The 'Golden Age of the Moors'

By

Sampson I.M Onwuka









The golden age of the Moors posted by Marc Washington. 2009.



A history of the European Islam has not been written and not very well. Perhaps additional emphasis on the reign of Muslims in Europe and the trials of the Gypsies in Spain and in Europe has some place in the evolution of European Feudal Society. At least the problem of Bubonic plague has placed unusual emphasis on the outcomes of this feudal society. Several authors have looked at some of the problems of European history and how it makes sense in the light of world history and the coming of Africans or Muslims to Europe.


I for one, has also suggested that some European tribal stock are rooted elsewhere and Arabs and other Muslims should not be discounted. It is interesting to note that in the light of the Scandinavians and several tribes from North America, some link exist between these areas mentioned and Asia, and especially the consuming history of Chinese entrance into Russia during the Mongols expansion into Europe, that the Tartars or Teutons who became the principle stock in Russia in the 11th and 12th century A.D where also Chinese, that they migrated into the Nordic circle since they came all the way from China and from that part of  Asia.

We couldn't be far from the history of Muslims in Europe, especially the history preceding the 12th century A.D after almost 600 hundred years of Islamic rule in Africa and in the Global world, such as the images of European Islamic influence does not shy from the remaining artifacts in Greenland and in the Scandinavia.

Haven mentioned this particular episode which the Russian Chronicles which cited the coming of Rus to Novgorod explicates, our interest assume several variations between one; the interest of Architecture and Architectural history especially it's evolution and undisputed Gothic influences in the Apex that became Paris in France - land of the Fe (Frank), (2) the second interest is the language of the people and peoples of the world which has also changed and it serve its own meaning with global world of languages explicating its own history, denying the vast expanse of difference between cultures around the globe and dispersion theory in the light well reserved and well received knowledge of the world,

 For if the look at the documentary hypothesis of the world enters several rounds of meaning is given

We can be sure that Ireland for instance, was home to Muslims first, eventually a certain kind of Muslims called Moors. They lived in Ireland, Scotland and England for a long time but joining up with others in Scandinavia, they disappeared from history. So to speak. In very recent times, as early as 1979, only 3% of the original Norse men and women are still extant, many of them Polynesian looking, some of them of dark flaxen hair were only found among the Gypsies. Story of the Gypsies in Europe and in Americans, are not that far from stories of these 'fallen great'.

But in many cases, there was large scale inter-marriage among and others that seem to have become part of their neighborhood.

For good or ill, the remnant of Gypsies in Europe and North America, speak of history sinister to our age and times etc.., It should be worthy to mention that in recent times, some efforts have been made to connect European Gypsies with Indians, and there is the case about the Genetic connection between these people.

But such stories are not unlike many European history which are just untrue or a historic, reason being that at the root of the Gympie is a African word and country, a place that lend eyes to Aberdeen and Dublin, both referring to blacks as we shall discover.

The root of the word Gypsy is Egypt, and they are found in Spain as Blacks and natty hair (although Gypsies in Spain are now Arab looking and Whites or whatever). Aberdeen is from Abydos, which is Ancient Egypt, the Abeedi or Abegg, referred to Blacks of Sudan in recent times (Sudan South of Egypt) seem a long way off from Aberdeen of said Scotland not Ireland. In Ireland of Dublin, it was from the first attacks, a Muslim town until recently.

Some have argued that for the presence of Vikings or Sea fearers, most of who were not necessarily Muslims and are in fact Pagans from the so called Nordic circle. The statement beside the point and above lack architectural evidence of these people, may hold true as long we remain silent over the fact that Vikings invaded Scotland and Ireland from Manchester England and not from Scandinavia. Even the word Scandanavia does suggest some obscure Asia province or Indo-European, perhaps with a K for c and without the excess luggage of the inflation.


When the author compared the history of the so-called Chandra-Gupta, being what we know of the empire and the Arin desert (0% Nautical connection to Meridian, Red Sea and Egypt), there is a forbidden but not entirely misleading episodes of names comparable to a Kandahar, as far the word Scandinavia, both of which are just as old.

Whether such word is connected to light skin or Candida is secondary, but we must further illustrate the point, by saying that in Sanskrit, the word for light or bright light is 'Chandra' and in Nigerian Igbo or nearly the other side of the world, the word for light and bright light is 'Ucha', shinning would mean 'ichaucha', and a 'Uchita'? For some of roughly associated with being light.

In essence, the Scandinavia that ancient authors such as Jordanus and Cassiodorus speak of is probably not Scandinavia of Europe as it has become, and probably has little if nothing to do with the area so described. As such the Vikings raid from what is now Scandinavia would amount to their reaching Ireland and Iceland first, before England and before France.


But that’s not what happened. The Vikings and their descendants; the Normans, as they say, brought their Irish and English slaves to a place called Iceland.

The Irish as history tells us were the first to visit and settle in Iceland. But the area proved difficult to dwell and then they left the place. But when the Sea fearers, the Viking (Vikein, Vixens) and Saracen, arrived, it was the Irish that brought them to Iceland.

