Rabban Bar Sauma

Rabban Bar Sauma ( Bar Sauma, Syriac: ܒ ܪ ܨ ܘ ܡ ܐ, * ca 1220 in Beijing, † January 1294 in Baghdad ) was a Nestorian monk and diplomat.

Bar Sauma was born into a wealthy family Nestorian in Beijing. After Gregorius Bar - Hebraeus he was Uighur descent, according to Chinese sources, he belonged to the Turkic group of Onguden. Some Turkic peoples had joined the Mongols and were part of the ruling class of the Mongol Yuan dynasty in China. At age 23, he became a monk and gained reputation as an anchorite and teacher.

1275/76, he joined with his students, Rabban Markos ( 1245-1317 ) with the approval of Kublai Khan a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Due to fighting in Syria, they had to cancel the trip to Armenia. They went to the Catholicos - Patriarch Mār Denha in Baghdad, proclaimed the Markos as Metropolitan of China. After the death of Patriarch in 1281 his pupil Markos was elected to succeed him. He took the name Mār Yahballaha III. on ( 1281-1317 ). Bar Sauma was archdeacon and the Patriarch sent him to the court of ilKhan Abaqa. When the Ilkhan Arghun wanted to send a delegation to Europe to deliver the rulers of the West an alliance against the Mamluks, the patriarch told him his old teacher.

1287 he traveled first to Byzantium emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos. In Rome, the Holy See was vacant, so he traveled on to Western Europe. In Paris he negotiated in September 1287 with King Philip the Fair and in Bordeaux, he met with the English king Edward I. On Palm Sunday, 1288, he received communion by the newly elected Pope Nicholas IV The Vatican was delighted with his reports on the prevalence of Christianity in Asia and that several women of the Mongol rulers were Christians. His effort to form an alliance with the Christian rulers, however, was not successful. The conquest of Acre by the Mamluks in 1291 ended the era of the Crusades.

After his return, he settled in the residence of Ilkhans in Maragha and built a church.

Bar Ṣaumās journey is not as well known as the approximately contemporaneous Marco Polo's travels in the reverse direction. His detailed diary in Persian, is the only non-European source through Europe in the final stage of the Crusades.