Hearsay of Muslim charity could briefly override a medieval Christian’s anti-Islamic assumptions.

Evidence

Very much the same reaction was shown by St Bonaventura, who never visited an Islamic country himself, when he learned of Muslim charity to some Franciscans. … What incalculable value poverty has’, commented Bonaventura, ‘when by its wonderful virtue the mind of barbarous savagery is changed into such sweet commiseration. Equally, it is a dreadful and abominable crime that a Christian should trample upon this noble pearl, which a Muslim exalts with so great a veneration. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1091