The Moors (Mauri)

Namesake of: Moor Macaque (Macaca maura)

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- A Latin (Roman) name for the people of what is now Morocco

- 'Mauri' transitioned to 'Moor' and refers to dark-skinned North Africans and Muslims generally

- The dark hair of this macaque earned it its name, referencing the derogatory name for these people.

The term Moor is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages. The Moors initially were the indigenous Maghrebine Berbers. The name was later also applied to Arabs and Arabized Iberians.

Moors are not a 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, North African Berbers, as well as Muslim Europeans.

The term has also been used in Europe in a broader, somewhat derogatory sense to refer to Muslims in general, especially those of Arab or Berber descent, whether living in Spain or North Africa. During the colonial era, the Portuguese introduced the names "Ceylon Moors" and "Indian Moors" in South Asia and Sri Lanka, and the Bengali Muslims were also called Moors. In the Philippines, the longstanding Muslim community, which predates the arrival of the Spanish, now self-identifies as the "Moro people", an exonym introduced by Spanish colonizers due to their Muslim faith.