Living the Journey: Making Peace: St. Francis and the Sultan

painting by Giotto "Trial by Fire"

Story: St. Francis and the Sultan [i]

This is a true story, from long ago.

If you have ever heard of St. Francis, maybe you have heard that St. Francis loved peace. But maybe you didn’t know that Francis of Assisi was a veteran. When he was around 19 or 20 he went to fight the neighboring city of Perugia, and was captured and was a prisoner of war for a year!

That experience of war, and his imprisonment changed him. This traumatic experience made him question his life, and started his quest for meaning that set him on a holy path.

Now this time 800years ago was the time of the crusades, when the pope was sending soldiers to the middle east to reclaim Jerusalem for Christianity. In 1217 the 5th crusade began, and at this time Francis was in his 30s, this was after Francis had started his Franciscan order, those brothers who lived together simply, taking a vow of poverty and praying together.

We don’t know what inspired Francis, Some say Francis was moved by the treatment he saw of Jewish and Muslim people that got nasty as the war rhetoric turned violent against non-Christians, but Francis decided he wanted to do something to help spread god’s peace, and he wanted to do it the way Jesus might have done it. He decided if he could just go to Egypt and talk to the enemies, he could convert them to Christianity and end the war. He asked for permission from his Cardinal (Ugolino) to go, and off he went with brother Illuminato.

One of the amazing things about this journey is that the Franciscan brothers had promised never to ride a horse, or to carry a backpack or a purse. So Francis and Illuminato would have had to walk all the way to where the boats were that sailed to Damietta in Egypt.

Cardinal Pelagius is in charge of the siege there. The plan is if they can conquer Damietta at the mouth of the Nile, they can have a clear path to Jerusalem. The Crusaders are roundly defeated in battle. The sultan offers a fair peace treaty, which would give the Christians access to their holy sites. This cardinal is actually very strongly in favor of the war, and when Francis and Illuminato show up asking to try to bring peace, at first he is not excited about letting Francis go, but he knows, and Francis knows, that walking across enemy lines to talk to the enemy is dangerous, especially since people have been saying what people always say about their enemy- that they are non believers, that they are not really humans, that they are cruel beasts[ii]. Both The cardinal and Francis know that if he goes, he might be killed, but Francis is a very devout man, willing to lay down his life for peace, and for God, so the Cardinal lets him go.

Sure enough Francis is arrested by the guards, and some say beaten. But he is brought before Sultan Malik al-Kamil.

Now what the usual retellings of this story don’t mention, is that the sultan was a wise man, a devout man. So when Francis comes before him asking that the Sultan and his followers to convert to Christianity, the Sultan declines, but does invite Francs to stay for a couple of weeks. It seems that both men are affected by the visit. Francis watches these devout men pray 5 times a day, sees they are not monsters, but people.

When Francis returns to cardinal Pelagius, the cardinal is unmoved by what Francis has learned. He still refuses the treaty. Like some people in our own time he wants to see the enemy destroyed utterly. The city of Damietta, a city of 80,000 people eventually succumb to disease and starvation, the Sultan is forced to retreat. Only a handful of people from that city survive.

Now the Crusaders march on to Cairo. They see an easy path to the city, but what they don’t know, not being from around there, is that this is the flood bed of the Nile. The sultan cleverly releases the drainage channels, and suddenly the crusaders are marching in mud, and camping in mud. They are bogged down, and disease and hunger begin to set in. Now I wonder, what would you do, if the enemy who had caused the death of a whole city, of 80000 people, that same army was totally exposed, and might die just as those innocent civilians had died of disease and starvation?...Well the sultan, despite his generals encouraging him to strike now while the enemy was desperate and vulnerable, ordered thousands of bushels of bread for the soldiers, and [barley] for the horses delivered to his enemy each day.

The crusading army’s hearts were changed, and they turned and went home. This was the moment the ended the 5th crusade.

The sultan continued to rule for another 20 years, and all that time had fair policies for Christians and the Christian holy sites in his land.

So this is the story of 2 wise, brave people who stood up for peace, Francis of Assisi who traveled all the way to Egypt at peril of his own life to share Jesus’s teachings of peace, and the Sultan who ended the 5th crusade with lifesaving generosity and mercy for his enemy.

Reflection
In the basilica St. Francis in Assisi, walls are covered with huge frescoes telling the life story of St. Francis. There is one fresco that tells the story of Francis’ trip to the sultan. The traditional story, [the version I offer here is from Timothy Verdon The story of St. Francis of Assisi in 28 Scenes] begins like the one I told you before, that Francis traveled to Egypt to convert the Muslims, knowing he risked his own life, and Sultan Melek-al Kame “listened to him willingly and strongly urged him to remain with him, but hesitated to accept Francis’s invitation to be converted with all his subjects.” The painting of this meeting with the sultan centers on a version of the story told by Bonaventure in the 1260s. In this version:

“Francis then asked him to have a fire lit, ‘the biggest possible’ saying: I together with your priests will enter the fire, and in that way at least seeing the evidence you will be able to recognize which faith should be considered most certain and most holy’ but the sultan replied, ‘I do not believe that any of my priests has the desire to expose himself to the fire, and face torture to defend his faith.’ And Bonaventure adds “that the sultan in fact ‘had seen one of his priests, famous and of an advanced age, disappear as soon as heard the words of the challenge.’ At that point Francis offered to enter the fire alone if the sultan promised to convert should the saint emerged unharmed.” [p. 32-33]

This is the moment captured in Giotto’s painting. This is the version of the story we would know if we grew up going to church with paintings of that tale.

