portuguese people moors are not a distinct or self defined people medieval and early modern europeans variously applied the name to arabs berbers muslim europeans andsub saharan africans the moors came from morocco and crossed thestrait of gibraltar to reach the iberian peninsula the moors were initially of arab and berberdescent at the time of the umayyad conquest of hispania in the early th century later the term covered people of mixed ancestry and iberianchristian converts to islam the arabs called the latter muwalladun or muladi europeans have classified a number of associated ethnic groups as moors and terms for this are found in their languages in the modern iberian peninsula moor is sometimes colloquially used for any person from north africa but some people consider this use of the term pejorative from moors page well cited