Readers misread hostile characters who actually enable self-questioning.

Evidence

Instrumental in his ability to question are the lessons he receives from his imam, Shaikh Rashid. Rashid is usually read as a negative character, and in his final appearance, as Ahmad’s qualms grow, he is described as looking “disagreeable” and “ugly” (266, 271). However, he is the one who inserts strategic questioning into the lessons he gives Ahmad, challenging literalist interpretations of the scriptures. … Yet, equally certainly, such a pure, representative “Islamic mind”—constrained and made spotless and doubtless—is hardly likely to be possessed by any human agent in this world. Its creation is another example of the desire to fix and “read” the Other in particular ways, based on essential difference. — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 141

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces ‘desiring reading’ — the critic’s concept that the ‘Other’ is fixed in advance by reader expectation, a tool the reader can carry into Hamid and Naqvi.