Misinformation about religious texts functions as a tool for othering.

Evidence

Through a curious numbercrunching process that cites Lindh’s devotion to the “6,666 sentences” of the Qur’an, the article evokes references to Satan’s sixes in the service of painting a damning portrait of Lindh, when there are in fact 6,346 verses, 114 chapters, and 57,152 sentences in the Qur’an. The blatant misinformation of such a narrative emphasizes difference: he was like us, and then he became something vaguely sinister, involved in a numerological scheme that evokes the greatest enemy of Christianity. — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 918

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to media criticism of racialized crime reporting and orientalist discourse — Said’s Orientalism.