Why are portuguese and south spaniards (andalusian) so similar physically to moors (moroccoans, algerians)?

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MedellÃn

callate, hijo de puta!!

Dr. Phil JosÃ© Mouzinho PHD

no we aren't similar.
just 4% of the population of Iberia.
But i know you can find more people like you in France, Germany, UK and Belgium.

MIG

Portuguese are mixed with a variety of cultures and moorish is one but looking like them entirely, no

Natalie

I'm simillar with matoccoans and algerians?

No...

Do not think that is a great need to use
glasses?

argus

My dear friend
The answer to your question is yes.
I am Portuguese and i am as Moor as one could be,
I also visited your country and i became astonished
when i saw people as white as milk as you are.
You are very privileged to be that white(master race.)
I wish i was like you, maybe my next reincarnation i will
ask to be white like you.
PS
is it truth your people wear the fig leaf to cover the genitalia?
Or you have regular underwear available!
peace profound.

Greetings from a Portuguese Moor

nexa_alex

first of all, the people on the north pole and south pole are white as milk, and when we get near the Ecuador they get more tanned...
then near the Mediterraneo sea, due to the weather that we all share we become even more alike. and also due to the fact that we all have been occupied with the same people, you know romans, barbarians, moors...
and in the case u haven't notice our languages are very similar to each other for the same motive.

dart

Cause the Moors conquered Iberia in 711, and stayed there, mixing with the people there, and many stayed when, 800 years later, they were expelled and sent back to Northern Africa, of course. You were there, and you didn't pick up just a little bit of history????

The Padre

There were Moors occupying the south of Iberia, particularly Spain, for centuries (note to Americans: 1492 is only incidentally the year that Ferdinand and Isabella funded Columbus' trip to what he thought was India but was probably either the Dominican Republic or possibly one of the Turks and Caicos Island-- the important thing that happened in 1492 was that the so-called Catholic Monarchs, having invited in the Inquisition, evicted last of the the Moors and Jews from Spain (while keeping their personal property, needless to say). The Moors escaped across the Mediterranean back to northern Africa, while many of the Jews escaped into Portugal.

Portugal-- which is the oldest European nation in terms of having maintained the same borders, unchanged in Europe since 1297-- had been invaded by the Moors (at the invitation of Visigoths, admidst the tribal fighting between Visigoths, Goths and Suevis), but were driven steadily further south until the last were gone at the end by the 13th Century. This push was assisted by the Ordem de Cristo, a Portuguese fighting religious Order (along the lines of the Knights Hospitallers and the Templars). When the Templar Order was betrayed in 1307 by the French King Philip IV (who also had the Pope kidnapped!) and the Templar's leaders imprisoned and tortured (in an attempt to gain the Order's wealth), many of those members who escaped or were freed were invited to join the Ordem de Cristo, which was given estates along the borders in exchange for protection and defense against the return of Moors troops, either from Spain or from northern Africa.

Unlike the Christians of the time, the Islamic Moors in Portugal had been tolerant of both Christians (who were called 'Mozerabs' in Portugal-- hence the "Mozerabic Rite" of the Latin Mass) and Jews. When the last Moors were driven out and Portugal's borders secured, many remnants of Moorish language and custom remained-- the 'azulejos', the beautiful decorative tiles for which Portugal is famed, got their name from the Arabic word for 'small stones'. Most Portuguese names places and words beginning in 'al-', such as the southern regions of the Alentejo and Algarve, derive their names from Arabic. Portuguese architecture, particularly the shapes of windows and the laced stonework, also continued to reflect Moorish culture for centuries after Portugal's consolidation in 1297.

In 1492, long after the Portuguese had taken control of their southern borders, the Spanish, their separate kingdoms of Lyon and Castile joined in the marriage of Fernando and Isabel, completed the conquest of southern Spain, replacing the more literate, educated and open Moorish society with medieval feudalism (there's a reason "algebra" starts with 'al-'-- it too comes from the Moors!). All Moors were forced to leave, and Jews forced to leave or convert to Christianity. The Spanish Inquisition introduced new and particularly horrible forms of torture to the region to ensure its will... a simple argument with a neighbor could result his telling the Inquisition that you were secretly practicing Judaism (even if you weren't), and your being tortured and crippled or killed. Many Jews escaped to northern Africa, while others went to Portugal.

The Portuguese, being a generally more open and tolerant people (as would later be shown in comparative colonial histories, particularly when compared to the Spanish or English), actually hid the Jews from Inquisitors-- to this day there is a traditional Portuguese sausage, more common in the TrÃ¡s-os Montes region in the north, called 'alheiras'. While alheiras now include pork, they were originally made from poultry, poultry fat, bread crumbs and spices... and while they looked exactly like the pork sausages being eaten by their Christian neighbors (and thus fooled the Inquisitors), were actually Kosher!

But to complete the answer to your question, the reason for physical, and a few linguistic similarities, is shared heritage. There are few places on the planet that do not share genealogical heritage-- even the English, some of whom think of themselves as having been "pure" until recent waves of immigration, are a mix of Picts and Celts followed by Germanic Angles, then Saxons, then Norman French (who were themselves a mix), with various strains of Scandinavian tribes (think "viking invasions") tossed in.

There are no "pure breds", unless we are all "pure bred" humans... "and male and female God made them, in His own Image".

truly

That's a bit silly if not provocative. Even if there may be a few similarities between the andalusian and the moors, due to the historic long lasting occupation of the south of Spain, the same can't be said about the Portuguese. The answer is that Andalucia was occupied by the moors until the 14th century. Portugal, on the other hand, was occupied, even though not in its entirety, for a shorter period of time and the moors didn't really mix. So where did you get that idea?

Alwyn P

Location: Iberia being close to North Africa there would have been some trading and possible immigration across the straits of Gibraltar over many centuries even before the Carthaginians and Romans.

MISS USA angel in waiting

Because the moors own spain and portugal

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