Muslim sources were trusted only as self-incriminating admissions

Evidence

Islamic sources were fit to be trusted only where they witnessed against Islam, where they were admissions of the ‘real’ truth; it was only with great reluctance that an author would use them to correct Christian testimony on any point at all. Their approximation to Christian belief, or at least their compatibility with it, was used as a measure; and was thought to be a more reliable criterion in dealing with Islamic sources than any evidence of the authority with which such sources spoke for Muslims. When Islamic testimony did seem likely to serve the purposes of Christian polemic, it was used to correct Christian fables, in order that the two might be combined, and the combination be irresistible. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1387

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The inversion — that an enemy’s testimony is only credible when it harms the enemy’s own cause, an ‘admissions against interest’ principle imported from evidence law into historiography — is a dense conceptual point.
• XREF: connects to: Reland insisted the sole authority on Islam must be Muslim sources.