Social distance from Christian society enabled more accurate observation of Islam

Evidence

Despite its mistakes, this is an intelligent description; the detail of the hands to the ears is misinterpreted but well observed. It is evident that the observer had some feeling for the Muslim ritual; living in isolation from Christian society he had a greater mental freedom to help him observe accurately. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1159

Categorization

• QUESTION: A testable mechanism claim out of the medieval archive: does physical/social isolation from one’s own ingroup improve ‘accuracy’ of cross-cultural perception? Worth chasing against modern ethnographic-literature findings.