In addition, he was suspected of sympathising with the Christians, due to his Christian mother, his preference to dress in the Castilian manner, and his close ties with Ferdinand IV of Castile. Furthermore, the Sultan's vizier Muhammad ibn al-Hajj had grown up in Christian lands and spoke and dressed in the Castilian manner, adding to the dislike against the crown. A faction from court met with Abu Said and requested him to depose Nasr.[11][20] According to the Arabist scholar Antonio Fernández-Puertas, Abu Said was further outraged at the drowning of Muhammad III at the order of Nasr after a failed attempt to restore him to the throne,[11] but there are conflicting reports of when this assassination happened; other historians such as Francisco Vidal Castro considered the most likely date to be in February 1314, much after the start of the rebellion.[21]