Medieval Christian writers could depict Muslim conquerors as tolerant and generous victors.

Evidence

‘Umar comes to Sophronios, the patriarch of Jerusalem, and asks to be shown a proper place to pray to God and give thanks for his granting victory to the Muslims. Sophronios takes him to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, but ‘Umar responds that he does not want to pray there. Sophronios then shows him the temple built by Constantine, but ‘Umar will not pray there either; instead, he “chose a simple place near the oratory of the Christians and prayed there.” Once he completed his prayer, he explains to the patriarch why he had not wanted to pray in the Christian holy places: … If I had prayed there, the Christians would have lost those places, which would have been made oratories of my people. I did not want this to happen, but preferred that the Saracens pray in the place where I prayed. I do not want the Saracens to gather and pray to the detriment of the Christians, nor do I want one group to pray after another in the same place, for there would be too many people gathered there. I henceforth confer to this holy city this liberty, that the Saracens may not build their mosque and oratory anywhere except in the place which you assign to them.” … ‘Umar here represents Muslim tolerance of and respect for Christianity; if the Muslims are at times foes of the Christians, they are reasonable, generous, God-fearing foes. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1054

Categorization

• XREF: Complicates the genealogical story in Anidjar/Aziz/Razack that medieval Christian anti-Muslim discourse was uniformly hostile — an early Christian-authored text (De statu) celebrates Umar’s religious tolerance.
• QUESTION: What made De statu unusually favorable — frontier contact, apocalyptic framing, or a particular polemical agenda against Frederick II?