Educated Europeans knew almost no real Islamic figures beyond a handful of literary stereotypes

Evidence

Apart from some occasional interest in the odd Sufi writer or saint, European vogues for “the wisdom of the East” rarely included Islamic sages or poets. Omar Khayyam, Harun al-Rashid, Sindbad, Aladdin, Hajji Baba, Scheherazade, Saladin, more or less make up the entire list of Islamic figures known to modern educated Europeans. — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam, 128

Categorization

• CANDY: Amusing and tweetable: the entire list of Islamic figures known to educated Europeans is basically storybook characters.
• QUESTION: Interesting to chase: how did Sindbad and Aladdin (fictional characters) come to stand for the whole Islamic world in European minds?

Related

• The Encyclopaedia of Islam asked European questions, not Muslim ones, about Islam (similarity 0.81)
• Medieval European literati did not believe Islam was idolatrous (similarity 0.79)
• Only well-read medieval Christians knew genuine Islamic legends (similarity 0.79)
• Islamic history resists any single coherent characterization (similarity 0.78)
• Medieval Europeans could not distinguish the Qur’an from other Islamic books. (similarity 0.78)
• Islamic intellectual history already contains every claim native informers recycle as new (similarity 0.78)