However, that Dublin had nothing in it when the Moors arrived. Scotland was a barren waste and good for nothing as they claimed at late as 12th century. The reconstruction of the town and its proximity to the sea was a default of the defense mechanism mounted by Moors.


The Full-scale prolixity of Moors in the area around the Red Sea, Indian Sea and East Africa may be fully known from a lot of backgrounds of the territory that they occupied, but the term is so spurious since it is a blanket term for Muslims after the 9th and 10th A.D century, and for reasons quite known and some unknown may have covered and converted to Christianity at the summer of 1000, yet at the height of their reign in 11th, these Vikings paid much homage to Africa via Sicily or Sisilu, their headquarters till 1240 A.D.

The cathedrals that were mounted in this age was mere copy of Byzantine St. Sophie which were built by their gold leaf'd ancestors, of Coptic Church, Thebes and Abydos, mainly and essentially Africa. The architectural point is further made, that the Coptic Churches were former temples of Karnak, with the ribbed vault and galary/cloister for Amun and converted for Christian purposed a few decades before the visions of the Emperor Constantine. The Byzantine was a copy of the Coptic and it enacted along the Model building in Damascus by these Umayyad who helped to vanquish Goths and Rodrigos in Spain in the year 711 A.D.

It does appear that the presence of words from Indian standpoint which are found in English and in some or languages of the world show a kind of addition of words, perhaps the case as we have noted from Mahal and Mala, equal in sound and meaning to Igbo 'ala' and 'ola', both meaning 'land' and 'garland, necklace' in English, suggest that Sanskrit is no doubt younger than say Igbo language and by some stretch a language that influenced English.

In retention of the above point of view, we regard that a slight possibility exist for what we notice in languages to be redeemed through the addition or removing of words, for instance consonants, leading perhaps to sound shift, may lead perhaps to a different evolution of language or words in a given language. But through etymology and long distance Comparison of these words and languages, we may arrive at the age of the histories of language and the people involved.

"On matters concerning the Sea and its influence on interpretive influence on African history, we may here begin by citing a selection of 'Text and Readings' on African History by Robert O. Collins (Eastern African History; Vol II of African History, 1990;97, Princeton N.J) Robert O. Collins for people not well acquainted with him was at the time of the compilation a professor of University of California, Santa Barbara. In the commentary that he promoted towards the synthesis of the Eastern African History, forces the unity of African Unity, with particular reference to the parts, the regional history of the continent.


Of course within the parts, there are several points of digressions and connections which sponsor the realized theory 'Migration' 'conquest' and 'infiltration' models towards the great un-raveling of the African history. But unlike European history with corresponding synthesis of its evolution, the African history is the history of the world.

These except are drawn from the list of the important correspondence and represent the effort, Periplus of the Erythraean Sea' written in about (100 A.D) by a band of travelers in a manner similar to the Ptolemies of 'Geography' and Strabo's 'geography'. We shall the evolution of these schools of import in the overall history of the African from documentary sources.


And the documents from the first the century is of great importance in understanding African then and now, especially in the century leading to the arrival of the Ptolemy from Asia and in the centuries following the ceding of Alexander (and not Thebes) to the Macedonian General Alexander the Great.

It is only with time can measure out the difficult departures in some of the assumptions in the texts and documents that go back to this era. We shall discuss why the information after the arrival of the Romans in the reigns of Pompeii (A.D 66), Julius Caesar who later became Pharaoh and his great nephew 'Augustus' who wage a failed campaign into the tropics of African and the Thebes, but ruled more than half of the known world. How the Christian took added meaning in African and among Africans seem a theme that will meet the understanding of the general world, particularly Architecture.

The Periplus' we shall discuss here also appear in Robert O. Collins compilation of relevant text on East African History. The point is that a selection of the text which formed the basis of the commentary by the Robert O. Collins reveals series of lapses in the man's work. And the version is G.S.P Freeman-Grenville 'The East African Coast; Select Documents from The First to the Earlier Nineteenth Century (Oxford; Clarence Press, 1962). In the Periplus, we learn of much of what is considered Ethiopian in recent sense of the word. The terms does not entirely appear throughout the Periplus' but there were several references made to the area where the sea curves westwards from the coast of seemed like a certain Berenice.

Some of the assumptions in the book have been recovered, including its mention of the Sarapis and Nikon, which appear as Status predating the Romans of the Augustan Age. Beginning in the moth of Epiphi, where the author Robert Collins indicated as July, whereas the term 'Ekwe-phi' in Igbo probably refers to the beginning of the 'Sixth' month. Phi is the Sixth and not the Seventh month, as Red Sea navigators gather to make sail into the Atlantic.


According to the 'Periplus of Erythraean', the Ships are fitted in inner Red Sea, near ports which are probably no longer extant, ports such as (1) Ariake (2) Bamgaza. From these places products from the interior of Africa and all else are bargained, (1) Wheat (2) Rice (3) Ghee (4) Sesame oil (5) Cotton Cloth, girdles, and 'honey' from the reed called (Sakviari). The' Market Chiefs' drives these Raffia from the interior through the sea they regard as the Azania (small and great) were six days journey.

