 Today, the descendants of the Mauri/Maure - the Berbers - continue to occupy the northwestern coasts of Africa, and are spread throughout the countries of Morocco, western Algeria, and Mauritania, all of which are North African countries just across the narrow western end of the Mediterranean Sea from Spain, and peopled by Muslims which conquered and ruled Spain for 800 years.This explains the seemingly natural animosity felt by the Spanish against the Muslim natives in these islands, especially coming from a victorious war against Muslims for the reconquest ("Reconquista") of the Iberian Peninsula from the Almohads and the Taifa Kingdoms which lasted for centuries.On the other hand, due primarily to their decidedly Hindu-Buddhist influenced societies - having been long-time vassals of the thalassocratic Hindu-Buddhist Sri Vijaya Empire - the non-Muslim native tribes were then referred to by the Spanish as "Indios" (Spanish for Indians), and called their colony in the far east, Las Indias Orientales Españolas (or the "Spanish East Indies").