A question regarding Europe and Islam.

Shihab al-Din al-Nuwayri, court historian and scholar of the Mamluk sultanate of Cairo, reported in 1327:

"In this year, 727 AH(1327), envoys visited the sultan on behalf of the Papacy, who occupies the position of Lord (to his religious authority) of the Franks. They had an audience with the Sultan and presented the gifts that they had brought. The message of their letter, was a request that the Sultan make clear his decree regarding the Christians of the empire. They mentioned that there were many Muslims in the lands of the Franks, and if the Sultan treated the non Muslims well in his own kingdom, the Franks would accordingly treat the Muslims well. The Sultan listened to their letter, accepted their gifts, treated them with kindness, and sent them back to their sovereign."

-Shihab al-Din al-Nuwayri, eye witness in the Mamluk court.

My question, is, what Muslim community was the envoys referring too? Perhaps in Iberia or Sicily? If it was the latter, the Muslim had already held distinguished roles in the Christian courts of Sicily, so I am not sure about that particular case.

Also, is there an account either from the court of France (Philipe IV, whose envoys accompanied the Pope's) or the Papacy or any other group to affirm this account? I cannot imagine him lying about this, yes, he was wrong and fantastical in his accounts of things he had heard; yet, he was there on this occasion and did not give a testimony outside reality.

Thanks for any responses.
 
By 1327, the Muslim community on Sicily was on the decline. My guess would be Iberia. Daniel Konig mentions letters to Muslim rulers in Arabic-Islamic Views of the Latin West, and the Pope did send Dominicans and Franciscans to Latin rulers. So this doesn't surprise me, if it happened.
 
By 1327, the Muslim community on Sicily was on the decline. My guess would be Iberia. Daniel Konig mentions letters to Muslim rulers in Arabic-Islamic Views of the Latin West, and the Pope did send Dominicans and Franciscans to Latin rulers. So this doesn't surprise me, if it happened.

Thank you.

What makes this interesting, is considering the rest of al-Nuwayri's writing, it would seem Nasr ad-Din Muhammad rejected or at least cared little for the proposition.
 
Not at all an expert on the subject, but I'd guess Spain (Las Navas de Tolosa and the resulting conquest of most of Andalusia was essentially a century in the past at this point) would be the main concentration.

There would also be occasional Muslim travelers/traders/slaves, especially in the Mediterranean (where both sides were happily committing piracy against each other whenever they got the chance).

I'd also note that this is in the middle of the Avignon Papacy, and papal attention was mostly centered on the then-ongoing civil war within the Holy Roman Empire (which the Pope's preferred candidate was in the process of losing), so any envoy would probably have been sent mostly as a propaganda measure anyway, in which case exaggerating the number of Muslims under Christian rule (and by implication, placing them under the protection of the Papacy) would make sense.
 
Not at all an expert on the subject, but I'd guess Spain (Las Navas de Tolosa and the resulting conquest of most of Andalusia was essentially a century in the past at this point) would be the main concentration.

There would also be occasional Muslim travelers/traders/slaves, especially in the Mediterranean (where both sides were happily committing piracy against each other whenever they got the chance).

I'd also note that this is in the middle of the Avignon Papacy, and papal attention was mostly centered on the then-ongoing civil war within the Holy Roman Empire (which the Pope's preferred candidate was in the process of losing), so any envoy would probably have been sent mostly as a propaganda measure anyway, in which case exaggerating the number of Muslims under Christian rule (and by implication, placing them under the protection of the Papacy) would make sense.

Interesting. Al-Nuwayri did not seemingly know of this inner conflict in the Catholic Church, which he saw, simply as Christianity. Mind you, al-Nuwayri gives us a fairly detailed description of the lands of Islam of the time and a brief history of the Abbasid, Mamluk and Mongol states till his time.
 
Interesting. Al-Nuwayri did not seemingly know of this inner conflict in the Catholic Church, which he saw, simply as Christianity. Mind you, al-Nuwayri gives us a fairly detailed description of the lands of Islam of the time and a brief history of the Abbasid, Mamluk and Mongol states till his time.
I suspect Papal knowledge of the inner workings of the Mamluk state was similarly vague:).
 
I concur with the posters above that Iberia seems the only area where seizable Muslim populations were at the time under Christian rule.

There were in fact no more Muslims in Sicily the island (apart from slaves and some traders) since Emperor Frederick II had deported them all to the mainland in the 1220's to put an end to their revolts (most notably Mirabetto's), which had become a big nuisance since the end of the Altavilla dinasty and the years of almost anafchy that followed it during Frederick's minority, breaking the pact of submission and reciprocal guarantees that had been in place before (think of it as a reverse dhimmi status).

The Sicilian Muslims had however formed an important community in Apulia, where the city of Lucera had become an almost entirely Muslim center under imperial/royal protection. The Muslim "Saracens" of Lucera, casting aside their rebellious past and now surrounded by Christians had become staunch Hohenstaufen supporters and provided both Frederick and Manfred with numerous contingents of foot archers gor their wars against the Italian comuni, the Papacy and finally Charles d'Anjou.

After the Battle of Benevento (1266) they were initially let be, but revolted against Charles in support for Conradin's doomed attempt and their situation worsened after that. In the end the city was besieged, conquered and sacked in 1300 by order of Charles II, with its population either slaughtered or enslaved.

It is a quite interested wi to be explored how long they could have survived if the Hohenstaufen dinasty (which was quite Islamophile, although probably not to the extent that has sometimes been romanticised) had endured.

While in Sicily the community had been on the declone for a long time, with its elites emigrating towardd North Africa or (externally) converting for positions at court and the lands encroached upon by Lombard colonists I think that the more concentrated "island" of Lucera could have kept its Muslim character indefinitely, absent a violent event (whivh is unfortunately all to likely).

Sorry if I went overboard, but I have been researching the tipic for a TL. I recommend David Abulafia for informations on the situation of Muslims and Jews in Frederician Sicily.
 
Ah, Frederick II. Negotiated a bloodless reconquest of Jerusalem, arrived in Germany with elephants and a Muslim bodyguard, dreamed of being Roman Emperor in fact as well as in name.

He's like the Teddy Roosevelt of the Middle Ages. Overhyped, perhaps, but still bloody awesome.
 
also, IIRC "Franks" was kinda a catch-all for Europeans in Muslims sources, so linking it to France while understandable, is likely wrong
 
Ah, Frederick II. Negotiated a bloodless reconquest of Jerusalem, arrived in Germany with elephants and a Muslim bodyguard, dreamed of being Roman Emperor in fact as well as in name.

He's like the Teddy Roosevelt of the Middle Ages. Overhyped, perhaps, but still bloody awesome.

Frederick II ruled in the 1200s, al-Nuwayri witnessed this event himself, so it could not have been referring to the Rome in the West.
 
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