Bram Stoker repeatedly cast Muslim-coded figures as vampires and monsters

Evidence

In this story, Teuta poses as a vampire in order to protect herself from the Turks and is ultimately kidnapped by the Sultan, who plans to rape her and add her to his harem, much like Dracula’s pursuit of Lucy and Mina. Stoker published two other major works featuring Muslim monsters. The Lair of the White Worm (1911) features a vampire, a female version of Dracula who takes the form of a giant, white serpentine-worm named Lady Arabella. Like Lucy, she attacks children and consumes their flesh. Arabella’s lair, a deep, underground snake’s pit, is reminiscent of the subterranean hell-pits of the Middle Ages: it is a dark underworld from which humans cannot escape. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 561

Categorization

• XREF: Links to later chapters’ mummy/zombie films; connects the Dracula-as-Muslim-monster thesis to Stoker’s broader Orientalist corpus.