Christian hagiography provided the visual vocabulary for demonizing Muslims

Evidence

The origins of the blackbird as a symbol of Satan are found in a popular story about St. Benedict: “Legend relates one day, while St. Benedict was at prayer, the Devil appeared to him in the form of a blackbird, seeking to divert his attention away from his devotions.” Here, Saladin is an example of a corrupted human. Such negative depictions of Muslim historical figures are included in this study only when a particular representation casts the individual as something un-human. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 60

Categorization

• XREF: The borrowed St. Benedict blackbird shows the manufacturing pipeline: a Christian devotional symbol gets transferred onto Muslim figures — perfect evidence for how the image is made from internal Christian material, not from contact with Muslims. — connects to: Image-veneration was a genuine doctrinal wedge between the two faiths
• QUESTION: How widespread was the blackbird-as-Satan motif before its application to Saladin? The single Benedict legend is one origin story.