Michael Calabria — The Sultan and St. Francis

The historic 1219 meeting between St. Francis of Assisi and Sultan Malik al-Kamil during the Fifth Crusade is a powerful (and often overlooked) example of peacemaking and respectful dialogue between Christians and Muslims. While most people only know Francis’s side of the story, the Sultan’s openness and courage were just as important. Their surprising friendship still offers a hopeful model today for bridging deep divisions, reducing polarization, and having real conversations across religious and cultural lines.

Fr. Michael Calabria is a Franciscan friar at the Province of Our Lady of Guadalupe and director of the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies at St. Bonaventure University. With more than 40 years of experience in the Middle East and Islamic world, he first fell in love with the region as an Egyptology student doing archaeological work in Egypt (BA Johns Hopkins, MA Brown). After working as an academic librarian in New York, he joined the Franciscan Order in 1996, later earning divinity degrees and a PhD in Islamic Studies from the University of Exeter in England. He has lived in Cairo multiple times, ministered in a leprosarium, and taught English at a Coptic Catholic seminary. Since 2003 he has taught Arabic and Islamic Studies at St. Bonaventure University, where he founded the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies. He is the author of the 2022 book The Language of the Taj Mahal, which explores the Qur’anic inscriptions on the monument, and has appeared in documentaries including The Sultan and the Saint (2016) and Islam’s Greatest Stories of Love (2025).

The show notes are available here.

(00:00:01) Introduction

(00:03:20) Historical Context

(00:09:37) Francis’ Arrival in Egypt and His Mission

(00:16:19) The Encounter with Sultan Malik al-Kamil

(00:23:20) Francis’ Counter-Cultural Approach

(00:27:15) The Sultan’s Impact on Francis

(00:31:29) Francis’ Legacy and Missionary Approach

(00:36:26) Bridging Faiths

(00:42:55) Lessons from History: Interfaith Dialogue and Vatican II

(00:45:12) This Story’s Relevance Today

(00:48:00) The Nature of Goodness: Understanding Faith Beyond Labels

(00:52:02) Religion, Conflict, and the Human Element

(00:56:03) The Enrichment of Faith: Learning from Other Traditions

(01:02:34) The Call to Open Hearts: Interfaith Dialogue in Action

(01:09:20) Conclusion