Medieval critics narrowed prophecy to future-telling to disqualify Muhammad.

Evidence

Muhammad quite simply foretold nothing that was unknown: ‘while he affirms himself the prophet of God almost ad nauseam, and affirms it and repeats it, he says nothing about things to come, utters nothing prophetic’. Yet this was a narrower interpretation of the prophetic function than the Christian view really requires; the prophecies of the Holy Saturday liturgy are a series of divine mercies which prefigure the final mercy, rather than prophecies within Peter’s definition. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 392

Categorization

• XREF: The argumentative mechanism — defining the standard to fit one’s own tradition while excluding the rival’s — matches how critics construct Islam versus an idealized West.