Christians deployed antiheresy polemics and voluntary martyrdom against Muslim expansion

Evidence

Some authors branded Islam as heresy, falsely derived from Christian doctrine. In an attempt to stem the tide of conversions to Islam, they denigrated it using the familiar traditions of antiheretical polemics. A few Christians attacked Islam and its prophet in public, deliberately provoking the Muslim authorities into inflicting the death penalty; thus they became new martyrs whose hagiographers attempted to boost the flagging Christian morale. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 287

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Christian missionaries deliberately provoked Muslim rulers into martyring them