Bin Laden’s medieval library symbolized rebellion against postcolonial modernity

Evidence

Several years ago, I remember seeing a picture of Osama bin Laden that ominously foretold the tragedy that would come in 9/11. The picture showed bin Laden, with his typical slothful and indifferent look, sitting while gripping his Kalashnikov with neatly organized and impressive-looking books filling the background… . With very few exceptions, bin Laden’s library contained no works by modern writers; nearly all the books were heavy-duty, profound, works on premodern Islamic law and legal theory… . With his paltry and rustic furniture, Kalashnikov, and tradition-oriented library, bin Laden symbolized a rebellion against the prevailing paradigms of postcolonialism and the culture of modernity. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 633

Categorization

• XREF: The image of bin Laden as medieval-librarian rebel ties directly to the reader’s guiding question about which anxieties the Muslim monster carries - here the anxiety about modernity itself.