Muslims in the Western Imagination

Of late, the misrepresentation of Islam/Muslims in the West has received considerable scholarly attention which is indeed gratifying. Illustrative of this highly welcome trend are John Victor Tolan’s Medieval Christian Perception of Islam (1996) and Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination (2002); Fredrick Quinn’s The Sum of All Heresies: The Image of Islam in Western Thought (2008) and Matthew Dimmock’s Mythologies of the Prophet Muhammad in Early Modern English Culture (2013). The book under review goes a step further. It brilliantly supplements and complements this ‘history of misrepresentation’ or the ‘misrepresentation of history’. Though it might sound somewhat incredible, Arjana substantially establishes how the West mistook Muslims as non-humans, and to be more precise, as loathsome monsters. Her focus is indicated by the self-suggestive title of her study. Equally commendable and awe-inspiring is the breadth of her scholarship in terms of covering the demonisation of Muslims from the Medieval period to the post-9/11 era.