Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 261

Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 261

This report is available at http://www.s-gabriel.org/261

Some of the Academy's early reports contain errors that we haven't yet corrected. Please use it with caution.

Greetings,

Here's the information we found on the name "Malik al-Shaizari ibn Nigel," which you wanted to use for a Welsh-Arabic persona.

Because your name is closely related to your persona story, we're going to go rather far afield. We're going to touch on a number of historical issues, but we're not experts on the history of the Crusades. If we say "we don't think this happened" and you have an example of it, please tell us--it will help us determine what naming practices would have been used and also teach us more history!

We're going to talk about each section of your persona story, and its implication for your name and arms. Then we'll finish with a discussion of possible options.

The first part of your persona story sounds possible based on our knowledge of the Crusades. King Richard attempted to form a marital alliance between the Crusaders and the family of Saladin, and there were alliances between Christian and Muslim leaders (marriage, of course, was a common way to seal an alliance). It is not inconcievable that a Muslim woman could have converted to Christianity, although it's not all that likely that an Emir would have gotten sufficient advantage in marrying his daughter to a knight to make it worthwhile.

As a Christian convert living in a Crusader kingdom, she would have given your persona a Christian name. You would have inherited your father's arms and used them.

The second part of your persona story seems highly unlikely to us. Apostasy is one of the most serious crimes in Islamic law, and we very much doubt that a Christian noble with an apostate mother would have been taken in and trained; it's more likely that your persona would have been killed or ransomed. Unless you know of a historical incident similar to your persona story, we would say that the second part of the story is extremely improbable.

As far as we know, it's equally unlikely that a former Muslim (especially one who had been baptised a Christian and left their faith) would have been accepted as a Templar, since the Templars were a religious order. Although the Turcopoles were Arabs, they were generally Arab Christians (there were, and still are, a number of Christian groups which survived the onset of Islam), not actually Muslims.

We see a couple of options for developing a historical persona:

You could keep the first and last parts of your persona story, and develop the persona of a Templar from a Crusader kingdom with a Saracean mother. If you did this your persona would have a Christian name and armory.

You could keep the name "Malik al-Shaizari" (which is a historically correct Arabic name) and develop a Arab persona around this persona. It's not impossible that your persona could have had some Crusader ancestor-- however, it's not likely that the name of that ancestor would have been used in their name. A more likely name might be "al-Ferengi" or "the Frank." You could even make your ancestors Arab Christians, although we're not sure how this would affect the political position of your persona's family. An Arab persona would have armory done in an Islamic style.

There is a great deal of evidence which shows that the kind of combined name or armory you're envisioning just didn't exist. Even in Andalusia, where Christians were treated with significant tolerance, the native Spanish Christians kept their own names and for centuries after conquest. In the time of the Crusades when two cultures were battling, it wouldn't have been possible for a person to be half-Crusader and half- Saracean. The situation of Arab Christians would be a little more ambiguous, since they shared a language, but not a religion, with the Arab Muslims. But even Arab Christians would probably not have mixed smoothly with the Crusaders; the Christianity of Western Europe and the Middle East had been seperated for quite some time, and Christian sects were capable of just as much animosity as Christians and Muslims.

We can recommend some books which you may find useful:

Tangwystl verch Morgant Glasvryn, Arval D'Espas Nord, Pedro de Alcazar, and Da'ud ibn Auda contributed to this letter.

In our opinion, your best bet is to choose a culture and base your name and armory around that. Your persona story could be used to develop a number of interesting personae and we are looking forward to hearing where you want to go from here, and continuing to work with you on developing a name and arms.

In service,
Alan Fairfax
Academy of S. Gabriel