Francis and the Sultan: Men of Peace

By Jan Hoeberichts

Full of new impressions, Francis returned to Italy from his visit to the Sultan. For the first time in his life, he had come into contact with a very different religion and culture. It had touched him profoundly. That would never have been possible if he had gone to the Middle East with the mentality of a crusader and had allowed his judgement to be clouded by all the prejudices that the Christian world harbored regarding Muslims. However, he had gone with a very different mind-set. His intention was to go and live among the Muslims in service, solidarity and peace - in the spirit of Jesus. This enabled him to look at Muslims from a different point of view, entirely new to him - with new eyes and from a fresh, more open perspective. Christian-Muslim Prayer-Ecumenism for Peace A reading of the texts Francis wrote after his sojourn in the Middle East makes it clear that this sojourn had made a profound impression on him. Especially characteristic of this is how greatly Francis, as he approached the Muslims with his positive and peaceful attitude, had come to admire their religious practice. This stands out particularly in the first letters he sent out shortly after his return to Italy. He had noticed the respect that Muslims have for their holy book, the Koran, amid their devotion to the 99 Beautiful Names for God. This gave him the idea to call on the clergy to respect not only the Eucharist - in keeping with the decisions of the Fourth Lateran Council and papal directives - but also to have an equal reverence and devotion for 'the written most holy names and words of the Lord'. He (Francis) wanted in his life and work to continue the mission of Jesus, who was sent by the Father to redeem humankind and restore them to paradise - the place God had originally intended for them, but which was lost through sin (RegNB 23, 1-3). In that paradise, no weapons were carried and no one appropriated anything for themselves; there was no struggle for power and property, but people were at the service of and in solidarity with each other; they shared everything together, and no one was poor or hungry; all had their rightful seat at the table of the Lord, they shared their houses and lived together in peace. Living and acting in accordance with this spirituality, Francis became the person-in-paradise he was and still is for us: a man of peace.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Franciscan Institute Publications
• Release date: Nov 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781576594421

Book preview

authorities……

PROLOGUE

It was in 1982 that I received from the Franciscaans Studiecentrum [Centre for Franciscan Studies] in Utrecht, The Netherlands, of which at that time Gerard Ris OFM was the president, a two-year assignment to undertake an in-depth study of Francis’ attitude towards Islam, and to prepare a publication on this subject. This resulted in the book Franciscus en de islam, published in January 1994 as the first volume in the series Scripta Franciscana. It was also the first Dutch monographon this subject, which subsequently would be translated into English, German, and Italian.

A WELL-DOCUMENTED NARRATIVE

Of course, many people in The Netherlands knew about the story of Francis’ meeting in 1219 with Sultan Malik al-Kamil of Egypt during the fifth crusade (1217-1221). As little as less than a year later, in the spring of 1220, it was mentioned in a letter written by James of Vitry from the crusaders’ base camp in Damietta to his supporters in northern France and the territories around Liège in Belgium.¹ It also found a place in Francis’ first biography, compiled by Thomas of Celano in 1228 at the request of Pope Gregory IX, the former Cardinal Hugolinus (1Cel 57). These early testimonies, further confirmed by other sources,² establish Francis’ meeting with the Sultan as a well-documented incident, which later biographers, too, cannot ignore. However, like their predecessors, these too make no or hardly any use at all of Francis’ own writings to add relevant and more detailed material to these brief testimonies.

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL DATA

After he returned form the Middle East, Francis added a chapter to the Rule as it existed at that time, the one we now know as the Rule of 1221, or also as the provisional version of the Regula non bullata. In this chapter, Francis drew on his own experiences as he mapped out policy lines for those brothers who, divinely inspired, would in the future want to go and live among the Muslims³ in the spirit of Jesus (RegNB 16). This chapter contains numerous autobiographical data, which can give us a better insight into the motives for and the actual nature of Francis’ visit to the Sultan. From the outset, therefore, it has been my intention to make the interpretation of this chapter the core element of my book. But a good interpretation is possible only if also the context is taken into consideration. This made it crucial to sketch as correctly as possible an outline of the historical and political conditions of the Church in those days, which influenced the way the authorities felt about and acted towards Islam. Besides, it was important to place the text of chapter 16 within its literary context that is within the totality of Francis’ writings. For in them, he had laid down the process of the spiritual evolution which he had gone through as a believing person, and which had left an indelible mark on his vision of the often-violent conditions of Church and society in his days.

