Medieval Christian leaders sometimes welcomed Muslim rulers taking Christian wives.

Evidence

Thus Vitry spoke of the way Christian wives were accepted by Muslim princes, and of the toleration that was generally extended to Christians by the offspring of such marriages; even when allowance is made for the less savage age in which Vitry lived, his attitude seems more realistic than Ricoldo’s somewhat fanciful view of persecutors sprung from the former nuns. Tripoli also was pleased rather than otherwise that the sultan should have a Christian wife. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 741

Categorization

• XREF: The toleration of cross-faith marriages by Muslim princes echoes the immodesty/moral-panic article’s theme of how religious-identity anxieties do not always translate into uniform intolerance — here a pragmatic acceptance prevailed.