Ottoman proximity, not distance, intensified monstrous-Muslim storytelling
Evidence
By the fourteenth century, this had changed with Ottoman incursions in Bulgaria and Hungary. “Thus Islamic society was by no means as distant as some Chaucerians have suggested, or as many late-medieval Christians might have wished it to be.” At this point, miscegenation and monstrous births became more prominent in stories of monstrous Muslims, who were seen as having violated the boundaries of Christian space. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 79
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- QUESTION: Contradicts the ‘fear without object’ thesis somewhat — here the image intensified with ACTUAL physical proximity. Worth chasing: does the reader’s core claim need refinement, that fear is strongest precisely AT the moment of contact, not before?
- XREF: This touches the same nerve as the ‘Islamophobia anxiety’ theme — when the feared other becomes proximate, the monster-story machinery ratchets up, not down.
Related
- Ottoman proximity shifted Muslim monstrosity toward miscegenation and monstrous births (similarity 0.91)
- Ottoman proximity shifted Muslim-monster stories toward miscegenation fear (similarity 0.86)
- The medieval monster narrative of Islam was cemented by colonialism and Orientalism (similarity 0.80)
- Distance from the Islamic border allowed increasingly extravagant anti-Islamic claims to be accepted (similarity 0.79)
- Peaceful interreligious contact produced positive medieval portrayals of Muslims (similarity 0.78)