Medieval Christian writers were accurate only where accuracy favored Christianity

Evidence

Not only in treating the life of Muhammad and the sexual institutions of Islam, but in all aspects of that religion, facts were exaggerated, sometimes out of little or nothing, and were often distorted almost beyond recognition; sound information was regularly discarded for unsound. Only in matters apparently favourable to Christianity was a very high degree of accuracy achieved, as, for example, in treating the Qur’anic beliefs about Christ and His mother. This draws attention to the motives underlying inaccuracies on themes where there was conflict. Accuracy in the one case, inaccuracy in the other, were equally useful in support of Christian belief. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1367

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in how ideology distorts knowledge production — parallels the earlier material on ideological bias and the sociology of knowledge, and the ‘Bias of Communication’ theme that media/institutional goals shape what counts as truth. — connects to: Medieval polemicists quietly dropped claims lacking cross-tradition confirmation