Medieval missionaries could see instrumental value in an infidel only as a tool

Evidence

Lull, ever eccentric, was in general more practical than his actions sometimes suggest. His Life tells the unattractive story of the Muslim slave who for many years had taught him Arabic, and whom, when he one day blasphemed the Holy Name, Lull beat on the face and head and body. After years of being a language master, explained Lull, the slave had become haughty; then he tried to kill Lull and was put in prison. Lull was then torn between fear of his release and reluctance that he should be executed. He attributed this reluctance, not to human affection for his old companion, but to respect for the means by which he had learned the language in which he proposed to evangelise the world. It is to our mind appalling that he felt relieved from his dilemma by the slave’s suicide in prison. This unsympathetic story represents a general attitude; Islam could be tolerated only in silent subjection, the only final solution was its destruction. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 673

Categorization

• SHARE: The detail that Lull valued his slave as the means of learning Arabic, not as a person, and felt relieved by his suicide is a grim anecdote worth sending to a medievalist friend.
• CANDY: That a Christian mystic felt relieved when his Arabic-teacher slave killed himself because it resolved an ethical dilemma is a darkly memorable tidbit.