William Chester Jordan, The Apple of His Eye: Converts from Islam in the Reign of Louis IX. Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World. Princeton, NJ, and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2019, xiii, 177 pp.

Abstract

Throughout history, migrants have crossed borders and looked for a new home in new countries, which has always constituted problems, challenges, and difficulties. Some migrants come on their own volition, fleeing violence and persecutions in <?page nr="413"?>their home countries, others are invited in for economic, political or religious reasons. This phenomenon is not simply a modern one, but can also be identified in the Middle Ages. William Chester Jordan here offers a fascinating look into Muslim converts who were brought by the French King Louis IX from Acre to France and were settled in many different towns in northern France, that is, far away from the southern parts where there might have been the danger that the new converts might flee and return home again. After all, as the documentation illustrates impressively, for people of Arabic descent, who had lived their whole life in the eastern Mediterranean and were not used to the harsh climate, the different kind of food, and the at times probably hostile social environment. Having available this data could ultimately help us today to understand analogies to modern situations, and build direct bridges between the past events and modern conditions.