People have this retarded idea that the term "Moor" carried any sort of racial connotation in Spain during the time, when that's obviously not the case. I wonder if this confusion stems from the corruption of the term "Moor" (in the English language), which has its roots in England, given that it has come to mean dark-featured foreigner of African origin. It's the same stupidity which has allowed Afrocentrists and pseudo-scholars alike to make claims about al-Andalus being a "creation of black Africans":
In his video he suggests that Moors were portrayed in European illustrations as having darker features common amongst Arabs - has he actually looked at European art? What about Iberian scripts like the
Cantigas de Santa Maria and the
Libro de los Juegos? Or if you find European texts to be unreliable, look at how the Moors portrayed themselves in the
Hadith Bayad wa Riyad.
What you'll find is that the Moors were not portrayed as having "dark skin and typical Arab features" as the creator of the video suggests. On the contrary, those with dark skin and Arab features constitute the minority in the illustrations with the majority being no different from Iberians, which is only reasonable given that, as Mynydd suggested, the majority of the Moorish population was Iberian converts to Islam.
Come to think of it, the corruption of the term "Moor" which has, in turn, spawned a great deal of confusion over Spanish history during this time period is really no different than the corruption of the term "Hispanic" which has likewise spawned confusion over the true Hispanic identity. Not surprisingly, the two come from the same ignorant source.