A Spiritual Reaction to Islamic Prosperity: The Power of Sorrow in Riccoldo da Monte di Croce’s Letters to the Triumphant Church

Riccoldo da Monte di Croce, a Dominican friar, embarked on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1288 and spent years as a missionary in Muslim Baghdad, learning Arabic and studying the Qur’an. After returning to Florence, he wrote extensively about non-Christian peoples.