Arabic-trained missionaries failed to convert many Muslims in the thirteenth century

Evidence

Over the course of the century, five major Crusades are undertaken, and scores of Franciscan and Dominican missionaries, many of them trained in Arabic, ventured to Muslim lands in Spain, North Africa, and the Levant. Yet by the end of the century these hopes were dashed. Crusade after Crusade failed, and the missionaries found that their exemplar piety and theological subtlety were not able to convince many Muslims to convert. In 1291 the Mamluk sultan al-Ashraf Khalîl took Acre, the last crusader outpost on the mainland, and in 1295 the Mongol Il- Khanid khan Ghazan converted to Islam, ending the (rather unrealistic) Christian hopes that he would convert to Christianity. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1092

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

Related

• By 1291 crusading and missionary conversion efforts had comprehensively failed (similarity 0.94)
• Medieval missions succeeded only where Christian political power held sway (similarity 0.81)
• Thirteenth-century Christianity repeatedly fantasized mass Muslim conversions that never happened (similarity 0.81)
• Failed missions were blamed on infidels’ irrationality (similarity 0.80)
• A series of dashed apocalyptic hopes left thirteenth-century crusade ideology bleak (similarity 0.79)
• Thirteenth-century Muslims proved impervious to both Christian arms and missionaries (similarity 0.79)
• Medieval Europeans pursued Mongol alliances against Islam until Mongol conversion dashed those hopes (similarity 0.79)
• Thirteenth-century Franciscan missionary energy targeted Mongols and China more than Muslims (similarity 0.79)
• Missionary failure was blamed on the irrationality of the infidels themselves. (similarity 0.79)
• Forced converts who retained Arabic could not be instructed without Arabic-speaking clergy (similarity 0.78)