SURPRISING RESULTS

Thanks to the increased interest in the origins of the Rule of 1221, I found myself in the fortunate situation that the most important stages of this spiritual evolution had already sufficiently been described, and were really only waiting for a further, and more explicit application to the theme of my assignment: Francis and Islam. The use of this existing material yielded surprising results, most importantly that Francis’ mission is first of all to be seen as a peace mission which emphasized not so much the proclamation or preaching of the Gospel, but the ‘doing’ of it. This conclusion, based on a contextual reading of Francis’ writings as accurately as possible, was fundamentally different from the image of Francis as the gospel-preacher at the Sultan’s court, or as the disillusioned seeker of martyrdom the way the first testimonies, from their point of view, had portrayed him – a portrayal which for centuries has defined our perception of Francis’ meeting with the Sultan.

RESSOURCEMENT

Emphasizing especially Francis’ very own writings, and not a priori excluding the possibility of a certain bias of the biographers, my study fitted very well within the ‘Ressourcement,’ the ‘re-sourcing’ or ‘going-back-to-the-sources’ movement which began in the Catholic Church in the nineteen-fifties, and was explicitly confirmed by the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) as a key commitment of the Church and specifically also of religious movements. Within the Franciscan movement, this resourcing received a forceful impulse from the critical edition of the Writings of Francis by K. Esser and the new translations based on this edition appeared everywhere.⁴ Furthermore, the subject matter of my study fitted in with the increasing interest in dialogue, particularly with Islam, as it manifested itself after Nostra Aetate (1965), the declaration of Vatican II concerning the Church’s attitude towards non-Christian religions. This dialogue culminated on 27 October 1986, on the World Day of Prayer in Assisi organized by John Paul II, to which believers of all religions had been invited. In 2011, the twenty-fifth memorial celebration of this event again drew attention to Francis and his peace mission to the Sultan.

NEW INSIGHTS

There are two recent publications devoted entirely to this event which prove that even now, almost eight centuries later, people are still fascinated by it; in the course of this book we shall return to them more extensively.⁵ As for myself, I gave some lectures abroad in which I had been asked to look at Francis’ visit to the Sultan from a certain, somewhat unusual perspective; these lectures became for me an opportunity to go into more detail and discover fresh and surprising insights.⁶ I was keen to share these insights with Dutch readers as well. So it came as a pleasant surprise to me when Ids Jorna and Gerard Ris asked me to collect and briefly summarize all the knowledge about Francis and the Sultan I had accumulated over the years. I acceded to their request gratefully and wholeheartedly, and the result is the present publication.

THE SET-UP OF THIS BOOK

Here, too, as meticulously as possible, the emphasis is on an analysis of Francis’ writings. Obviously, earlier insights, presented in my book Francis and Islam, offer themselves to be included again, but are at times formulated somewhat differently and sharper. One reason for this is that I have more explicitly included in my research not only the Rule of 1221 – with the primal Rule of 1209 it incorporates – but also the profile of the first brotherhood as outlined by Francis in his Testament at the end of his life. Looking back to those first beginning years, Francis briefly describes there the salient themes of the movement which had started with a revelation from the Lord and, once on its way, was later also guided by the Lord: a way where very soon the Muslim world, too, appeared at the horizon. Furthermore, I pay more detailed attention to the development Francis went through after he came back to Italy. We find traces of this development in his letters and other writings, which clearly show the positive impact on him of the experiences he had had in the world of Islam. Then, the foreign publications I mentioned earlier prompted me to pay more attention to the biographies of which I had hardly taken any notice in my book. We surely cannot disregard them. For all Francis’ writings date from his life after his conversion. As he himself says, this conversion did indeed happen to him through an intervention from God, but that does not mean that his past, his ancestry and his youth, and in particular also the important events in the society of his day did not have a significant influence on the new path he turned into at his conversion. This prompted me to devote a short chapter to the years of Francis’ life in Assisi before his conversion. A comparative study of the biographical sources further led to a critical examination, which reveals that the many, and often not unimportant differences between the sources and Francis’ own personal vision can very well be explained when seen against the background of the biographers and the concerns that were of importance to them because of their position within Church and Order. The way they speak and write shows unmistakable features of what is nowadays called ‘political correctness.’ I have also inserted a more detailed sketch of Sultan Malik al-Kamil’s life, to create a counterweight to the present-day, often negative approach to Islam and Muslims by highlighting the Sultan’s tolerant and humane attitude.

