Fantasizing about Islam historically preceded and enabled accurate observation of it
Evidence
It is certainly a striking fact that just as science and magic are in their origins indistinguishable, so imagination and observation seem to have some hidden affinity which makes the former promote the growth of the latter. Hence it is perhaps not surprising that the first accurate observations in the West about Islam as a religion were made by men who contributed largely to the imaginative literature of the period. I think at once of William of Malmesbury, whose histories display so avid an interest in marvels and magic, but who was also the first, so far as I know, to distinguish clearly between the idolatry and pagan superstitions of the Slavs and the monotheism of — R. W. Southern, Western Views of Islam in the Middle…, 190
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the running theme throughout this book that misrepresentation and fantasy can paradoxically produce genuine knowledge — the same counterintuitive pattern as imagination promoting observation. — connects to: Theory outweighed direct observation in medieval European writing about Islam — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1281