Medieval European writers explained Muhammad’s prophecy as fraudulent ambition for power

Evidence

The pretence to prophecy was thought of sometimes as arising only to explain the premise of epileptic fits; but the more typical reason was to see it as a device to obtain, or to retain, power. ‘By the prestige of his heresy’, said Sigebert, ‘he arrived at the kingship.’ … Because his claim was presumed to be fraudulent, it was thought necessary to explain why he should ever have wanted to be a prophet. Thus Vitry said that when he was ‘suddenly made great’ by his marriage, he ‘began to be exalted’ and planned ‘by every means how he could obtain the lordship’. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 523

Categorization

• XREF: This pattern of explaining away religious claims as mere power grabs foreshadows the sociological literature on kingship-as-pretext, and could connect to the reader’s sacrifice chapter on sacral kingship.