Lastly, I epitomize in a short epilogue the most significant conclusions of my study, and try to ‘translate’ them into the language of our present-day situations. There I also refer to some recent initiatives inspired by Francis and taken in quite diverse places, which could perhaps stimulate us in our endeavours to make this ‘translation.’

INSPIRING EXAMPLE

In terms of lay-out, this publication has all in all become quite different from my original book on Francis and Islam. However, the intention has not changed: to raise interest in a fascinating event in the life of a fascinating person, hoping that he will inspire us to a positive and peace-loving attitude which does not seek confrontation with Islam but dialogue, and particularly the dialogue-of-life the way Francis, too, searched for it when he travelled to the Sultan to convey Jesus’ peacegreeting to him and his house. And Francis did not limit himself to words, but converted his words into deeds of peace and reconciliation, of solidarity and servitude. This is how he wished to contribute to the creation of a worldwide sister and brotherhood of all human beings, irrespective of any difference in birth, religion and culture: a Christian-Muslim ecumenism of praising and glorifying the almighty Lord both in word and in deed.

The original Dutch version of this book was published in the year that, eight centuries ago, Francis made his first attempt to visit the Sultan (1212). This first attempt failed, as did the second one, which he made a year later. But he did not give up. The third attempt, in 1219, was a success, and he met the Sultan in order to bring Jesus’ peace greeting to him and his house. A most exceptional event, indeed! In the world of the crusades, where enmity, intolerance, and violence towards Muslims were predominant, Francis committed himself to the realization of those grossly degraded Judaeo-Christian values like love for the enemy, care for the displaced stranger, solidarity with all people – also Muslims – and peacefulness. Our present-day society, too, often brandishes these Judaeo-Christian values, but they are not named, and in fact all too often make place for a language and an attitude, which, inspired by fear, show little respect for people of non-western backgrounds – which most of all means: the Muslims. Therefore, a change in political and social climate is highly desirable. This book about Francis’ fascinating visit to the Sultan and the influence it had on Francis’ life and spirituality can perhaps make a modest contribution to this.

This book would not have been written without the encouragement of Ids Jorna and Gerard Ris OFM, and would not have been published without the support of the Franciscaanse Beweging (Franciscan Movement). My sincere and heartfelt thanks to them all. Special thanks also to Piet Bots OFM for his contribution to the concluding chapter, to my good friend Wim Moons OFM, and to my wife Fidelis, my loving anchor and crutch, to whom I dedicate this book on the occasion of her seventy-fifth birthday.

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¹ JdV, Historia Occidentalis, 32,14; Letter VI.

² For these testimonies, see EarlyD,1, 605-609; 2, 698,814; AssComp 77.

³ In the common parlance of the day, Francis speaks of ‘Saracens.’

⁴ K. Esser, Die Opuscula des hl. Franziskus von Assisi. Neue textkritische Edition, (Rome, 1976). The most recent English translation of the Latin version of Esser’s work is: The Writings of St. Francis of Assisi, Translated from the Critical Latin Edition of Fr. Kajetan Esser, O.F.M. A Publication of The Franciscan Archive A WWW Resource on St. Francis and Franciscanism, 1999.

⁵ J. Tolan, The Saint and the Sultan. The Curious History of a Christian-Muslim Encounter (New York, 2007); P. Moses, The Saint and the Sultan. The Crusades, Islam, and Francis of Assisi’s Mission of Peace (New York, 2009).

