submission (Islām) to the will of God. According to the traditional account, the Islamic prophet Muhammad began receiving what Muslims consider to be divine revelations in 610 CE, calling for submission to the one God, preparation for the imminent Last Judgement, and charity for the poor and needy. As Muhammad's message began to attract followers (the ṣaḥāba) he also met with increasing hostility and persecution from Meccan elites. In 622 CE Muhammad migrated to the city of Yathrib (now known as Medina), where he began to unify the tribes of Arabia under Islam, returning to Mecca to take control in 630 and order the destruction of all pagan idols. By the time Muhammad died c. 11 AH (632 CE), almost all the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula had converted to Islam, but disagreement broke out over who would succeed him as leader of the Muslim community during the Rashidun Caliphate.

The early Muslim conquests were responsible for the spread of Islam. By the 8th century CE, the Umayyad Caliphate extended from al-Andalus in the west to the Indus River in the east. Polities such as those ruled by the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates (in the Middle East and later in Spain and Southern Italy), the Fatimids, Seljuks, Ayyubids, and Mamluks were among the most influential powers in the world. Highly Persianized empires built by the Samanids, Ghaznavids, and Ghurids significantly contributed to technological and administrative developments. The Islamic Golden Age gave rise to many centers of culture and science and produced notable polymaths, astronomers, mathematicians, physicians, and philosophers during the Middle Ages. By the early 13th century, the Delhi Sultanate conquered the northern Indian subcontinent, while Turkic dynasties like the Sultanate of Rum and Artuqids conquered much of Anatolia from the Byzantine Empire throughout the 11th and 12th centuries. In the 13th and 14th centuries, destructive Mongol invasions, along with the loss of population due to the Black Death, greatly weakened the traditional centers of the Muslim world, stretching from Persia to Egypt, but saw the emergence of the Timurid Renaissance and major economic powers such as the Mali Empire in West Africa and the Bengal Sultanate in South Asia. Following the deportation and enslavement of the Muslim Moors from the Emirate of Sicily and elsewhere in southern Italy, the Islamic Iberia was gradually conquered by Christian forces during the Reconquista. Nonetheless, in the early modern period, the gunpowder empires—the Ottomans, Timurids, Mughals, and Safavids—emerged as world powers.

The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice, often shortened to Othello, is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare around 1603. Set in Venice and Cyprus, the play depicts the Moorish military commander Othello as he is manipulated by his ensign, Iago, into suspecting his wife Desdemona of infidelity. Othello is widely considered one of Shakespeare's greatest works and is usually classified among his major tragedies alongside Macbeth, King Lear, and Hamlet. Unpublished in the author's life, the play survives in one quarto edition from 1622 and in the First Folio.

Othello has been one of Shakespeare's most popular plays, both among playgoers and literary critics, since its first performance, spawning numerous stage, screen, and operatic adaptations. Among actors, the roles of Othello, Iago, Desdemona, and Emilia (Iago's wife) are regarded as highly demanding and desirable. Critical attention has focused on the nature of the play's tragedy, its unusual mechanics, its treatment of race, and on the motivations of Iago and his relationship to Othello. Originally performed by white actors in dark makeup, the role of Othello began to be played by black actors in the 19th century.

The Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula (Arabic: فَتْحُ الأَنْدَلُس, romanized: fatḥu l-andalus; 711–720s), also known as the Arab conquest of Spain, was the Umayyad conquest of the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania in the early 8th century. The conquest resulted in the end of Christian rule in most of Iberia and the establishment of Muslim Arab-Moorish rule in that territory, which came to be known as al-Andalus, under the Umayyad dynasty.

During the caliphate of the sixth Umayyad caliph al-Walid I (r. 705–715), military commander Tariq ibn Ziyad departed from North Africa under the command of Musa bin Nusayr in early 711 to cross the Straits of Gibraltar, with a force of about 1,700 men, to launch a military expedition against the Visigoth-controlled Kingdom of Toledo, which encompassed the former territory of Roman Hispania. After defeating king Roderic at the Battle of Guadalete in July the same year, Tariq was reinforced by an Arab force led by his superior wali Musa ibn Nusayr and continued northward.

The Kingdom of the Algarve (Portuguese: Reino do Algarve, from the Arabic Gharb al-Andalus غَرْب الأنْدَلُس, "Western al-'Andalus") was a nominal kingdom within the Kingdom of Portugal, located in the southernmost region of continental Portugal. From 1471 onwards it came to encompass Portugal's holdings in North Africa, which were referred to as "African Algarve" (Algarve Africano) or "Algarve-Beyond-the-Sea" (Algarve d'Além-Mar), in contrast with "European Algarve" (Algarve Europeu; Algarve d'Aquém-Mar, literally "Algarve on this side of the sea"); as such, the name of the kingdom was pluralized to Kingdom of the Algarves (Portuguese: Reino dos Algarves), even after Portugal's last North African outpost was abandoned in 1769.

