Christian polemicists fabricated letter exchanges by pasting famous names onto forgeries

Evidence

In addition to disputations with real adversaries (or, preferably, with more docile, fictive ones), polemical or apologetical letter exchanges between Muslims and Christians became common. Muhammad, according to Muslim tradition, sent letters to various rulers, expounding Islam and inviting them to convert. Similar letters were attributed to several early caliphs. … It may well be that a ninthor tenth-century Christian polemicist composed both letters and attached to them two illustrious names: what could be more satisfying to a Christian reader than to see how a famous Byzantine emperor had refuted Islam and bested an early caliph? — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 384

Categorization

• QUESTION: Could investigate the broader genre of ‘pious forgeries’ in religious controversy — how common was name-attribution as a polemical device across traditions?
• SEED: An essay on how both sides of medieval religious polemic relied on faked documents and invented witnesses — the premodern precursor to modern disinformation.