The wine prohibition was mythologized as guilt-driven self-punishment by Christians

Evidence

Machometus’s companions, jealous of the influence the monk has over him, cut Bahira’s throat with Machometus’s sword one night after a drunken debauch; the next morning they convince Machometus that he himself killed the monk in a drunken rage. Horrified, he curses wine and prohibits it to his followers. Without the holy monk to check their malice, Machometus’s followers go wild: “they run about like brigands, plunder like robbers, afflict, perturb and devastate provinces and kingdoms until the death of Machometus himself.” — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1051

Categorization

• XREF: This invented etiology for banning wine parallels how orientalist/modern discourse fabricates psychological backstories for Islamic practices.