Medieval Christian writers invented horrible deaths for Muhammad to seal his unsanctity

Evidence

As a good death marks the saint, so the Prophet was allotted an appropriate, and usually an appropriately horrible, one. This was inevitably so, in order to seal his unsanctity. Where better information made it difficult to believe the death from swine, the notion that he was poisoned was the best credible and authenticated substitute; poison is not, among Christians, the hall-mark of martyrdom, as it sometimes seems to be among Muslims. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 618

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader medieval Christian polemical tradition against Islam, and to how hagiography inverts to produce anti-hagiography for enemies. — connects to: Medieval polemic assigned Muhammad a death by pigs reflecting his supposed teaching of uncleanness
• SEED: Angle: how cultures manufacture ‘appropriate’ deaths for despised figures — from Muhammad in medieval polemic to modern conspiracy narratives, the death story does ideological work.