The 'courses' of Azania, one of which is the Sarapian, the Nikon, after these rivers are several small rivers. Then 'a half and a day's journey, in all seven, as far as the Pyralaea Islands and the Islands called Diorux." The Periplus' also spoke on the wild and what the book meant by that seems quite difficult but the major point is the description of Crocodiles there, which as not supposed to kill humans.

In very recent times, such a relay of history is made more explicit by the fact that the recent explorers have sought to replace parts of that history with what they find in many parts of Africa. The Periplus maintained that a two day sailing, that travelers will meet this 'market towns' of Azania, known as Rhapta, the so-called 'small sewn boats'.

How the book 'Periplus managed to survive is of the greatest importance since there are books that can account for such places in Africa than the Periplus. The book probably did not display Africa in terms of its indigene which would have met the harsh reality of Turkish invasion of Egypt. Of course the damage done to the African history is nothing compared to what is happening now in African history. There is nothing to shy from the argument that enough exist to indicate the even UNESCO exposition on African history is an unjustifiable drag on the process of history.


They regarding the history of Africa in recent times are curled by translations from Kufic and Aramaic into what is now Arabic. In the course of this translation, we have come to notice that much of the writings done about the continent before the arrival of the Arabs and after their arrival, have been so civilized, that the meaning and perhaps its real history is no longer of any significance. Much burning of books written by Christians who certain bands of Muslims regard as infidels continued into the 18th century. T

he coming of Napoleon the Bonaparte and the 'in-form' French revolutionaries, began a different age of redemption and eventually restructure, all of which did little to salvage what was left in North Africa.


The faces of these pharaohs and their remaining sculpture has been so defaced and Injured by Islamic Religious Fundamentalist that it took modern appreciation of these arts and art forms to redeem it from the clutches of religious zeal. By Islam such sculptures were regarded as work of Idols, that they were believed to show no reference to God gave these people all the necessary tools to damage the eternal history of the Infidels (the Christians) and the remaining pagans among them. In kindly light to discoveries made about the Rosetta Stone, recovered with its mutilation in a dump near modern Rosetta, we regard the French Expedition as perhaps the beginning of modern view about Africa.

The problem of Britain beating the French is a mere distraction from what both sides consider none venture into the land of the blacks.

For if the Periplus indicated that among the people discovered in the area we may now regard as Ethiopia, we read of the Chiefs of 'market place' who drove the Raffia, the small sewn boats from the interior into the main land and the ports, and live seven days away from the main port, who the Periplus described as "Men of the greatest Stature, who are pirates, inhabit the whole coast and at each place have set up chiefs. The Chief of the Ma'afir which subordinates it’s to the Kingdom which has become the first in Arabia. The people of Mouza hold it in tribute under his sovereignty, and send these small ships mostly with Arab captains and crews who made trade and intermarry with the mainlander of all the places and know their language."


By what many historians of European retraction has said and mentioned, we can suggest that the route of these small ships described as raffia boats, will originate elsewhere other than deep in the interior of Africa and around the coast of Red Sea. That Arabia is suddenly mentioned as one of the many destinations for the raffia may have given unfortunate meaning and interpretation of Arabia as the place where merchants and traders originated and where they nested with their wives of the foreign lands.


The ambiguous drama associated with these theories will suggest that enough exist for the current linguist and historians of Africa to indicate Arabia as the desert from which much of African languages east of the continent essentially evolved and perpetuated.


But in the context of the above description, these historians will clearly be lying, since we are too close to the East of Africa, and to Periplus - literally meaning Chronicles - to clarify that much of Muoza, no more than what became parts of Kilwa and Zanzibar are in fact inside Africa. That the raffia boat of Ma’afir is also inside the continent of Africa is not in many ways an accident. It is only from the point of the direction of these boats and their described origins that the unraveling of the errors with the so-called Ethiopians languages and highlands such as the Sahel to have originated from Asia and particularly South Arabia to be essentially false - if not misleading.

The influence of the Periplus can hardly be missing from the many points indicated by world linguist and by African historians. In one stray language the influence on the Periplus on how the languages are perceived especially the influence of the languages of Semitic origins on African languages on the North Coast of Africa and in Red Sea may have reduced parts of Ethiopia and ancient Askum to have been the outcome of settlers from outsiders for instance, the issue regarding the rise of the Sabeans in what was at a time Ethiopia is the long view from what may have taken place the Ge'ez language spoken in the part of Africa and the issue of the word of Sabaeans who are reduced to visitors from Arabian peninsula.


The difficulty associated with this view is that much African language that shows similarity with Semitic and Asian languages are reduced to the category of Afro-Asiatic, with some of these languages grouped as Indo-European. Of course the current arrangement is not as misleading as they suggest, the point being the range of dispatches which is available in either of the continents widened by the… falter arguments about the civilizing forces of the Continent of Africa to have essentially come through the ranks of Asia. In an essence the current arrangement of African languages is quite faulty and may be suggest to all forms of review since majority of the tendency of the said language may in fact be a redactor to recent influences on the continent.


The difficulty of seeing that African languages and the Bantu migration has no relationship seem to uncertain given the general leniency towards adopting the histories of Africa, for instance, East Africa from mainly Arabic Sources.