Summary: In the matter of relations between Christianity and Islam, the position of the Franciscans of the Holy Land, although not without a general basic orientation, appears to have followed, in its details, a far from univocal - though never contradictory - direction. The diversity of identifiable approaches emerges as due to differences of a temporal, geographic, cultural, political, institutional kind. In other words, with regard to the different judgements expressed by individuals or groups, the decisive factors can be traced both to the various institutional roles of the witnesses (superiors, missionaries, preachers, polemicists) and to the respective socio-cultural and geographic contexts. When reflecting on each specific situation, the question arises spontaneously: What kind of Christianity and what kind of Islam is involved when treating of the attitude of the Franciscans to the Islam of the Late Ottoman Empire (the title of this article)?