September 21, 2009

Article

Mission Improbable

St. Francis & the Sultan

Paul Moses

Late in the summer of 1219, Francis of Assisi crossed enemy lines during the Fifth Crusade, hoping that he could convert Egypt's Sultan Malik al-Kamil to Christianity. Francis, who had begun his ministry after recovering from the trauma of a horrific battlefield experience and imprisonment, hoped to end the violence of the Crusade by winning over the sultan. The medieval accoun (...)


 

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about the writer

Paul Moses, a professor of journalism at Brooklyn College/CUNY, is the author of The Saint and the Sultan: The Crusades, Islam and Francis of Assisi's Mission of Peace (Doubleday, 2009).

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