“In the name of the minorities: Lisbon’s Muslims as emissaries from the King of Portugal to the Sultan of Egypt”, in Mamluk Cairo, A Crossroads for Embassies: Studies on Diplomacy and Diplomatics, ed. Frédéric Bauden e Maliha Dekkiche, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2019, pp. 711 – 724.

Abstract

In April 1454 (858 H), the Muslims of Lisbon sent a letter to the Mamluk sultan Īnāl (857/1453-865/1461) with the purpose of interceding on behalf of the Christians of Jerusalem. Allegedly, they had been forced to do so by Afonso V, king of Portugal, on pain of suffering violence to their religious freedom. They argued that the restrictive measures endured by the Christian minority in that sacred city would be returned, and even stepped up. This discourse, which naturally assumes a rhetorical and demagogic tone, takes the issue into the psychological ground, in the hope of influencing the response to their appeal. Aside from its immediate and explicit content, however, this letter expresses above all a political agenda in which minorities on both sides of the Mediterranean play a significant part. The two Muslims from Lisbon, Abū al-‘Abbās b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Ru‘aynī and Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Wandājī, charged with carrying the letter and presenting it to the sultan, exemplify those mediators who, throughout the Middle Ages, circulate between the Western and Eastern extremes of the Mediterranean.