A translator can reduce prejudice against a religion while privately sharing it

Evidence

Naturally, his remarks belong to the context in which he wrote, and to the ideas that he and his contemporaries inherited. A Muslim who reads him is far from gratified by what appears to be prejudice against Islam; but such a reader does not realise the extent to which Sale reduced that same prejudice, and made Islamic sources of information available, even when he himself shared the traditional Christian view. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1703

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A genuinely subtle point: intellectual fairness (translating enemies accurately) is separable from goodwill toward them. Sale’s accuracy reduced prejudice not because he was a friend to Islam but because accuracy is corrosive to caricature. Worth sitting with.