Voluntary martyrdom backfired by driving Christians toward conversion to Islam

Evidence

Should we consider this voluntary martyrdom as the last desperate act of a few Christians who saw their culture, language, and religion dissolving into the mass of Muslim culture, as a last-ditch effort to affirm and resuscitate Christian Latin culture? If indeed this was their goal, they failed miserably: the strife caused by the martyrs probably encouraged Christians to convert to Islam, rather than discouraging them. The fifty-odd dead, mostly monks and priests, represented that many fewer priests and bishops for al-Andalus, where they were already in short supply. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 540

Categorization

• XREF: A genuinely counterintuitive causal claim that complicates the standard resistance narrative; contrasts with martyrdom-as-heroic-resistance readings and with modern framing of Muslim persecution of Christians.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 540