Missionary failure led Riccoldo to blame Muslim irrationality despite admiring them

Evidence

Riccoldo shows the same kind of admiration for Muslim piety that is in the De statu Sarracenorum, yet Riccoldo is far more pessimistic about the chances of converting Muslims to Christianity. De statu was written at a time when Acre was still in Latin hands, and hopes were high that the Mongols would convert to Christianity. It was still possible to imagine the pious, intelligent Saracens seeing the light and peacefully converting to Christianity. Riccoldo has been disillusioned: Acre has fallen; the Mongols are turning to Islam; and his years of mission in the Orient have produced few converts. Though he frankly admires the Muslims’ learning, culture, piety, and hospitality, he shows little hope that they will convert peacefully. Their law will perish by the sword, but it seems unlikely that this will happen any time soon. In order to explain his own failures as a missionary (and the failures of others like him or better than him-for example, Dominic and Francis, whose missionary efforts he evokes in his Letters), he must blame the stubborn irrationality of the Saracens. Riccoldo profusely praises their learning and erudition, yet later claims they are prohibited from studying philosophy since the caliphs know it would disprove their 250 • Thirteenth-Century Dreams of Conquest and Conversion “irrational” religion. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1256

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A vivid pre-modern instance of a core psychological mechanism: the missionary who sincerely admires the other’s virtues yet must attribute their non-conversion to irrational stubbornness to preserve his own worldview — the exact cognitive dance that persists in modern interfaith and cross-cultural engagement.
• SEED: An essay angle on how sincere admiration and contempt can coexist — the psychology of ‘I respect them deeply and they are beyond reason’ — using Riccoldo as a case study.