Liberation rhetoric served to justify Christian ignorance of Islam

Evidence

Yet the missionaries, the only people really expected to link the two worlds, would have been better qualified to do so, if they had known a little more. No single one had a knowledge sound in all respects, or free from controversial bias in any. Ignorance was justified and fortified by the highest ideals: liberatio humani generis. This freedom of the human race has a modern and an unconvincing ring to it. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1480

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘liberatio humani generis’ justification is a medieval precursor of civilizational-savior framing — same rhetorical move Anidjar traces in the Jew-Arab enemy genealogy of the ‘West’.
• DEFINE: Identifies ‘liberatio humani generis’ as the legitimizing ideal that fortified ignorance.