Medieval Christian polemicists counted Muhammad’s ordinary humanity as grounds for disqualification

Evidence

The author thought it important to be able to cite the very ‘books of Muhammad’. In this, and in other ways, the reprobatio, though more concise in scope and method, has qualities in common with that of San Pedro. Part is certainly devoted to proving the humanity of the Prophet; the author will have known that Muslims claimed not otherwise, but he may have felt it useful to insist, against popular Muslim devotion, on Muhammad’s very ordinary humanity. Of the death in the arms of ‘A’ishah he remarked: ‘from this it is clear that the death or end of Muhammad was vile, unclean and abominable, and such a death by no means suits a Prophet or Messenger of God’. The weakness of humanity, even when no sin was involved, was a major offence in a recipient of a divine mission. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1326

Categorization

• QUESTION: The logic that human weakness disqualifies a divine messenger seems oddly at odds with Christian incarnational theology — worth chasing how the polemicist squared these.
• XREF: Connects to how religious polemic uses the opponent’s own sacred texts as evidence — parallels modern apologetics debates.