Francis and the Sultan

A few days after I wrote about my visiting the Umbria area of Italy, I was surprised to find this story among my e-mails this morning which I would like to share with you. This is one of the reasons that I hold Francis of Assissi in such high esteem. I think if he walked the earth today as he did then, he would be locked up. He definitely looked like a homeless person in appearance, wearing only a sackcloth. The poverello, which means little poor one, was truly a great man.

Francis of Assisi was sorely troubled. A great army of his Christian countrymen had come to Egypt to fight the Mohammedans. They were on a crusade to win the Holy Land from the Turks. They were killing many people. Francis saw people starving; he saw little children dying. It was not right. What could he do to stop the terrible massacre?

Francis decided to go to Cardinal Pelagius, the Christian commander of the army.

“Please, Lord Cardinal,” he said, “stop the fighting. People are starving. People are dying without even having heard that Jesus loves them. And they are dying because of us Christians.”

But Cardinal Pelagius would not listen. “We are killing these people for a good reason,” he said. “We must conquer them so the church will be powerful. When the church is strong it will be able to conquer evil.”

“The Lord Jesus did not ask us to strive for worldly power,” replied Francis. “God uses the weak, not the powerful.”

“Ridiculous!” cried Cardinal Pelagius angrily. He dismissed the poor man from Assisi without a further word.

Since the Christian commander would not listen to him, Francis decided to go to the enemy commander, the great Muslim Sultan Al-Kamil, to plead for peace. The Sultan was a cruel man. He had vowed that no Christian would ever leave his presence alive. But Francis was not afraid of him. Death would of course only bring him into the presence of his Lord.

Calmly Francis started out one morning walking toward the enemy camp.

The Sultan’s soldiers did not take Francis seriously. He looked so small and so poor and unimportant in his threadbare cloak that they let him pass. When Francis smiled at them and asked, “Cairo? Al-Kamil? Soldan?” they just laughed and showed him the way to the Sultan’s palace.

Just as Francis neared the gates of the palace, the Sultan, bedecked with jewels and followed by his retinue and crowds of people, came galloping down the road.

“Soldan! Soldan!” shouted Francis to attract his attention.

The foreign pronunciation of the word Sultan caught Al-Kamil’s attention. As a ruler he had learned to speak Latin. He pulled his horse to an abrupt halt and looked at Francis with his piercing black eyes.

“Did you come from the Christian camp?” asked Al-Kamil.

“Yes, yes, I did,” said Francis, smiling happily.

“I knew it!” cried the Sultan. He turned to his guards. “This fellow is a Christian!”

The guards, with daggers between their teeth, leaped upon Francis.

“Stop!” said the Sultan. “Don’t kill him just yet. Bring him into the palace. I want to find out first what brought him here.”

Soon Francis sat on the floor in front of the great Sultan.

“So!” exclaimed Al-Kamil, “did they send you over here to kill me?”

“Oh, no,” said Francis. “No one sent me. I just came myself to ask you to end the war. Our commander won’t listen to me, so I came to you.”

The Sultan couldn’t believe his ears. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before.

“What is your name, and where do you come from?” he asked.

“My name is Francis, and I came from the town of Assisi in Italy,” answered Francis.

“Well, Francis of Assisi, what do you want me to do?” asked the Sultan, amused. “Should I hand Egypt over to the enemy and let my people starve?”

“No,” said Francis earnestly. “Egypt belongs to you. But you must do something else that would put an end to the war.”

“What is that?” asked the Sultan.

“You must become a Christian,” said Francis simply.

The Sultan broke into a gale of laughter. “Become a Christian!” he howled. “You know I will torture you, don’t you? Aren’t you afraid to suffer?”

“Our Lord suffered for us. Why should I not suffer for him?” said Francis.

“Your God suffered?” asked the Sultan, surprised.

“Yes, he suffered more than we can understand. He laid down his life for us. That is why we love him so much.”

“Fair enough,” said the Sultan, “but why should I love him when he did nothing for me?”

“Oh, but he did it for you, too,” cried Francis. “He loves you. He knows you. You are his beloved child.”

Giotto, "St. Francis and the Sultan" (detail)

Francis spoke with such conviction that the Sultan became thoughtful. “What does your God require you to do?” he asked.

“Nothing, except that we love him,” said Francis. “He wants us also to love everyone and share what we have with others.”

“Ah,” said the Sultan. “A long time ago we had a teacher in our midst who spoke about your faith as you do. But we have never found Christians to be like that. Christians are untruthful and cruel. They fight among themselves like wild animals. The stories about your faith are not true.”

“Unfortunately there are evil Christians,” said Francis. “Human nature is weak. But God’s mercy has no limits. Through him the most wicked can become holy. That is not possible anywhere except in Christianity.”

The Sultan sighed. “You may go now,” he said. “I will not kill you. Indeed, I will even reward you for the interesting conversation I have had with you. Take all the gold you can carry.”

“Gold!” exclaimed Francis, horrified. “I don’t need gold.”

“Well,” said the Sultan, “that is the first time I have ever seen a Christian who does not want gold! What do you want then?”

“I would very much like to visit the Holy Land where our Lord lived when he was here on earth,” said Francis. “Would you allow me to do so?”

A crafty look came into the Sultan’s eyes. “Yes,” he said. “I will even send a slave with you to take you as far as our borders. Remember, however, the slave belongs to me and you must send him back.”

Francis nodded. “I will send him back,” he said.

The Sultan turned to one of his guards. “Have one of the Christian slaves brought,” he said. “He shall accompany this man to our border.”

“But the slave will escape!” gasped the guard.

“Do as I tell you,” shouted the Sultan. “We will see,” he said to himself, “whether this Christian can be trusted. We will see whether he will send the slave back.”

Francis and the Christian left the palace of the Sultan together.

On many days the great Sultan Al-Kamil, with a wistful look in his eyes, asked his servants, “Has the slave that I sent with the Christian Francis of Assisi returned?”

“No, not yet, O great Ruler.”

The Sultan stared out of the window. “I thought this man was different from the rest. I thought he was a real Christian. But I was wrong. They are all alike. All are false. All are untruthful. There is no such a person as a true Christian.”

Just then a guard came in, bowing low. “Oh, great Ruler, I just want to report to you that the slave has returned,” he said.

“Ah,” said the Sultan. “So Francis of Assisi kept his word after all. Good! You may go.”

Some time later, the Christian army was defeated. The commander, Cardinal Pelagius, who had hoped to make the church powerful, now stood in bitter humiliation before the Sultan, Al-Kamil. “Let our twelve thousand men go home,” he begged.

“Listen to me,” said the Sultan. “I vowed that not one of you Christians should remain alive. I would kill you all. Nothing you could say would have changed my mind. But some time ago a man by the name of Francis of Assisi came to me from your camp. I think highly of him.”

Cardinal Pelagius looked up, startled. He vaguely remembered that foolish little man.

“He is the one and only man whose deeds showed me that the words about your faith are true,” continued the Sultan. “For his sake, and for his sake alone, mind you, I will spare your lives. You may all go—you, as well as all my Christian slaves. I want Francis of Assisi to remember me well.”


From “Blessed Are The Meek” by Zofia Kossak, transl. Rulka Langer (New York: Roy, 1944).

This was reprinted from www.bruderhof.com