Medieval polemic imagined an idol of Mahomet animated by demons that kills birds

Evidence

The Saracens had a tradition that the idol Mahomet, which they worshipped, was made by himself in his lifetime; and that by the help of a legion of devils it was by magic art imbued with such irresistible strength that it could not be broken. If any Christian approached it he was exposed to great danger; but when the Saracens came to appease Mahomet, and make their supplications to him, they returned in safety. The birds that chanced to light upon it were immediately struck dead. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 185

Categorization

• SEED: The killing-bird idol detail is a vivid manufactured-image datum for the essay on how Christian fabulists invented Islamic worship wholesale from imagination, no contact needed.
• ADDENDUM: Supports the graft/tree worldbuilding angle only thinly, but as fabricated cult-object evidence it could serve the moral-panic-about-others thread.