x/playa and gurey, wouldn't you guys say the moors were more of a geo-political group, i.e. the Muslim states of north/west Africa as opposed to a specific tribe/nation? infact the name 'moor' is said by some latin-based academics to be the name of the region of 'mauritania' which until today is a boiling pot of berber/persian/arab/sub saharan african groups? the Arabs did not use the term 'moor' as far as im aware, it was always either maghreb el 3rab or ifriqiya. only western historians used the term moor, so its a matter of reconciling both regional differences in different times of history. for instance, tariq bin ziyaad, the conqueror of iberia or what some call al andalus, was known in some arabic scriptures as a persian/arab ex slave who spread islam to the west. this is the castle built in his rulership of gibraltar, notice how they westerners depict it as the 'moorish castle' in its title.
infact the first time i came across the term moor was when we studied Shakespeares work, his book about the tragedy of Othello, a moorish captain of venice. in the theatre they use to bring rough looking eastern europeans to play the part of Othello, though im not sure if this is an attempt to push out potential moorish ancestry being sub saharan african and whatnot.