Even fictional martyrdoms reveal the hagiographers’ polemical image of Islam

Evidence

Some Christians deliberately overstepped those boundaries and were put to death for doing so. A handful of Christians became martyrs either for attacking Muhammad and the Koran or for converting from Islam to Christianity (which, as apostasy, was a crime punishable by death). Revered as saints by their Christian communities, their lives (and especially deaths) were recorded by hagiographers who recounted miracles performed by the martyrs in order to prove their sanctity. It is often impossible to separate truth from hagiographical legend: some of the martyrdoms certainly occurred; others are mere pious fictions. Yet even the latter provide a key glimpse into the vision of Islam crafted by the hagiographers. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 362

Categorization

• DEFINE: The methodological move — using even fabricated accounts as evidence of the polemicists’ worldview — is a useful interpretive lens.
• XREF: connects to: Even well-informed medieval authors chose implausible stories when framing Muslims