Medieval Christian polemicists built their case on Muhammad’s alleged self-contradiction

Evidence

If thou art not a coercer, but a teacher, why dost thou subject men by power, like animals and brute beasts, and not by reasoning, like men? In fact, like the liar you are, you everywhere contradict yourself.’ This early statement, while it emphasised the accusation of self-contradiction which many writers would bring forward, introduced also the assertion, equally popular, that Muhammad did not, and Islam would not, allow rational disputation. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 695

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to chapters on Islam’s portrayal in Western polemic and to the broader history of how religious conversion narratives were constructed. — connects to: Christian annotators charged the Quran with self-contradiction on points later seen as mere nuance