Despite the name implying a degree of separateness from the rest of Portugal, it lacked any unique institutions, special privileges, or notable autonomy, and was politically very similar to other Portuguese provinces, with "King of the Algarve" being a simple honorific title, based on the Algarve's history as the last area of Portugal to be conquered from the Moors during the Reconquista.

Lisbon, officially the Very Noble and Ever Loyal City of Lisbon, is the capital and most populous municipality of Portugal, with an estimated population of 575,739, as of 2024, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainland Europe's westernmost capital city (second overall after Reykjavík), and the only one along the Atlantic coast, the others (Reykjavík and Dublin) being on islands. The city lies in the western portion of the Iberian Peninsula, on the northern shore of the River Tagus. The western portion of its metro area, the Portuguese Riviera, hosts the westernmost point of Continental Europe, culminating at Cabo da Roca.

Lisbon is one of the oldest cities in the world and the second-oldest European capital city (after Athens), predating other modern European capitals by centuries. Settled by pre-Celtic tribes and later founded and civilized by the Phoenicians, Julius Caesar made it a municipium called Felicitas Julia, adding the term to the name Olissipo. After the fall of the Roman Empire, it was ruled by a series of Germanic tribes from the 5th century, most notably the Visigoths. Later it was captured by the Moors in the 8th century. In 1147, Afonso Henriques conquered the city and in 1255, it became Portugal's capital, replacing Coimbra. It has since been the political, economic, and cultural centre of the country.

The Kingdom of León was an independent kingdom situated in the northwest region of the Iberian Peninsula. It was founded in 910 when the Christian princes of Asturias along the northern coast of the peninsula shifted their capital from Oviedo to the city of León. The kings of León fought civil wars, wars against neighbouring kingdoms and campaigns by both the Moors and the Vikings, all in order to protect their kingdom's changing fortunes.

García is the first of the kings described by the charters as reigning in León. It is generally assumed that the old Asturian kingdom was divided among the three sons of Alfonso III of Asturias: García (León), Ordoño (Galicia) and Fruela (Asturias), as all three participated in deposing their father. When García died in 914, León went to Ordoño, who now ruled both León and Galicia as Ordoño II. At Ordoño's death in 924, the throne went to his brother Fruela II (924–925), who died of leprosy a year later. Fruela's death in 925 was followed by a civil war, after which Alfonso, the eldest son of Ordoño II, emerged as the new king Alfonso IV, ruling from 925 to 932. After a further power struggle, Ramiro, the younger brother of Alfonso IV, became king in 932, having captured his brother Alfonso, as well as the three sons of Fruela II – Alfonso, Ordoño and Ramiro. Alfonso IV may have died soon after, but he left two infant sons, called Ordoño and Fruela. When Ramiro died in 951, he left two sons by two different wives. When the elder son Ordoño III, who ruled from 951 to 956, suddenly died aged little more than thirty, he was succeeded by his younger half-brother Sancho I "The Fat" (956–966), as Ordoño had failed to produce a legitimate heir.

The Iberian Crusades were papally promoted wars, part of the Reconquista, fought against the Muslim states of the Iberian Peninsula within the wider Crusading movement from 1095 to 1492. The Muslim conquest of the peninsula was completed in the early 8th century, when the Christian Visigothic Kingdom fell, yet the small realm of Asturias endured in the north-west. From the 9th century, its southward expansion against al-Andalus (Muslim Spain) was portrayed in local chronicles as a divinely sanctioned war of recovery. This expansion, along with Frankish advance, gave rise to new Christian realms—Navarre, León, Aragon, Castile, Portugal, and Barcelona—in the north. After al-Andalus split into taifas (small states) in 1031, the Christian realms exploited Muslim disunity to further expansion. From the 1060s, the papacy occasionally supported campaigns against al-Andalus by granting spiritual rewards to participants.

As the Reconquista advanced, the taifa rulers sought aid from the fundamentalist Almoravids of North Africa, who halted the Christian expansion. Soon after proclaiming the First Crusade for the liberation of the Holy Land at the Council of Clermont in 1095, Pope Urban II extended the same spiritual privilege—remission of sins—to Iberian lords who took up arms against the Moors (Iberian Muslims). Peter I of Aragon was the first ruler, in 1100, to fulfil his crusading vow within the peninsula, and his example was soon followed by others. Leading crusading armies, Alfonso I of Aragon captured Zaragoza (1118), Afonso I of Portugal seized Lisbon (1147), and Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona took Tortosa (1148). The renewed Christian advance provoked another North African intervention, this time by the Almohads, who could only temporarily halt the Christian expansion. Occasionally, the Moors' Christian allies, such as Alfonso IX of León were also targeted by crusading campaigns. After crusader forces inflicted a decisive defeat on the Almohads at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, the Reconquista gained new momentum. Papal grants of crusade indulgence then supported James I of Aragon in the conquest of Mallorca (1231) and Valencia (1238), and Ferdinand III of Castile in the capture of Córdoba (1236) and Seville (1248), reducing al-Andalus to the Emirate of Granada by 1262.