Beidane

Beidane (Arabic: بيضان, romanized: Biḍān; also spelled Bayḍān), is an Arabic term meaning 'white' used in Mauritania to refer to lighter-skinned Mauritanians, in contrast to the term Haratine, which refers to those with a darker complexion. Of mixed Arab and Berber ancestry, the Beidane represent 30% of Mauritania's population. The Beidane people’s language is Hassaniya Arabic. Al-Bidān is an endonym used within Mauritania and Western Sahara by the Bidān people to refer to themselves. The name “Beidane” refers to “Moors.” During the 20th century, colonial French authorities named present-day Mauritania after ancient Mauretania (a historical region to designate the Mediterranean coastal areas of Morocco and Algeria). Since antiquity, ancient Mauretania’s peoples (the Mauri) were known throughout the Mediterranean world as the Indigenous inhabitants the coastal Maghreb. In contemporary Mauritanian society, the Beidane people’s form a significant part of Mauritania’s total population.

"Moor" is not a term for any specific ethnic group, but rather it denotes an antiquated Christian European term (used in the West) to historically refer to peoples hailing from North Africa and West Asia (or, more generally, for Muslim Europeans who adopted Islam during the Middle Ages. For hundreds of years, Arabs and Berbers (from the Maghreb and the Levant) controlled parts of Malta, Sicily, Portugal, Spain, and France. Saracen refers to a medieval-era term used to designate Arabs, Berbers, and, more generally, Muslims. Medieval Christian Europeans used “Saracen” to the peoples of the Islamic “East.” Following the Middle Ages, the term largely fell out of use.