Our Lady of Lourdes has a Muslim connection

Several years ago, during a pilgrimage to the famous shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France I found a brochure in a hotel lobby. Written in French it describes the meaning of the coat of arms which is actually the history of the city.

I’m not sure if my recollection of the content and its translation into English are correct.

The coat of arms shows a castle with a bird on the top of a tower. It is narrated that once the Saracens, a group of Muslim invaders, were engaged in a battle with a Christian king and his troops somewhere in the North of France. The Christian army was holding their brave defense inside a castle. The surrounding areas were already occupied by the Muslims from where they staged their attacks.

One day the attacks stopped to the great surprise of the castle defenders. They thought the Saracens were just resting. Actually the Muslims ran out of food.

Then another surprise: a big bird flew in and alighted on top of the castle tower. It carried a note from the Saracen chief proposing a truce, not surrender, in exchange for food.

The Christian king agreed on condition that the Muslims come to the castle and get their food after paying homage to the Blessed Virgin Mary who was called Mariam and held in high esteem in the Qur’an. The Muslims accepted and were welcomed into the castle.

To make the story short, the Saracen chief was so attached to Mariam that he decided to be baptized a Christian. He changed his Arabic name (I can only recall that it begins with the letter M) to Lorus as his baptismal name.

Again to make the story short, the place came to be known later as Lourdes. Here in 1858 the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to a peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous and came to be known as Our Lady of Lourdes.

There is nothing in Wikipedia on this legend except to say that Saracen is a medieval word for Muslim.