Fears of dismemberment shaped medieval cannibalism myths about Muslims

Evidence

During earlier centuries, there was a fear of bodily mutilation and dismemberment, an anxiety that contributed to the resurrection narrative expressed in the cannibalism mythologies that dominated medieval narratives featuring Muslim monsters. During the years leading up to the Renaissance, in the period often identified by scholars as the proto-Renaissance, some of the taboos surrounding dissection and autopsies were lifted, resulting in the (purported) discovery of miracles hidden inside the bodies of saints and martyrs. These miracles served as proof that the miracle of Christ was evident in the mutilated bodies of his most devoted followers. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 256

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Links the monster figure (cannibal Muslim) to an internal Western anxiety about bodily fragmentation — exactly the reader’s question of what the monster lets makers avoid seeing in themselves.

Related

• Medieval anxiety about bodily dismemberment shaped how Muslim monsters were imagined as cannibals. (similarity 0.96)
• Medieval Christians projected their own mutilation fears onto Muslim monsters (similarity 0.92)
• Medieval tales of Muslim cannibalism encoded Christian anxieties about resurrection and bodily corruption (similarity 0.88)
• The cannibal Muslim monster expressed Christian fear of bodily corruption (similarity 0.83)
• The Saracen cannibal fiction is a projection of Christian fragmentation anxiety. (similarity 0.83)
• Muslim monsters were depicted as cannibals who ate their enemies. (similarity 0.80)
• Imaginary monstrous Muslims shaped the Western construction of the real Muslim (similarity 0.80)
• Martyrdom imagery of Muslims functioned to reinforce Christian resurrection belief (similarity 0.79)
• The figure of the Muslim monster predates and shapes the modern Muslim stereotype (similarity 0.78)