Polemical claims grow more cautious when examined against actual sources

Evidence

Earlier in the same work he had written that all those things which were alleged by Christian, and seemed to be referred to by Muslim sources, represented ‘a strong presumption, even certain proof’ of the Christian assertions. This statement is too strong; it does not really represent his attitude. In practice he did not treat either series as certainly true; he treated them as being to an unknown extent mutually confirmatory. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1314

Categorization

• QUESTION: This is a nice example of historiographical calibration — rhetorically strong claims versus actual working skepticism. Worth noting as a methodological template.
• XREF: connects to: People most confident in detecting propaganda are the most susceptible to it. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 520; Deferring to authoritative sources makes one vulnerable to their weaponization — Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age: How False…, 449; Challenges to a sacralized claim increase rather than weaken reliance on the sacred text — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 531 (+1 more)