Polemical distortions can still yield roughly accurate characterizations of an opponent’s scripture.

Evidence

In both cases quoted here, he selected, as significant, phrases which the translator of the Qur’an had invented out of nothing. He did so by a fatality natural enough in the circumstances, and it is not surprising that they seemed not only to be polemically telling, but really to reveal important truths. Misled in matters of detail, he conceived the Qur’anic Christ along lines that were generally sound. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 966

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth probing: how do fabricated source details still support ‘generally sound’ characterizations — does this imply Christian scholars imported their own Christology onto the Qur’an and landed near-accidentally on real features?