Medieval Dominicans were normally based in their home convents as fully integrated members of local social networks. Being members of an international preaching Order, however, Dominicans could also be expected to travel far and wide – even at times crossing over the divide between Christendom and the “Land of Islam” (Dar al-Islam). Their presence in the medieval Islamic world was never numerically impressive or especially visible to contemporaries, but it was a significant early phenomenon which has tended to strike later historians as yet another indication of the friars' commitment to proselytization among unbelievers. Dominicans, along with some Franciscans, are often assumed to have gone abroad to Muslim-dominated territories in the misguided yet idealistic hope of inspiring mass conversions by bringing “infidel” Saracens to see the error of their ways. Dismayed by sectarian differences at home, they were presumably equally if not more anxious to confront non-Christian religious beliefs in regions where these were most prevalent. For missionary-minded friars based in the Iberian peninsula, conscious of their close proximity to the Muslim emirates of al-Andalus and the Maghrib, this challenge would have been especially enticing.

The idea of zealous medieval friars braving all dangers to preach among non-Christian inhabitants of Islamic Spain and North Africa makes intuitive sense to modern minds, familiar with exotic tales of more recent European missionary-explorers and their travels throughout the colonized world.