Recent mitochondrial DNA analysis performed on groups living in southern Spain and In North Africa around the Straight of Gibraltar show that both groups share the same haplogroups found in the Middle East but also the groups in Spain still show a large number of haplogroups from Europe as well. The Y chromosome data in these regions show an even lesser effect on populations. Around 10% of the population show decent from groups living in NW Africa. This evidence may show that even though the region was inhabited from invaders from the south there was little gene flow actually happening between the Christian inhabitants and their Muslim invaders. However further evidence reveals that out of the people with these haplogroups it has been found that the largest percentage of them have ancestry from Berbers rather than Arabs.
http://sjohn30.tripod.com/id4.html
That is, any Moorish "blood" amongst the Spanish population today does not have an "Islamic" stamp on it, as Islam did not infect the Berbers until the coming of the Arabs in the 8th century C.E.
Islam is associated with the Arabs, as Mohammed was an Arab and "converted" Arabs by force and by the offer of plunder and "infidel" women.
That is not to say that the Berbers who came to and conquered the southern part of Iberia were not Mohammedans, but it was not part of their national character as it had become that of the Arabs.
Despite this, the Berber "converts" and their descendants were often more avid Mohammedans than the Arabs themselves, as is common to converts who embrace their adopted ideology with greater fervor than those born into it. (Picture from The Muslim Expansion into Europe)
A Moorish Army circa 800 CE
After the fall of the Roman Empire the Iberian Peninsula became populated by a Germanic tribe called the Visigoths but these invaders were soon met by another invasion from the East. In 711, the Umayyad Empire invaded the peninsula and quickly conquered the lands of spain and began to move into France until they were stopped at Poiters in 732. The invading army were known as the Moors. The Muslim Moorish invaders were a force led by Arab muslims and other peoples from the recently conquered lands of the Umayyad Empire including berbers other North African peoples. The picture above clearly shows a Moorish army with Arab, Berber, and African soldiers.
http://sjohn30.tripod.com/id4.html
The Genetic Evidence
Recent mitochondrial DNA analysis performed on groups living in southern Spain and In North Africa around the Sraight of Gibraltar show that both groups share the same haplogroups found in the Middle East but also the groups in Spain still show a large number of haplogroups from Europe as well. The Y chromosome data in these regions show an even lesser effect on populations. Around 10% of the population show decent from groups living in NW Africa. This evidence may show that even though the region was inhabited from invaders from the south there was little gene flow actually happening between the Christian inhabitants and their Muslim invaders. However further evidence reveals that out of the people with these haplogroups it has been found that the largest percentage of them have ancentry from Berbers rather than Arabs.
http://sjohn30.tripod.com/id4.html
As the Berbers who made up most of the "Moors" (Moros in Spanish), had been fully arabized at this point in their history, that is aside from being Musulmans, they spoke Arabic, the author of the cited article now switches and no longer distinguishes between Berbers and Arabs when he is talking of the Islamic invaders of Iberia:
Andalusi Arabic is a bundle of dialects resulting from the Arabic dialects brought into Spain in the 8th century by some thousands of Arabs who established Muslim political domination and cultural supremacy over the lands of the Iberian Peninsula. These Arabs brought along their own separate analytic-type dialects, with a Yemenite component. This resulted in the formation of Andalusi dialects.
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Further linguistic evidence of the expansion can be heard in Spain everyday by people speaking Spanish words which were borrowed from Arabic or have Arabic origins.
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COMMENT: The material that I have cited in the foregoing appears valid although the article itself is popular genetics rather than the in-depth presentation of genetic science.
Still, the author, John Christensen, does introduce us to this fascinating subject and his bibliography is worth investigating for those interested in pursuing this subject further.
Interesting, for those who want to furter pursue the origins and ancestry of the Berber people, is "the pre-history of the Berbers in brief" at Mathilda’s Anthropology Blog. http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpress.com/tag/berbers/ with the title "Y-chromosome Lineages from Portugal, Madeira and Acores Record Elements of Sephardim and Berber Ancestry"
--Leslie White
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