It is only in recent decades, as Christian historians and scholars have entered into dialogue with Muslim historians and scholars, that we begin to understand the story has 2 sides.

Verdan tells us “in this fresco, Giotto splits the composition from top to bottom, with the sultan and his court on the right and Francis on the left. At the root of the insurmountable distance between these two worlds is … money because while Francis is prepared to give his life, the sultan offers only “many precious gifts”

But Paul Moses, a Pulitzer prize winning journalist and now professor of journalism, in his 2009 book “The Saint and the Sultan[i]” (made into a movie “the sultan and the saint[ii]” a few years later) brought to a western audience a fuller story- that the sultan himself was a devout man, a wise man and because of that, spared Francis’s life, though it was not a popular decision. Says Dr. Todd m. Johnson

Professor of global Christianity and mission “He was the same age as Francis and was known as a mystic, a man of culture, and a lover of religious poetry. He studied medicine and surrounded himself with scholars—astronomers, doctors, and Sufis—whom he frequently consulted.” The sultan entered into this encounter with Francis, and ultimately it was through the sultan’s generosity and mercy that the 5th crusade came to an end. The Muslim scholars knew about the sultan [Malik al-Kamil] but we never thought to ask. Christians of that time could only imagine him as a monstrous enemy, miraculously tamed by Brother Francis.

Isn’t it funny how we can be so oblivious sometimes about the other perspectives in a story we think we know?

Another thing the old stories don’t tell us is that Francis himself was changed by his meeting. Modern scholars look at a famous prayer that he wrote on retreat at La Verna, I’ll share just a portion of that:

You alone are holy, Lord, the only God;
and Your deeds are wonderful.
You are strong. You are great.
You are the Most High…

You are love. You are wisdom.
You are humility. You are patience…

You are joy and gladness.
You are justice and moderation.
You are all our riches. You are enough for us.

You are beauty. You are gentleness.
You are our protector. You are our courage.
You are our guardian and defender.
You are our haven and our hope…[iii]

In Islam, learning and meditating on the 100 names of god is a traditional spiritual practice. Notice now much Francis’s praises are similar to the Muslim 100 names of god, here is just a bit of that, see if you notice Francis’s inspiration.

“He is Allah (God), the Creator, the Originator. The Fashioner; to Him belong the most beautiful names: whatever is in the heavens and on earth, do declare His praises and Glory. And He is the Exalted in Might, The Wise. (Quran 59:24)

Here are a few of those 100 names:

· The Most Gracious
· The Most Merciful
· The King, The Sovereign
· The Most Holy
· The Peace and Blessing
· The Guardian, The Preserver
· The Utterly Just
· The Subtly Kind
· The Strong
· The Wise
· the Defender
· The Loving, The Kind One
· The Patient, The Timeless [iv] Scholars suggest the devotion practices of the Muslims he met inspired his own writing, his own practice.

Scholars also note that when Francis wrote his “order” for the Franciscans, in chapter 16 it specifically mentions guidelines for being among non-believers, which was a radical idea at the time:

“therefore any brother who, by divine inspiration, desires to go among the Saracens [Saracen is an old timely word for people who lived in Arabia] and other nonbelievers should go with the permission of his minister… as for the brothers who go, they can live spiritually among [ the Saracens and nonbelievers] in two ways. One way is not to engage in arguments or disputes, but to be subject to every human creature for God’s sake…” the other is “to proclaim the word of God when they see that it pleases the lord, so they may believe…” [v]

This is what Francis himself had done; many accounts tell that the reason Francis was admitted to the sultan’s presence, and able to remain was in part because he was respectful and didn’t disparage their faith, did not argue or dispute.

And this I think is the core of my message to us today. We live in times when sides are entrenched – one side against one another, and violence is increasingly common way to interact with folks “on the other side” folks who are “non believers” in what you may hold dear. This story of Francis and the sultan might be a touchstone for us. Perhaps we might feel called to go among folks who believe differently than us. The story shows us that there is a sacred something that can happen when 2 or more people willingly come together to meet without argument or dispute. There may be times ahead when we may summon the bravery to try to bring peace to places that seem dangerous to us, to be inspired be the example of Francis. Or perhaps we may be inspired by the example of the Sultan, who received Francis, and be open to the surprise that someone from the enemy camp may have wisdom, compassion and mercy, may be looking for a way to reduce suffering, to stop the warring. Not everyone is called to that path, but we who stand in the Universalist tradition may find ourselves to be so called.

Consider also the scholars and journalists who finally after many centuries came together with their incomplete pieces of the story, to make a deeper, more complex understanding of that famous moment 800 years ago. Perhaps there are stories we need to hear from people we haven’t thought to ask.

“Why did Francis undertake such risk?” asks professor Johnson
Remarkably, this encounter was rooted in Francis’ vision of universal human fraternity, what we might call today the imago Dei—the fact that every human is made in the image of God and therefore worthy of honor and respect.”[vi]

That sounds a lot like what we Universalists believe. We believe that there are not 2 kinds of people, good and evil, saved and damned, but just imperfect human people who sometimes do good things and sometimes do bad things. And often get caught up in oppressive systems that do great harm. And so we covenant to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person[vii].

Our divided world needs our Universalist faith, May we be inspired to bravely seek out and nurture sacred connection between beings. And perhaps the story of St. Francis and the sultan will help us stay open to the possibility that out there among the “non believers” could be a St. Francis, A sultan Malik al-Kamil who could transform our own hearts and help us create peace.