Lynch mobs justify murder by merging contemporary Muslims with mythic demons

Evidence

Each Indian Muslim also stands in for medieval Muslim imperial dynasties and for representing demons of Hindu mythology. Hindutva “history” thus erases the borders between history and myths, belief and reality. In 1992, when the Babri Mosque was demolished to make room for a temple for Lord Ram – divine incarnation and epic hero – the Muslim was metaphorically merged with the demons whom Ram had vanquished. All these substitutions partly explain the ease with which Muslims are brutalized these days. Lynch mobs can always tell themselves that they are “killing demons.” — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 1204

Categorization

• SEED: The specific mechanism — collapsing history into myth so that killers experience lynching as re-enacting Ram’s vanquishing of demons — is the chapter’s best concrete conveyor of how the enemy-machine erases the present victim into a mythic prototype.
• XREF: connects to: Muslim bodies are treated as potential terrorists until proven otherwise — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 282; The medieval Muslim monster imaginary directly enables modern atrocities against Muslims — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 742; Rhetorical conflation of Arabs, Muslims, and Middle Easterners legitimized mass execution. — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 1175 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• The medieval Muslim monster imaginary directly enables modern atrocities against Muslims #expands (0.85) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 742
• Medieval demonology imagined Muslims and Jews as allied agents of Satan #exemplifies (0.80)
• Imaginary dehumanization of Muslims links to real violence against them #expands (0.80) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 747
• Crusade-era writers invented Saracen idolatry to justify their own violence #exemplifies (0.78) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 423
• Muslim bodies are treated as potential terrorists until proven otherwise #contradicts (0.75) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 282
• Rhetorical conflation of Arabs, Muslims, and Middle Easterners legitimized mass execution. #corroborates (0.75) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 1175
• Medieval crusading ideology constructed Muslims as collectively guilty #qualifies (0.75) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 644
• Muslim monsters emerge period-specifically and must be read within their generating milieu #qualifies (0.72)