⁶ The most important lectures were: Francis’ View of Islam in the Mirror of God, delivered in Colorado Springs, June 2008, and published in: Spirit and Life 13 (2009): 1-38; Francis and the Sultan. Why did Francis want to contact Muslims and what did he learn from them?, delivered in Salzburg, March 2010.

I

A YOUNG MAN IN ASSISI

A TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCE

It was towards the end of the year 1187 that Francis received the dramatic news that on the 2nd of October of that year, Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub (1137-1193), better known as Saladin, had after 88 years recaptured Jerusalem from the crusaders. Jerusalem, the place which was sanctified by Jesus’ death and had been wrested from the Muslims by the crusaders under Godfrey of Bouillon during the first crusade in 1099, had again fallen into the hands of the enemy. But worse than that: Saladin had also succeeded in seizing the relic of the Holy Cross. One of the most precious possessions of the Christian world – if not the very most precious one of all – was lost. It was a great shame for all Christendom that this could have happened. The Christians had only themselves, their own sinfulness, to blame for this disgrace. Pope Gregory VIII, recently elected, called therefore on them to turn away from their sins. Only then, God’s blessing could rest upon the new crusade, which was to be organised as quickly as possible so as to wipe out the shame of the loss of Jerusalem. The Pope’s call had an immediate effect. Henry II of England and Philip II of France made peace with each other and decided to raise special taxes to finance the crusade. On March 27, 1188, Frederic Barbarossa took the cross in the cathedral of Mainz. A year later, in May 1189, he was one of the first ones to set out on the expedition to the Holy Land with his army of fifteen thousand men, among them three thousand horsemen. That was the beginning of the third crusade. In July 1190, Richard the Lionheart, son of Henry II (who had died), and Philip set sail for the Holy Land from Marseilles. In spite of all the hard work, the third crusade – the crusade of the Kings (1189-1192) – was not much of a success. Emperor Frederic drowned in a river in Asia Minor; Richard and Philip got into a quarrel; Richard’s ships found themselves in stormy weather. Even so, Richard managed to conquer Akko. From there, he tried to march on to Jerusalem but did not make it. Shortly before his return to England, where his younger brother John Lackland plotted a revolt against him, he succeeded in coming to a truce with Saladin. In it, Saladin pledged that for a period of three years the Christians were allowed to travel to the Holy Sepulchre as pilgrims, in small groups and unarmed. Next to the liberation of Akko, this was the meagre result of the grandly designed crusade of the kings.¹

At that time, Francis was a growing boy, six to ten years old. We do not know whether these events had any impact on him. We also have no sources to tell us about his immediate reactions to this traumatic experience, which for centuries to come would have a profound influence on the decisions and actions of Popes and other Church leaders. What we do know is that he went to a school, next to the church of Saint George. There he learned the basic principles of arithmetic and writing, as well as Latin, from the psalms – enough to enable him later to write letters and other Latin texts by himself. He must have spoken about the crusade with his schoolmates and other friends. From the region of Assisi, too, knights had gone to the Holy Land as crusaders. Moreover, the thoughts of the crusades were kept alive by the wandering minstrels who in the popular ‘Song of Roland’ sang of the heroic exploits of Charlemagne and his loyal men in their valiant battles against the Muslims in Spain. Was it at that time that Francis began to think of becoming a knight? If so, it went no further than a fleeting boy’s dream. For in the end, during the fifth crusade, Francis landed at the Sultan’s court not as a crusader but as an ambassador of peace. The clarion call of the Church to recapture Jerusalem and to rescue the relic of the holy cross from hostile and sacrilegious Muslim hands had sounded again and again. And yet Francis, who very consciously wanted to be a man of the Church, opted for a fundamentally different path. The attitude of the Church authorities continued to be defined by enemy-thinking. It held them captive in a one-sided war rhetoric against the Muslims. Francis succeeded in setting himself free from this, and in dealing with the traumatic experience constructively. How did he arrive