In order to avoid the costs of a siege, Timur sent two envoys, the mirza Pir Muhammad and Sheikh Nur ed-Din, to the Knights commanding them to either convert to Islam or render him tribute (jizya).[3] The command was refused, although Buonaccurso Grimani, an ambassador from Crete to Grand Master Philibert de Naillac on Rhodes, records that the grand master sent an embassy to Timur.[6] According to the contemporary papal notary Dietrich of Nieheim, Smyrna would have been spared had Íñigo raised Timur's banner on the walls as he had been advised by a certain "Christian bishop", whom Dietrich does not name but who may have been Francis, bishop of Nakhchivan.[8]